"You can when she gets a phone call from her doctor telling her she needs surgery."
"Shit. I need to go to her—"
"I know you do, but Daddy, before you go, is she going to be okay?"
I knew he couldn’t answer that question, knew he couldn’t reassure me, but goddamn, I felt like I was back to being eight and we were losing Locke all over again.
The thought had me knuckling at my eyes.
So many secrets...
Things the public didn't know about, wouldneverknow about. God, even Aidan didn’t know about Locke.
Daddy heaved another sigh. "She has the best of the best oncologists, sweetheart. We had her treated in Switzerland, and I’ve flown in guys to deal with her treatment stateside. She has more second opinions than the Queen of England would."
I bit my lip. "O-Okay."
"I’ll call you later, all right? I need to speak with your mom and find out what's going on."
"Yeah. Thank you, Dad."
He paused. "What for?"
"Loving her so much."
His laughter was brisk. "You don’t have to thank me for that."
He couldn’t see my shrug. "Maybe I don’t, maybe I do. Maybe it’s because of you that I know how a manshouldlove his woman."
His pause was loaded. "Everything all right with you and Aidan?"
"Things are perfect with us," I told him honestly.
He hummed. "Good. Tell him I know people who aren’t scared of him and who will break his kneecaps if he hurts you."
"Leave his knees alone. They’ve been through enough strife." When he sniffed, I retorted, "I thought you and he got along?"
"We do. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t remind him who he’s messing with from time to time."
"If you say so," I said with a laugh. "Okay, go. Love you."
"Love you too, baby."
With dead air buzzing in my ear for the second time in as many minutes, I dug my fingers into my eyes in an effort not to start blubbering. That'd get me nowhere. One thing I'd learned in my life was that tears didn't fix the past.
Plugging the coffee machine back in, I let it finish up my espresso. This time, I decided against shots and, steaming some milk, I tossed in the espresso to make a latte.
Throwing in some cinnamon syrup, I chucked in a couple ice cubes after that was stirred in, and as I took a deep, bracing sip, I decided what my plan of action was.
I’d inadvertently discovered that my mom was sick and that she was keeping it from her kids, but Dad had that handled, and she didn’t want me to do anything anyway.
Even if I wanted to go over there and read her fucking case notes, it wasn’t like she wanted to get me involved.
God, that hurt.
I rubbed at my side where I felt like I’d been stabbed, and when that didn’t work, I decided that distraction was the aim of the game.
We’d moved into Aidan’s place in the city for a while after our wedding, but even though I had bad memories in mine, I preferred my apartment: the building itself and the layout.