Page 20 of Home to Me (The Andrades 2)
Only Kane look displeased. “Is he someone we know?”
“Weren’t you listening, Kane? I don’t want to talk about him yet.”
Kane sat back, folded his arms across his chest, and said, “Will I want to wring his neck when I find out who he is?”
Helen laughed. “Thom,” she said, addressing her husband, “tell Kane to stop teasing his sister. Rena is old enough to date whoever she wants and to tell her brother to stuff it if he doesn’t like it.”
Rena’s father joined in the laughter. “Do you remember what Kane and Gio did to the first boy she brought home? How old were you, Rena?”
“Fourteen,” Rena said and rolled her eyes at the memory. “And they hung him over the porch railing by his ankles until he cried.”
Kane shrugged. “We wouldn’t have if he had taken our warning to be good to you seriously. He shouldn’t have smirked at us.”
Rena defended the young man whose name she had long since forgotten. Her mood was taking a spirally downward quickly. “He was probably nervous. The two of you were twice his size. Do you know how hard it was for me to get a date after that? No one wanted to come here.”
“If you’re waiting for me to feel badly about it, you’re out of luck. I’d do it again in a heartbeat if you brought him back.” Kane held her eyes and said, “I won’t apologize for protecting my sister.”
“I didn’t need your protection then, and I don’t want it now.” Rena pushed her plate back from her. “Can we talk about something else?”
Kane didn’t look happy about it, but he let the topic drop. Helen asked, “So, how is it at Cogent now that Nick is working there? That must have been a surprise for everyone.”
Kane growled. “Gio is making a huge mistake giving Nick the kind of access he has, but you know Gio—he sees what he wants to when it comes to Nick.”
Thom nodded sympathetically. “It’s best not to get involved, Kane. Let them figure this out on their own.”
“Figure what out? Nick is doing an excellent job,” Rena said, unable to stop herself.
“Of course he is,” Kane answered sarcastically. “Gio is spoon-feeding him success, hoping it’ll change him, but it won’t. Nick is there to start trouble. I hope Gio realizes that before Nick causes real damage.”
Rena tossed her napkin on the table and stood up. “I just lost my appetite. Excuse me.”
Kane pushed his chair back and also stood. “Where are you going, Rena?”
Their mother walked over and put a hand on Kane’s shoulder. “Let’s have a nice meal. Calm down, Kane. Rena, are you okay?”
Kane frowned at his mother. “I won’t calm down. Not while she’s making a huge mistake.”
“What are you talking about, Kane?” Helen asked softly.
“Don’t say it, Kane. Even if you disapprove, it’s my decision. Not yours,” Rena said angrily. “And I may not have been able to stop you when I was fourteen, but if you so much as lay a finger on the man I’m seeing, this will be the last Sunday dinner I share with you. I’m serious. Back off, Kane. This is important to me.”
Rena turned on her heel and walked away from the table. Behind her she heard her mother say, “Let her go, Kane. I’ll talk to her.”
Rena walked out of the dining room. She paused in the hall. Her emotions were all over the place. She was still feeling euphoric from the night before, but she was also furious with her brother. She regretted walking away from her parents, whom she knew would be worried.
I should have said nothing.
She retrieved her coat from the closet and slipped it on just before her mother joined her.
Helen said, “I could use a walk in the garden. Join me.” They exited the house together and walked side by side through the English garden’s stone path in silence. When they reached the center of the garden, just where a fountain stood, Rena’s mother said, “You and Kane never fight. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Rena kicked the small rocks she’d once used as wishing.
“Is it about the boy you’re dating?”
“He’s a man, Mom, and that’s part of it. I’m just tired of Kane thinking he knows what’s best for me. I’m not a child anymore.”
“He loves you, Rena.”
“I know, but that doesn’t give him the right to judge me or tell me what to do.”
“Feel like making a wish?” her mother asked, holding out a small rock to Rena.
“I stopped believing in those years ago.”
“That’s a shame, because there is something magical that happens when you toss a rock in the fountain. Maybe it works because it forces a person to voice what they really want. I don’t know.”
Rena looked up with skepticism, not believing for a second that her very practical mother relied on wishes for anything she wanted.
“You know your father and I started with nothing.”
“I know, Mom.”
“I wished for all of this—a loving husband and enough money so our children would have easier lives than we did. Now, I followed that up with hard work, but it all started with knowing what I wanted.” Her mother studied her closely as she asked, “You have everything, Rena, why aren’t you happy?”
Rena felt a wave of shame at her mother’s observation. “I am,” she said quietly, but corrected herself when she heard the lack of conviction in her own answer. “I thought I was.” She buried her hands in her coat pockets. “Did you ever wake up one day and wonder who you would have been if you’d been braver? If you hadn’t always said no because you didn’t want to disappoint anyone? I used to think I worked at Cogent because I wanted to be there, but did I pick that job? Or did you and Dad say it was a good, safe place for me to start, and I went along with it because I wanted you to be happy? I used to want to do so many things that I thought you’d disapprove of. I wanted take vacations with my friends, study abroad, do some wild and spontaneous things just for the fun of it. But I never did, Mom. I think I said no too many times, and I lost myself somehow. ”
Her mother picked up a stone and threw it into the fountain. “My mother used to say, each generation messes up their children simply by trying to do the opposite of what their parents did. Your father and I were raised with nothing, so we wanted you to have everything. We worried it would spoil you, so we were strict. We didn’t want you to be soft. We wanted you to know right from wrong. We felt it was important for you to understand the value of hard work as well as the responsibility that comes with having more than others.”
Rena picked up a handful of stones, letting them drop one at a time back to the ground.
Her mother sat on the edge of the fountain. “You’ve never broken our rules, Rena, but sometimes I wish you had.”
Rena jerked her head up to look at her mother. “What?”
“Talk to me. What do you want that you think we wouldn’t support? Who could you possibly be dating that you’re afraid we won’t accept?”
Rena sat next to her mother on the lip of the fountain. “Nick Andrade.”
“Oh.” Her mother repeated herself in surprise. “Oh.”
“Don’t say it, Mom. I really don’t want to hear all the reasons that dating him is a bad idea. I don’t care about them. I only care about how I feel when I’m with him.”
After a long moment, Helen said, “I can see why dating Nick would be exciting. He’s a classic bad boy. Charming. Handsome. Untamable. Those are all sexy qualities in a fantasy man. But in reality, he’s an angry rich kid who refuses to grow up. You’d never be happy with someone like that, and you’d never be able to change him. No matter how hard you tried.” A sad, nostalgic expression entered her eyes.
Rena’s mouth fell open.
“Did you think your father was the only man I’ve ever been with? He wasn’t. There was one man, a long time ago, who made me glow the way you do when you talk about Nick. But it wasn’t real, Rena. Nothing that feels that good ever is.”
“I thought Dad was the love of your life. That
’s what you’ve always told us.”
“Don’t confuse lust with love. They are two very different things. And don’t give your heart to a man like Nick. He’ll only break it.” She took Rena’s hand in hers. “Your father is a good man and I do love him. I made the right choice.”
“Does Dad know about the other man?”
“No. But he helped me put my life back together after my heart had been broken, and forgave me when I lashed out at him for things that weren’t his fault. I fell in love with his kindness and his patience. I didn’t have to tell him someone had hurt me. He’s a smart man. But some details are better left unsaid.”
