Page 413 of Summer Heat
“You didn’t have to be lonely,” he said quietly. “You had me; you had Brian.”
His mother reeled back as if he’d slapped her.
And in a way he had.
Because before this, they’d never spoken about her lack of a role in his and Brian’s lives.
“It wasn’t that easy!” she exclaimed, showing actual emotion for the first time in what felt like forever. “Yes, of course I wanted to be there for you and Brian, shower you both with the love your father never cared to give. You were both my perfect miracles, both so strong and good—everything I wasn’t. But living with your father, getting through each day in this sham of a life...I couldn’t survive it without turning off my emotions. All of them. Because I couldn’t just pick and choose certain parts of my heart to reserve for you and Brian, and not risk the rest of it to get slaughtered and stripped away by your father.”
She gripped his forearm almost desperately. “You remember, Connor. How he always used to make us feel like we weren’t worth caring about? It was a reminder he doled out daily, in a hundred heartless different ways. Even more so for me than for you two. And that was to keep me tied to him, a shell of a woman, too empty and broken to leave him.”
“So what’s changed?” he asked gently.
He had to know. Needed to know what could cause such a drastic change in a woman who’d made the choice every day for over thirty years to remain in her own personal hell.
“I fell in love.”
Connor blinked. That he had not been expecting.
Throughout his entire life, where his father had always been disparaging about love, his mother had seemed incapable of it, oblivious to it. And why wouldn’t she be? With a man like his father emptying her heart and making sure it remained that way.
After a long, cleansing breath, his mother began describing him then—her friend, the man who helped heal everything her husband had broken. The man who was waiting for her, apparently had been waiting for years.
For her to be free.
With each word, Connor watched his mother change before his very eyes. She became filled with joy, with life. Things that had never been there before, things she should’ve had a chance to have.
“You are in love.” It was a statement, a fact. Even he could see it.
“It suits you,” he added simply, not knowing what else to say.
Helen’s hands squeezed his forearm in a gentle, motherly gesture he hadn’t thought she’d know to do. “It suits you, too.”
His eyes shot up to hers.
She gave him a sad smile. “I know. It’s hard, isn’t it? I fought it, too. Most people think that falling in love, being in love is so easy. But that’s because most people have had it, or do have it. That’s what family is supposed to be for, right? Your never-ending source of love? But you and I, we didn’t have it. How in the world your brother found it despite everything is beyond me.”
Her breath hitched. “And I will never, ever forgive myself for the part I’ve played in adding to that void in both of your lives.”
“Mother, you did the best you could.”
“No. I didn’t. I should’ve been stronger. I should’ve loved you and Brian enough for two parents. Like how your brother is doing with Skylar. But I just…couldn’t.”
A sardonic grin tipped her mouth at the corner. “I tried explaining it to Henry once. I’d likened it to having a limb fall asleep on you. It’s compressed, drained, unaware…until that blood comes rushing in again. An unwelcome relief, or a welcome pain—depends how you look at it. Depends how long that limb has been cut off from circulation.”
With a shudder of remembrance, she whispered, “And it hurts, almost unbearably at first to feel all that coming back in, doesn’t it?”
Yes.
She nodded as if he’d answered aloud. “But it doesn’t stop there. Sure, your sleeping limb is all filled up and whole again, but it’s still not back to ‘normal.’ You still have to use it, get the feeling back, make it respond. So you get more doses of pain as you do, along with confusion, frustration, and at times, feelings that it’s not really worth it.”
“That’s what my heart went through; the pain process was long, and just as terrible as it was wonderful. It wasn’t until recently that it ended completely.” She put a hand on his cheek—yet another motherly gesture he committed to memory just in case it never came back again. “But your pain is still going on, isn’t it?”
Yes. A thousand times, yes.
“Who is she? Do I know her?”
That was an easier question to answer aloud. “You do, actually. It’s Abby. Abby Bartlett.”
