Both her hands fly up to cover her face as she begins to cry. I reach over and squeeze her knee and she shakes her head. Fuck. I hate seeing my mom cry.
“Mom, please don’t cry. We’re working it out. I just wanted to tell you because I can’t keep it inside any longer.”
She curls her fingers a little so they’re not covering her eyes, then she looks at me. “I have a granddaughter? And you’re just telling me this now?” She pushes my hand off her knee and scowls at me. “I am so disappointed in you right now. I never thought you would keep something like this from me.”
“I wanted to tell you, but I wanted to wait until I knew what was going to happen with the open adoption. But I see now that we’re no closer to knowing what’s going to happen than we were two months ago.”
“Two months you’ve kept this from me! I knew something was going on when Rachel told me that Claire has a new boyfriend.”
“Rachel told you that?”
“I weaseled it out of her. Is that why this open adoption thing isn’t settled yet, because she has a new boyfriend?”
“No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Don’t you lie to me to protect her. I can’t believe she would keep this from me.”
“Don’t you dare get mad at Claire. She only did what was best for Abigail and me. I wouldn’t be where I am if she hadn’t made the difficult choice she made.”
She grunts with frustration. “I want to call her.”
“No, you’re upset right now. Call her tomorrow or whenever you’ve cooled off.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to call her. I want to hug her. My God, Chris. Why didn’t she tell me? I would have been there for her.”
“Come on, Mom. She obviously didn’t tell you because you would have told me.”
She wipes the tears from her face and shakes her head as she attempts to collect herself. “I need to see her.”
This is exactly what I was hoping for. Claire needs to know that her secret is not a death sentence marking the demise of all her previous relationships. We will always love her because even if Claire and I never get back together, we will always be family.
“I’m going to ask Farrah to take me to go see Claire tonight. I’ll tell her that I confessed to you then I’ll ask her to come visit us at the house this weekend. I need to tell her in person.”
Farrah, my personal assistant, has been sitting on her heels without much work to do since I broke my leg. She was all set to go to L.A. with me next week, but that’s not going to happen anymore. She may as well get used to being my new chauffeur because I’m not giving up on Claire and I still have three weeks in this fucking cast.
“Give her a big hug from me,” my mom says as she turns the key in the ignition. “And if you ever keep something like that from me again, I will skin you.”
“If you skin me, who’s going to pay for your gaming addiction?”
She shakes her head, but I see a reluctant smile barely tugging at the corners of her lips. It’s hard keeping the women in my life happy. They’re high-maintenance. But I don’t think I would want it any other way.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Adam
I SIT IN THE HURLEY sponsor tent as I mentally prepare myself to go out and compete. This morning was a mess. I woke with a start at three a.m. from a nightmare where Claire and I ran into each other years from now and she didn’t recognize me. For the past three weeks, I’ve been living in the worst kind of hell. I can’t talk to anyone about what happened with Claire, except Yuri, but I don’t want to burden him with this crap before the competition. I’ve been totally and utterly alone. At least when I moved to Wrightsville, I ran into Claire on my first day there. This is a kind of loneliness I’ve never had to deal with.
Remmy walks into the tent, laughing as he glances over his shoulder at someone. Remmy was my trainer three years ago. After I quit competing, he moved to Florida to work at a surfing academy near his ex-wife’s house to try to work things out with her. I didn’t understand this since they didn’t have any kids together, but I guess love makes us do crazy things. When I called him two months ago to see if we could start training again, he moved to Wilmington the following week. I get the feeling he was looking for a way out of whatever situation he was in with his ex in Florida. It seems that being near the one you love doesn’t solve everything.
Remmy is half-French and half-Brazilian, born in Brazil and raised in North Carolina. He’s entirely mixed up, but he’s also the best of the four trainers I’ve had in my lifetime.