I twisted the cap off my bottle. “It was just time. Things just sort of fell in place. I think once you know, you know. Sounds stupid, but it’s true. Hey, how’s your mother?”
He took a deep breath. “She’s alright, learning how to deal with her condition. I just got the results from her last exam yesterday and I expected it to look better than it does.”
“I’m sorry. Anything I can do?”
He took another drink. “Thank you. There’s really nothing we can do. I have her on the best treatment plan and I’m monitoring everything I can.”
“Just do everything you can and let me know if I can help out somehow.”
“I’ve been trying to make sure she has everything lined up—paperwork, insurances, things like that. I’m trying to get her to write a will and get her medical end-of-life care lined out. Not that she’sdying today, but I’ve seen things change in a matter of days. I know you’ve seen that, too.”
“Absolutely.”
“I’m trying to get her to work out all her loose ends. You know, tie everything up that she has dangling out there.”
“It’s just you though, right? I mean, you don’t have to consult with brothers or sisters or anything?”
“Yeah. She does have another son somewhere. I thought she might want to try to find him. I mean, I think it would be a good thing for her to have some sort of closure. She never really talked about him at all. I found out he existed by finding a picture of him when I was younger. He was standing in the middle of a sand pile with a big yellow Tonka truck. I thought it might be me because he looked like me, but I didn’t have a truck like that. And of course I took the picture to my mom and told her I wanted to know where that truck was!” he laughed. “Then she explained that he was my brother but he lived with his father. And she just brushed me off if I ever brought it up again, so finally I just stopped.”
“So she never saw him at all?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I really know nothing about any of it, but I think she should try to fix that part of her life. Then again, he might hate her. I don’t know. Hard to tell. I just hope she tries, for her sake.”
I watched him sip his drink again, so in control, so thoughtful. “You know, a lot of people would discourage that meeting. He might come in and want your inheritance.”
Connor laughed. “I have enough of my own. If he would need it that badly, then I’d split it with him. It’s just money.”
“I really respect that.”
“Life is all about the way you look at it. The same situation can look completely different if you change your perception. I can look at it and say, ‘Yeah, I want the money and my mom to myself’ and be greedy like that. Do what’s best for me. Or I can look at it from her perspective and say, ‘It might make a difference in her lifeto know what happened to her other kid’. I just don’t want to be the reason that doesn’t happen.”
Max
It had beena typical Monday with shit getting slung every which way, except the fact that I was dealing with it all with a legitimate fiancée at home.
The grin hadn’t left my face since Kari agreed to marry me. We settled back in the house on Sunday and spent the day just smiling at each other. I’m sure if anyone was looking in the windows, we looked dumb as shit. Part of me was afraid of talkin’ too much, that I’d say something that would change her mind. Not that I’d let her get away with changing it, because I wouldn’t.
We hadn’t really talked much about actually getting married. I knew Jada brought it up to her, but I didn’t want to put too much on her in one weekend. The more I thought about it, though, the more I thought that we needed to get it done soon. I’d waited what felt like a lifetime already.
Just as I was going to send Kari a text to that extent, Cane burst through my office door, unannounced.
You’d think the bastard owned the place or something.
“What do we have here?” He smirked as he waltzed into my office and made himself at home in the seat across from me.
“Someone tryin’ to work. I know that’s a foreign concept to you, Alexander, but—”
“Fuck you,” he said, then smiled brightly. “My buddy is getting married. It’s about damn time.”
“You can say that again,” I muttered.
Cane tossed his head back and laughed. “Do you have a date yet? Jada said Kari didn’t want to wait.”
“Wait for what?” a voice said from the doorway.
Cane turned his head and I looked up to see Sam standing there. She had a notepad pressed against her chest, her eyes darting between us. “Kari doesn’t want to wait for what?” she repeated.
Cane looked at me out of the corner of his eye, the corner of his lip upturned.
