At the bitter tone in Amy’s voice, Ben studied her face. Her eyes had darkened with an emotion he couldn’t peg. Anger? Or hatred maybe?
“I learned to cook out of necessity.”
He read between the lines. “Meaning you were left alone a lot. That must have been hard.”
Amy shrugged, but the action was stiff, stilted. “Better than the alternative.”
“Which was?”
Amy stopped stirring, and Ben followed her gaze to the hand that gripped the whisk. Her knuckles were white, and her hand trembled.
He closed the distance between them, touching her shoulder. “Amy?”
“I— I don’t talk about my childhood, with anyone.” She gave the Alfredo sauce another stir then turned off the stove and pushed it off the burner.
He took her by the shoulders as she turned away from the stove. She was shutting down. Closing him out. How many times had she done this throughout her life as a defense mechanism?
“Please talk to me,” he said.
Pain filled Amy’s eyes. “Do you really want to know about my childhood, Ben?”
As his heart screamed,‘Yes, I want to know everything about you,’his mind said,‘No,’because he had a feeling he didn’t want to hear the things she might say.
“I do.Ifyou want to tell me.”
Amy stepped away from him, leaned back against the counter, and folded her arms over her chest. Brow furrowed, she stared at him.
He sensed she steeled herself against unpleasant memories, as she contemplated what to share with him.
Finally, she spoke. “My earliest memories were of Bruce, my step-dad. He was everything I thought a dad should be. He was the only one who ever made me feel loved.” Amy paused, as though fighting to keep her emotions in check. “But he and my mom fought all the time, and they got divorced when I was seven. My mom’s next two marriages were brief and volatile.” She raised her chin and looked him squarely in the eyes. “Sometimes when the fighting got really bad, I hid under my bed.”
“Oh, Amy—” Ben took a step closer.
She held up a hand. “I don’t need your sympathy. It won’t change anything. I’ve accepted that my childhood was different from most kids, and that my mother never loved me.”
“She may not have been a very good mother, but I’m sure she loved—”
“Love is more than words, Ben. Even if she’d said the words—which she never did—her actions spoke louder.”
Ben’s heart twisted for Amy. What must it have been like to grow up feeling unloved? And for her to still believe it, now that she was a mother and knew what it meant to love a child unconditionally.
Ben took another step toward her, bringing him within inches of her. “Was she abusive?”
Amy gave a scornful laugh. “If she’d abused me, at least I’d know she felt something toward me. She never struck me, but she was neglectful, indifferent, and apathetic. I tried so hard to be the perfect daughter, thinking I could make her love me or at least make her proud of me. But I was never anything more than a mistake and an inconvenience.”
Ben searched for words to comfort Amy even though she didn’t want to be comforted. Having grown up in a home with two parents who loved him, he couldn’t comprehend how painful Amy’s childhood must have been.
She spoke again before he found words. “Naturally, I assumed there was something wrong with me, as any child would. But I spent a lot of time at my friend, Celeste’s house, and I saw how a mother loved her daughterandher daughter’s friend. I told myself my mom was the one with the problem. That she wasn’t capable of love, but she had no problem saying the words to the steady string of men she brought home and showered her attention on.”
Amy’s voice took on a hard tone as she mentioned the men, and Ben got a glimpse of the alternative to being alone. He wanted to keep her talking, but again, he feared the things she might say.
He took her hand. “Nothing was wrong with you, Amy. Your mother was selfish and self-absorbed.”
“She was also greedy... and jealous.” Her voice dropped on that last word.
Ben tightened his hold on her hand. “How so?”
She tugged her hand from his and hugged herself again. “I swear she brought home the sleaziest guys she could find. If they were ever nice to me, she got angry. She usually took it out on me in some way, by sending me to bed without dinner, or making me do extra chores.” Amy did a poor job at repressing a shudder. “Most of them were heavy drinkers who often became crude and vulgar when they were drunk. I locked myself in my room most of the time, especially when my mom wasn’t home. Some of the guys respected that better than others.”
