“I did.” My voice is clipped. “I don’t think paying off my wife to divorce me really sends the one-big-happy-family-holiday-dinner message.”
As she towels off her hands, she comes around the kitchen island to stand beside me. Sometimes I forget that I overtook her in height in middle school and she has to tilt her head back to make eye contact. My mother has this innate thing about her that people refer to aspresence. She has the ability to make even the largest men feel small.
“Benny,” she says, “you can’t be serious. I offered to pay for her housing and other miscellaneous expenses. Clover shouldn’t have to resort to marrying you just to survive her first year of college.”
“Ah, right, because I am without a doubt her worst and last alternative.”
She looks taken aback, like I’ve slapped her. “I never said that. When did I say that?”
“You know just as well as I do that not every message needs to be spoken in order to be heard,Mother.” I practically spit that last word at her feet.
She softens, her tactics switching as she assesses me like an opponent. “Honey, Beth and I used to talk all the time when you two were just little things about how it would be such kismet if you fell for each other.”
“Right,” I say, my voice dripping with disdain as I start to walk off. “You’ve probably always thought Clover was too good for me.”
Her fingers wrap around my forearm and yank me back with a surprising amount of force. “Bennett Andrew Graves, I have never thought such a thing. Perhaps you’re conflating your opinion of yourself with mine. It’s easier to have someone to blame, isn’t it?”
My only response is to gasp. Fuck, that cut deep. I want to rage at her, and spout off all the things she did wrong with me and how shefailed to be the affectionate mother I never thought myself worthy of. But everything hurts too much. My body. My defective heart. It all throbs.
“You pushed her away from me. You gave her the one thing she needed.” My voice is vibrating with anger. “The thing that would set her free. And now I have to just hope that one day she will come back to me.”
“Benny, she didn’t take the money.”
My mouth opens, but I don’t have the words. I don’t—
“She was adamant. And you should know, she hasn’t even contacted the attorney I put her in touch with. That’s not to say she won’t, but—”
“But she’s had over two weeks,” I say mostly to myself.
My mother reaches up and pushes a wayward lock of hair off my forehead. “I want whatever you both want, okay? And if this is it? Then I’m here for it. I’m sure Beth is too. I wish you’d gone about it all a little differently, but I’m not trying to tear you apart.”
“It sure as fuck felt like that.”
She flinches at that. “I love you two so much. I need you to see that all I was trying to do is create options. Money can be such an awful thing. But if I can use what I have to give a girl like Clover some agency, I will. I won’t apologize for that, but my offer to her was never meant to be anything more.”
I think she’s telling the truth. I want so badly for that to be the case.
Her hand rubs up and down my bicep. The contact is the kind of warmth you can’t help but lean into.
“And I’m sorry,” she says, her voice cracking. “Itrulyam. I went about this all wrong. I should have spoken to you first. This should have been something we approached Clover with together.”
“Thank you,” I mumble. I feel so fucking raw still, and I need to take a step back to process this and decide what to do next.
“Dinner will be ready in about an hour,” she says. “Why don’t you go rest for a little bit?”
“I still look that bad, huh?”
“Healing always looks worse than it feels.”
I take a handful of crackers and prosciutto from the makeshift charcuterie board she’s set out before sinking into the couch. Clicking through the channels, I skip right over the football and land on a cheesy Christmas movie about a time-traveling duke.
I need to get back to campus on Sunday and talk to Clover. I’ve been a useless piece of shit since I left the dorm. It’s on me to go to her and make this right, and that starts with a call to the family attorney.
The thought of watching her walk away and just hoping that we can make things work is enough to make me nauseous. She would have to choose me. But would she ever truly be mine otherwise?
The only way Clover Walsh—the girl who I’ve loved for most of my life—can truly be mine is to let her go. I’ve had it wrong this whole time. I’m the patch of clover and she’s the bee. Now the only thing I can do is patiently wait for her to land.
CHAPTER 36
