“About the same way it’ll feel for you to be in here while I help Bolt grow, watch him graduate, and send him off to adulthood. All while living with the one man you procreated with who hates your guts.”
Her jaw drops.
I smirk. “We’re done here. Oh, and you’re welcome for the clean up on aisle Calla. If anything good can come out of this, it’s the fact you’ll be forced to get clean and hopefully, get your shit straight. I don’t feel competition, how could I? You’re a child in an adult’s body doing a piss poor job of managing her life. I don’t know where we went wrong, but I know it’s not on me. I think you woke up one day and decided to hate me. It used to bother me. Now, I’m just numb.” I push away, wave the paper at her, and stalk out with my head high. It feels good to be the one with the last word for once.
A weight lifts off my shoulders. I can’t worry about Calla, tiptoe around her feelings, take her abuse, and run a household with an angry teenager. It was time to let this go. When doubt creeps in, I remember what’s at stake and wrap Shadow’s words around me like a shield. I had at least one person behind me. Maybe that was all I ever needed.
This was my chance to fix all the things not working in my life. I deserve to be happy. Maybe if I tell myself that enough, I’ll begin to believe it. I welcome the sunshine on my face as I step from the beige building, inhaling the fragrant air and rejoicing in my freedom. The thing most of us take for granted, others pray for. I walk to my car with an extra sway to my step. I’m going to rock this moment, because I feel like a superhero walking into the sunset after winning a battle.
“Did she sign them?”
“Hello to you, too, Bolty,” I reply, closing the door behind me.
“Come on, Aunt Blue,” he all but whines.
“Of course she signed them. She wants what’s best for you, always,” I say softly.
“I wish I were young and naïve enough to believe those lies,” Bolt counters. His blue eyes are so like his father’s while filled with sorrow, and his eyebrows almost come to a point. His angular face takes on a sullen expression and his full lips turn down at the corners.
His words gut me. I want to pull him into my arms and hug him, but he’s long outgrown those days when a hug and kiss can make it better. “She does, she just doesn’t know how to be an adult, baby.”
“That’s no excuse.” He sneers.
I shake my head sadly. “No, it isn’t.”
“I always loved that about you.”
“What?” I ask.
“You never let her off the hook like Pops does. You just told me it wasn’t my fault.”
“Because it wasn’t and isn’t.”
“Yeah, I get that now, but back then…” He trails off, and shakes his head.
I hold my breath. It’s rare when he opens up these days, and I don’t want to spook him.
“I would’ve given anything to have her look at me and really see me. To make her love me the way—other mom’s do. Then I realized something. I might not have her, but I have always had you.”
“And you always will,” I say instinctively.
“I know, and I love you for that.”
He might tower over me at six foot two, but right now, all I can see is the four-year-old little boy who carried his blue blanket everywhere and followed behind me like a shadow. “Can I hug you?”
“I’d like that.”
I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him tight. “We’re going to be okay, me and you. I promise you that. I’m not trying to take your mom’s place. There are things I won’t get right on the first try. But if you give me a chance, I will learn. Don’t give up on me, Bolty.”
“I could say the same thing,” he replies.
The waver in his voice hurts my heart. “Never. What does my tattoo say?” I ask.
“Family over everything.”
“That’s right.”
He holds me tighter, and for a moment we’re two people adrift in a sea of hurt, change, and uncertainty.