The Pact(27)

I clear my throat, trying to get my heartbeat under control. “I’m not leaving. I do appreciate everything you’ve done, and I appreciate the flat, but I had no idea that those plans were being made. I have no desire to leave my life here. It’s home.”

His eyes glitter darkly. “All right. Well, the property is ours – yours – if you ever change your mind. Now, I don’t think it’s quite fair that we come all the way here to give you the good news and you don’t even thank your mother yourself.”

Here comes the completely unfair and out of left field guilt trip. “What?”

“When we’re done, we’re going to go up to the room and you’re going to thank her. You’ll also tell her that you’re honored to have such a privilege and that you’re seriously considering the move.”

I nearly shoot out of my chair. “But that’s a lie.”

“We all lie,” he says and then pushes his plate of barely touched eggs away from him.

Moments later, I’m stuck in one awkward elevator ride up to see my mother in their hotel room. As I suspected, the black-out curtains are all drawn shut with only one lamp on, but at least she’s not still in bed. Instead, she’s sitting primly on a chaise and nursing a glass of something dark. It looks like coffee, but I know it’s not.

My relationship with my mother isn’t much better than the one I have with my father. In fact, I think it’s a tad worse. Growing up, it was my nanny who raised me while my mother raised horses and raised glasses in toasts to nothing. When we moved to Manhattan, she replaced the horses with more booze and pills and that’s pretty much been the status quo ever since.

At least my father made attempts to parent me, to care about the persona I put out there, to want me to succeed, even if just in his image. My mother…I’m not really sure if she knows who I am half the time.

I don’t think she’s ever hugged me.

“Maura,” my father says as he walks right on front of her, obscuring her view of the void she was staring at in the middle of the room. “Linden is here.”

It takes her moment to look over at me and then another moment for her eyes to open wider in faint recognition. Despite the fact that she’s drunk, she looks beautiful. Maybe a little too thin, but pale, long-necked and elegant, even in silk pajamas.

“Linden, my boy,” she says. “Happy birthday.” She smiles and pauses. “How old are you again?”

“Thirty, mum. And thank you.”

She nods politely and takes a sip of her drink, her eyes going spacey again. Believe me, she’s much better this way, in her calm, mellow, morning buzz than she is in the Exorcist-ish, demon-possession kind of rage she gets in later when she’s drunk off her ass and hates the world.

“I was just telling Linden about the present,” my father adds and the produces the key, dangling it at her like she’s a child. “Do you remember? The flat? He’s very interested.”

Whatever outrage I felt about the lie is over. My mother isn’t even going to remember this by the end of the day.

“That’s wonderful,” she says, her voice pleasant but monotone. She’s saying the words, acting her part, without taking anything – including me – in.

I don’t stay long after that. Uncomfortable small-talk turns into awkward goodbyes, all punctuated by promises to stay in touch, to “think about” things.

As I’m out the door, my father says soberly, “Son, just remember. If you’re going to put your roots down somewhere, you should at least know what you’re capable of growing.”

I don’t even let myself dwell on that. By the time I get back to my place, I am a complete fucking mess and it’s only one in the afternoon.

I need to escape my mind, these damn shackles that have spread their rusted hold on me over the morning. I pace around the rooms, staring at the things I know they have bought me in the past. I text James and then seconds later dial him, but the phone goes straight to voicemail.

Tapping my phone against my thigh, I briefly think about Nadine. But I don’t want to answer her questions, I don’t want to spend a day with her pretending everything is all right and I’m the man she thinks I am, that toughened pilot who doesn’t really care about anything. I don’t want her to see my face and the mark I know my parents have stamped there even from such a brief encounter.

I go to text, think better of it, and then just outright dial Steph.

She answers on the third ring. “Hey!” she says brightly and something about the sound of her voice feels like a balm on the wound.