The manager looks as if he wants to melt into the marble. “Mr. Thompson…your mother was very insistent. She felt it was a family emergency.”
“Everything is a family emergency with you, Elaine,” I say, turning back to her.
Steven steps up beside me, his hands in his pockets, his face a mask of bored amusement. “Hello, Elaine. Still playing the basic, boring puppet master, I see.”
She doesn’t even look at him. To her, Steven is a malfunctioning appliance—annoying, but ultimately irrelevant. She focuses entirely on me, her gaze tracing the lines of my face, the rough texture of my shirt, the dirt under my fingernails.
“Look at you,” she whispers. “You’re a mess, Skyler. Living in a hovel for a girl who doesn’t even want you?”
A year ago, her words would have gotten under my skin enough that I’d spring into action if it gave me a chance of never hearing them again. But now, I only roll the word hovel underneath my tongue.
“I’m done,” I say.
But I’m not fast enough. Elaine moves with a sudden, sharp speed I didn’t know she possessed. The click of her designer heels maneuvers between me and the exit. She blocks the path,her small frame suddenly imposing like a mountain. Because I can’t shove her out of the way, now can I?
“You will not walk away from me,” she says, her voice rising just enough to carry through the lobby. Staff members pause in the shadows. A waiter freezes with a tray of champagne.
“Get out of my way,” I say. I can feel the Thompson pressure building in my chest, that old urge to apologize, to smooth things over, to make her happy so I can have some peace. But I fight it.
“We have things to discuss, Skyler,” she says, her eyes narrowing. “And you are going to listen.”
“I’m not listening to anything, Elaine. Not anymore.”
I take a step toward her, and for the first time in my life, she’s the one who flinches. Still, she doesn’t move.
I can see Steven out the corner of my eye. He’s watching the staff, a small, dark smile on his face. He’s enjoying the spectacle. For once, it’s Elaine causing a scene, not him.
“Really hope that paperwork doesn’t exist, Simpson,” I say, my voice sounding like the rumble of my truck. “Because this? This is the last time any of you see me in this building.”
Her face undergoes a transformation. The regal mask shatters into ugly fury. No longer the mother you’d find on Christmas cards, she’s the woman who threw away the handmade cedar boxes.
“She istrash, Skyler,” Elaine spits. The word is foul, sounding like it belongs in the gutter she thinks Harley came from. “A common girl from a common background who thought she could climb a ladder that wasn’t meant for her. Do you know what she’s doing now? She’s sitting in a dilapidated office with peeling wallpaper, holding hands with grandmothers who can’t pay their rent. That is her world. That is where she belongs.”
I stand tall. For years, I would have hunched my shoulders under this kind of heat. I would have looked at the floor andapologized for my choice. But the boots I’m wearing today feel heavy and solid.
“I know exactly what she’s doing, Elaine,” I say. “She’s changing lives.”
“I went to see her,” Elaine says, a triumphant little glint returning to her eyes. “I went to that shack she calls an office to see if there was any shred of decency left in her, any understanding of the damage she’s done to this family. And do you know what she told me?”
My heart skips a beat. The image of Elaine in Harley’s office—the Chanel No. 5 invading the space where Mrs. Delgado felt safe—makes my blood boil.
“And what’s that?”
“She made it perfectly clear she has zero interest in dating you again. She laughed at the idea of you. Content in her squalor like a cockroach, she’s moved on. So there is no reason for you to continue this ridiculous rebellion. It’s over. You’ve lost the girl.”
The words are designed to gut me. They are meant to make me feel foolish, to make me realize the pointlessness of my manual labor and my clanking radiator. She thinks my transformation was a performance for an audience of one.
“I don’t care if Harley never takes me back. I love her, and I will continue to love her for all my days. And if that means I pine for her for the rest of my life, if I spend every day building houses for people I’ll never know just to feel closer to the world she inhabits, then so be it.”
“You have lost your way.”
Steven steps forward. He’s been quiet, but he places a heavy, warm hand on my shoulder. It’s the first time he’s touched me like that in years—not a shove or a mocking pat, but a gesture of absolute, unshakeable support.
“He’s already more of a man than Robert ever was,” Steven says quietly.
My eyes narrow. “Listen to me very carefully. Do not contact me again. Not through Simpson, not through the board, not through anyone. Do not visit my workplace. Do not ambush me in public venues. Our relationship is over until you can respect the boundaries I’ve set.”
“You can’t do this. We are your family.”
