“What?”
“Everything Neal and Mina were saying were the same things Evelyn and Sedric said right after Melody came here,” he replied, and it was only then that I realized what it meant.
“When we were younger, when we were right beside Liam and Melody, yes, it was crazy. There was madness and chaos and danger. If we saw it, we didn’t acknowledge it. We charged full speed ahead, smashing anything and everything in our way with no regard to what it may cause later. Even when we tried to anticipate the danger, we never really cared or paused. We did whatever we wanted to do. Because that is what the young do—they charge full speed ahead; they dive right in.”
“And we, their parents, are left screaming, be careful or watch out. We are the ones to worry because we are old now.” I smiled back, and he nodded slowly.
“And they do not want to hear us. Just like we didn’t listen to our parents. That’s what I had to tell Neal. When Sedric gave everything over to Liam, he let him make every choice and mistake by himself. Even when it threatened all of us. He did only what he was told to do, even though there were so many people who still respected him as the boss of this family…the city. The amount of humility that must have taken, I did not fully realize until now. I told Neal we had to do the same. Because the moment Liam died, we let Ethan take over.”
“Let? Ethan was eighteen at the time. He was going to step up no matter what you did. You avoided fighting him,” I reminded him.
“He was only eighteen, Cora,” he whispered. “Liam was twenty-seven when he took over. That is a big difference. We should have waited for him to get older.”
“Melody was eighteen when she took over. And of the two of them, who is he more like?” I pressed.
“I don’t know anymore,” he said, and when he looked at me, his eyes were heavy. “Maybe we should have never looked at him from Liam or Melody-shaped lenses. We should have just seen him. Who is Ethan? I thought I knew, but now I am not sure. When Calliope came, she made me realize there was this whole other side to Ethan that none of us knew about. And now, it’s too late for us to mope or gripe about who he is or what we should have done. He is family. He is the head of this house. So, we have to be on his side. And we also have to stay out of his way. Let him make him his own mistakes and his own path. We have to let them all do so.”
“You know all of this, but you hate actually trying to do it.” Which was why he was in my greenhouse huffing and puffing.
“I hate it so much, Cora!” he snickered. “I miss being able to just pick all of them up and put them in separate corners. Or telling them to sit and they’d actually just stay there and say they were sorry afterward…I miss…”
“When they were children,” I said and wrapped my arms around him.
“Instead, I have one son who’s rushing back to a life I tried to guide him away from and a daughter trying to drive me insane as she rips my heart out of my fucking chest.”
“What did Helen do?”
His head whipped back to me so quickly I was sure it had to hurt. However, his chest puffed up like a pissed off chicken. “What did she do other than…other than…ugh!” He couldn’t even say it.
“Other than fall in love with Wyatt?”
“No.” He pointed his finger at me.
“No, what?”
“Do not take their side or explain or even speak kindly about what those two are doing. She loves him? Why? Because they were close when they were young. They are confusing their emotions and making a mess out of this family in the process. And the fact that Wyatt...that he’d cross this line proves he does not give a shit about anyone but himself. I want to kill him.” He snapped his jaw shut like someone was trying to force-feed him sour lemons.
“Huh.” It was all I could say, letting go of him and leaning back, picking up my book.
“Huh…Huh, what? What are you huhing about?” he snapped.
“Nothing.” Except how he knew he had to let Ethan make his own mistakes but couldn’t let Helen and Wyatt do the same.
His frown deepened. “That’s even worse. If you aren’t saying anything, it’s because I told you not to take their side. So now, I can clearly see you’ve taken their side on this.”
“No matter what, I will always be on your side, Declan. I promise.” I lifted three fingers, giving him a boy scout promise.
“Good, make sure they know that, too,” he said, the frown on his lips lessening but not by much. He let out another deep sigh and shifted, laying back into my lap. “We’re old…” he groaned again.
“We are,” I replied gently. “But I like being old. It’s better than being dead. I want to get older with you.”
That did it.
He grinned wide, his teeth out and everything. “How old are we talking? Eighty? Ninety? One hundred? One hundred and ten?”
“How old do you want to go? I don’t want to be in diapers, aching and shaking with no teeth, Declan.”
He beamed not at all bothered. “What do we need teeth for? We’ll drink soup and eat cake and be happier for it. Aching? A few puffs of a little green plant will take care of that.”