All of it was so easy.
“Excuse me.” My mother’s polite company voice breaks into the foggy memory. “Would you mind if I had a moment with my son? I swear he’s talked to everyone twice except me and I’m starting to take offense.”
The senator’s son and my mother share a laugh, both of them capping it with a sip of their drink. “I know better than to argue with mama.” An obnoxious slap on my back. “You’ll be hearing from me. There’s a lot we can do to benefit each other. Take care, now, Mayor.”
“Thank you,” I say, my voice sounding distant. “Same to you.”
Now that we’re left alone, my mother still says nothing. Which suits me just fine, because I’ve got a lot of questions. “Were you hoping the pictures of Preston cozying up to Addison would turn the public against her?”
“I don’t know if hoping is the right word.”
“There’s a right one?” When several people turn to look at us, I realize I’ve raised my voice. Add it to the rapidly growing list of things I don’t care about at the moment. “I want an explanation. I want to know why you’d try to damage what I’ve got with her.”
She twists the glass in her hand, the corners of her mouth turned down. “Sometimes you do things out of loyalty to a friend, even when you don’t want to.”
“I don’t keep friends that would expect those things of me.”
“Well you could. Someday. People change. Priorities change when things like children and marriage and appearances come along.” She stops to take a shaky breath. “Although, you’re right. Ever since you were a young boy, you never compromised your beliefs. Ever. But we can’t all be like you, Elijah. And I’m sorry. I was sorry before it even happened and I’ll do what I can to fix it. I’ll take responsibility.”
“I don’t need you to do that.” I turn more fully to face her. “Addison told me Preston came to the door claiming I’d given him permission to drive her, along with yours. She’d already figured out it was nonsense and after I stopped behaving like a jealous moron, so did I. That kind of thing wouldn’t have gotten between us. We’re stronger than that.” The more I talk about her, the more gut sick I am for missing her. Gut sick over hurting her. She’s loved me since the beginning? How did I not see it? “God, even if she’d openly gone out with another man, I would have…I’d have knocked out the son of a bitch and informed her it wouldn’t be happening again. She’s…my Addison. She’s complicated and she’s mine.”
I’m not sure how long I remain in the daze, but when I finally glance over at my mother, her eyes are close to overflowing. “I didn’t know. I thought it was a passing infatuation, until we went to see her at the market and—”
“When was this?”
Pressing her lips together, she digs a small package out of her pocket and hands it over. “Do you remember how I like to knit at night?” I nod. “As far back as I can remember, your father has let me wrap the yarn around his hands. He’ll sit there for hours and let me use him as a spool, even though he still doesn’t know a rib stitch from a purl.” As she talks, I unwrap the package and find a snowman inside, the buttons ever so slightly uneven, and I stop breathing. Not because I haven’t seen thousands of these same snowmen, but because it’s a slice of Addison where none existed a moment ago. Right there in my hands. “When she told me you helped her glue on the big buttons, I knew.”
I run a finger around the button’s rim and picture Addison handing it to my mother. She would have been standing there in her apron, sparkles stuck to her hands. Gorgeous. Unsuspecting. Why didn’t she tell me about my mother’s visit to the market? Because I didn’t come home last night? Or has she been shouldering the unpleasant behind-the-scenes parts of our relationship alone? “You said ‘we.’ It was Della that went with you to the market, wasn’t it?”
She nods and my gut twists over what it must have been like. The woman who loves me coming face to face with my ex-fiancée’s mother. “It hasn’t been easy for Naomi’s mother, you know. She’s barely gotten over the humiliation of her husband having an affair all those years ago. Maybe even getting another woman pregnant. Now she’s faced with embarrassment of what Naomi did to you. She wants to make it right. She wants…”
My head comes up. “What?”
“She wants a do-over.” My mother shrugs. “Addison is a threat to that.”
A do-over? As in, a second attempt to walk down the aisle? The idea is so ludicrous, I’m not even sure how to respond. I would no sooner put myself in that position with Naomi than I would skydive without a parachute. “Addison isn’t a threat to anyone or anything. She’s the one being threatened.” My tone betrays my anger, which is reigniting. Goddammit. On top of what transpired between us this morning and being set up by my mother, she was ambushed at the market yesterday. Hell, she’s been followed by reporters, had her name dragged through the mud. For what? Simply for being with me. And I couldn’t even tell her I loved her.