And she was moving out.
Eli held his hand at the back of his neck, rubbing the knot there.
He’d fucked up a lot of shit in his life. Never anything that mattered this much.
“Eli?” His mother came from the back bedroom, tying her robe around her waist. “What are you doing here?” His mother’s eyebrows furrowed. “Where is Marlee?”
“I don’t know.” He went with the truth.
“Elias Santiago Howard,” his mother said, her words low. “Have you lost your mind?”
Sadie crossed her arms. “This ought to be excellent.”
“You’re nicer when you’re not in Colorado. You know that?” he asked.
“You’re nicer when you’re not knocking up my friend,” she replied in a huff.
“Eli.” His mother clapped her hands together like she’d done when he was a child. “Sit.”
He sat his ass at the table as directed.
“Sadie.” His mother pointed toward the hallway leading to the bedrooms. “Time for bed.”
“I don’t think so.” Sadie shook her head. Instead of listening to their mother like any of the other Howard children, Sadie grabbed her purse and marched out the front door.
Eli probably should’ve been worried, what with the way the blood vessel in his mother’s forehead was pounding. He wasn’t, only because he knew Sadie was going to Marlee.
He didn’t want Marlee to be alone.
His mother dug through the cupboards. His parents’ house hadn’t been remodeled since the eighties—the appliances were old, but they worked, the carpet was old, but it worked. All the times he’d tried to do any updating had been firmly yet politely declined.
“I like Marlee.” His mother placed a pan on the stove, poured milk from the Meadow Gold container, and turned the flame on low. “And I love you.”
He knew better than to reply. His mother had a point to make, so he knew his job was to sit down, hush, and let her do it.
“When you got married to her, I thought, ‘This is not a mistake. This is a good thing for Eli, and he will be good for Marlee.’”
She’d thought that? He hadn’t realized—
“She is wild, and you’re stable.” She smiled a flash of white. “Balance.”
“And then I messed it up,” he said. “I’m not who she needs me to be.”
“Eli.” She sat across from him. “You are always what anyone needs you to be. It’s time you are whoyouneed you to be.”
He stood, unable to stay still. “I don’t understand.”
“When I got sick…”
Eli flinched. He couldn’t help it.
“When I got sick,” she said again. “You were there for the girls. You were there for me. You were there for Dad. Not once during those years did you put yourself first.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“And in the years that followed, you continued with this.” She stood to stir the milk, adding a handful of chocolate chips. “Then you tried to cut everyone out of your life. But in attempting to cut everyone off, you continued putting yourself behind. Because you never really cut anyone off, you only told yourself you did.”
Was she right?
