Page 55 of Shelter
I’d felt it before.
Mom’s eyes flicked to mine before darting away. “I… was talking to Rich Reynolds. The one who just made junior partner,” she said, her voice shaking. She gripped the edge of the counter, her knuckles going white.
“Sit down, Mom,” I urged. I guided her the toilet even as she protested.
“I should get back out—”
“Mom, just sit.”
She winced as she did, letting out a pained hiss.
Asshole cocksucker.
Maybe I couldn’t pull the trigger, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t lose any sense of self if I just pistol-whipped him.
“He was making me laugh,” she said.
“What?” I frowned.
Mom wouldn’t look at me. I watched her brow lift with the memory. “Rich Reynolds. He was making me laugh. It upset your father,” she said with a shrug. “He told me I was flirting.”
“Mom—”
“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said, shaking her head. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Mom, don’t be ridiculous.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I thought he was b-better.” Her voice broke, and the sob that followed made her wince again. She quickly smothered it.
I swallowed my rage. “We are leaving tonight.”
Mom shook her head, still not looking at me. She was looking at her hands of all things, fiddling with her wedding ring. “No, no. Of course not.”
I touched her chin gently so as not to scare her, but I made her look up at me. “Yes, we are, Mom—”
“I can’t. I can’t leave him—”
“Mom, he’s never going to change. And I can’t go back to Tulane if he’s still doing this to you.”
Her eyes widened then. “But you have to go back. You have to earn your degr—”
“Fuck my degree, Mom. You’re not safe here. Ava’s not safe here. And I’m not a kid anymore.” I shook my head. I’d drag them out of the house if I had to. “I can take care of you. You both can stay in my apartment until we can find something—”
“No.” She batted my hand from her face. “I’mnotleaving him. I took a vow, Cole.”
A bitter laugh broke from my lips. “Mom, he took a vow too. And he’s broken it time after time.”
Her gaze shifted to the left, and I watched her eyes fill. I knew she was remembering better days, days she would always cling to. An idea announced itself.
“Mom, what if it was temporary?”
She fast blinked before looking up at me. “Wh-what?”
A took a deep breath, filling my chest with hope. “What if you and Ava came to stay with me? Just for a while. He wouldn’t want to give you up,” I said, not knowing if I spoke the truth, but also not caring. Anything to get them out of this house. “We could tell him it was a kind of intervention. That we were leaving until he got some help. He can see someone… o-or he could check into a program.”
That was the wrong thing to say. I knew immediately when Mom scrunched up her nose. “You know he’d never do that—”
But I rallied. “No, not never. You’ve never left. You’ve never told him enough is enough.” I let my eyebrows climb with hope I wanted to feel. “He’s never had the motivation to change, Mom.”
