Chance stiffens beside me.
“Sweetheart, it’s old news. Thirty-five years, to be exact.”
I shake my head even though she can’t see. “It’s not old news. I’m in Montana because he forced me here. Pretty much extortion. He’s fucking with my life—and my brothers’ lives—from the grave.”
“I’m glad you’re thinking of them as your brothers.”
I frown. Am I thinking that? I clear the thought and get back to Mom.
“Besides divorcing you when you were pregnant, what did he do to you? I think I deserve to know now.”
She sighs and is quiet for a minute.
“Mom,” I prompt.
“Our relationship was a whirlwind. I know you don’t want to hear about your mother’s sex life, but I’ll just say it was lust at first sight. Looking back, I have to wonder if it was ever love, at least for him. We married, and I moved to Montana.”
“You stopped going to flight school?”
“I did.” She gave up her dream because she got married.
“Then…”
“Then the real Jonathan Bridger showed himself. Verbal abuse. Drinking. Womanizing. He hit me once. Only once. I was pregnant with you and I told him the good news. That’s why he hit me. Because I got knocked up. He divorced me before you were born.”
“He didn’t want kids,” I muse.
My free hand is clenched into a fist, ready to beat the shit out of the dead man who laid a hand on my mom.
She sighs. “I returned to Seattle and got through flight school.”
And never married again. It seems nothing, especially love, got in her way again. Once bitten—or beaten—twice shy.
“I’m sorry you married him,” I tell her.
Her life could have turned out so differently if she’d never gotten involved with Jonathan Bridger.
“Oh, sweetheart. I’m not.”
I set my elbow in the open window and lean my head into the phone. “Why the hell not? He was an asshole to you and didn’t deserve you.”
“Because he gave me you. I’d do it all over again.”
I’m quiet because…fuck. My mom did everything for me. Everything. Now she’s sick and I’m far away and can’t help.
I switch topics. “Your sink clogging again?”
“No, it’s fine.”
She pauses, and just when I’m about ready to break the silence—
“Sweetheart, sometimes bad things happen,” she says, not taking the hint. “It’s hard. Hell, even. But good things result from it. You can’t often see it until later, when you look back. You are the best thing in my world, and as much as I hate to admit it, you were a gift from Jonathan Bridger. I’ll always be grateful to him for giving me the person I love most. You gave my life purpose, Austin. You inspired me to fulfill my dreams.”
Mom’s words ring true. She always put me first, and I never went to bed not knowing I was cherished by the only parent who mattered.
I think of Carly, of what she went through, and wonder if she sees any good things that came from her hellish experience. How can she?
We ride into town and Chance pulls into a parking spot around the central square. It’s a small park with what looks like a war memorial. The town looks more like Mayberry than Bayfield, where nothing bad ever happens.