God, I hate that name when she uses it.
Clearing my throat, I adjust my watch once more before spinning the rings on my fingers. My mother eyes me, watching the whole thing, probably calculating how much all my jewelry costs.
But as my thumb absentmindedly traces the ring on my pinky, I remember why I’m doing this.
“I called you because we need to talk.”
“I was hoping—”
“I need to talk,” I correct.
Her hazel eyes widen before she adjusts her shoulders. “Please do.”
“Why’d you leave?”
Her chest vibrates with a sharp breath. “Evan, can we leave the past in the past and move forward? That’s what I want most in the world, to move forward.”
“No. Why’d you leave?”
She shakes her head, looking for something, anything to reason her abandonment. “I sacrificed a lot when I was with your father.”
“Like what?” I challenge, not letting her get off the hook with vague answers.
“I sacrificed the life I envisioned for myself. The things I wanted.”
“Material things. Your family wasn’t enough for you.”
“Now, that’s not true.”
“It is. You chose money and bullshit material things over your kids.”
She stays silent, having no argument.
“Do you know what it felt like, being sixteen years old, getting out of hockey practice, and sitting in the parking lot waiting for you to show up? All my friends were driving off with their parents, and I sat there waiting. Dad showed up two hours later, and when we got home, all your things were gone. Who the fuck does that?”
“Evan, I want to move forward.”
“So do I!” I yell from my seat, causing Rosie to jump up from her dog bed before sitting attentively next to me. “That’s why you’re here, Mom. I want to move forward, and I’m holding on to so much anger for what you did that I can’t. You were the one woman who was supposed to love me unconditionally, and you didn’t.”
I pause, allowing her to tell me I’m wrong. To tell me that she did love me. That maybe she didn’t love my dad enough, or maybe she didn’t love our small town in Indiana, and that’s why she had to leave, but that it was never about me.
She doesn’t say she loves me.
“So, where do we go from here?” she asks instead. “How do we move forward?”
“We don’t. I do.”
Her brows pinch in confusion.
“I brought you here so I could look you in the face and tell you that I’m done. I’m done holding on to the anger and hurt you caused. I’m done hiding your name from the press because I’m afraid people will find out about you. And I’m done letting your inability to stay when I needed you most hold me back from the people who want to be in my life. People who would never abandon me the way you did.”
She sits there, emotionless as a jolt of pride flows through my body.
Tilting my head back, I close my eyes, a slight smiling sliding across my lips. Every muscle in my body relaxes, feeling the physical effects of my words.
“I came out here, expecting you to want me to be in your life again.”
“No. You came out here, expecting me to pay to have you in my life again, but guess what, Mom. I’m not sixteen anymore, and I don’t give a shit about you.”
Her lips part, falling open. “That’s why you brought me all the way here? You flew me here for this?”
“Yep.”
She stays silent in shock.
“Let me guess. You thought I’d fly you out here, pay for you to stay close by. Put you in your own box suite at my games.”
Her act completely dissolves in front of me. “I thought you wanted me in your life again. I thought you flew me out because you missed me!”
I shake my head. “No, I’m good.”
She’s getting flustered on my couch, fidgeting and looking around the room, eyeing every little thing that may be of value. As if she’s cataloging what she expected to gain from me.
“You don’t want to be in my life again anyway, Mom. Admit it. You were hoping I was still that sad teenage boy who missed you and would do anything to have you back. You thought I would give you whatever would make you stay. You don’t love me. You don’t want me. You want the things that come with me.”
Stevie runs through my mind first. The person who means the most to me, who has never taken anything from me, yet I want her to have it all. Next is my dad, who I blamed for my mother’s absence. That man worked double-time to make up for her lost income, so I wouldn’t have to stop playing hockey. I always thought he abandoned me the same way she did, but in fact, it was the complete opposite. He stayed and worked more so my life wouldn’t have to change.