Page 17 of One Billion Reasons

I sigh. Nothing and no one has ever been good enough for my mother. Amanda is a little silly, but she’s still a nice person. But Louise Becker cares deeply about reputation. It’s the only topic I remember my father and mother fighting about with regularity. Plenty of her friends looked down on him for being blue-collar, though she never did. I only realized it when I was old enough to go to their parties, which I hated almost as much as he did. We used to sneak out and throw a baseball instead of making small talk with the sharks. I miss him.

“I’m taking a date. Don’t worry. Lane agreed to go with me.”

She brightens. “Oh, are you friends again?” Her tone is careful. She’s bemoaned Lane’s absence at our family events for the past two years.

“Not friends. Maybe after this wedding, I can convince her to come back.” Fat chance. She could barely be civil to me over the phone last week.

“I miss her. And Liam.” Liam is too loyal to desert his sister on a holiday, so both of them are gone. My mother still buys them presents and makes enough food for six. It’s horrible, actually. For years, Lane was the daughter she never had. When Liam and I would go out for beers, Lane would frequently stay home and watch old British murder mysteries with my mom, or crochet with my Aunt Grace. She was absolute shit at it, but they used to laugh at the mangled creations she made.

And now she hates me. My jaw clenches. Fuck Lane. The traitorous thought worms into my head. I hate the way she makes me crazy. The way she has so much control over me even when she’s not in the room.

“I don’t want to talk about Lane.”

We reach the formal garden that leads to the back of the house. There are still lingering blooms on some of the bushes. My mother loves how calm and orderly this garden is, but I prefer the wildness of the rest of the estate. She turns to me, and I’m struck again by how much older she looks. My father’s death was not kind to her.

“That girl needs us, Miles. She needs you. Whatever happened with her, you need to fix it.” Her tone is harsh, and I look away.

“It’s not that simple.” And it’s not my fault. Though the recriminating looks I get over the Christmas dinner table now tell me that everyone thinks it is.

She gives me one final searching look and then sighs again. “Come inside and see Grace before you fly out. She’s been asking after you.”

The last thing I want to do right now is step back in time, but Grace deserves it. I sigh and follow my mother through the French doors off the back porch. The house is white walls, wood furniture, and lemon-scented cleaner. It’s light and airy, but old and stately. Not so different from Grace herself. She gives me a huge smile, her wrinkled face lighting up. She’s in her late seventies, but she acts much younger. I know for a fact that she has a boyfriend and a sometimes-girlfriend. She likes to go to music festivals and meditation retreats where I’m fairly certain they do psychedelic drugs. She’s been trying to get my mother to join her, but psychedelic drugs is not Louise Becker’s scene. Grace’s hair is long and braided, and she says she’s in her “draped linens” phase of life.

I hug her, feeling how much more solid she is than my mother.

“You look tired, Miles. What’s eating you?”

But not any less blunt than my mother.

“Just dealing with work stress.”

Grace rolls her eyes. “Nice try. I can read. The gossip columns have Kings Lane Capital on every page. Your broken engagement is the talk of the town.” She raises a brow, and I dart a glance at my mother, who’s getting us glasses of water. I don’t want her to worry about me. She needs to focus on herself.

“She knows about the articles.”

“Don’t talk about me behind my back,” my mother shoots over her shoulder.

Grace cackles. “No point trying to hide it now. You don’t look sad, though.”

“He’s not sad. That girl was silly.”

“Amanda is very nice,” I reply evenly. “But it was a business arrangement, not a love match. Come on, Aunt Grace, you know I would never really be with someone without bringing them home.”

Grace scans my face. “But you’ve never brought anyone home. Man or woman.”

I look away. I didn’t come for an interrogation, but it seems like that’s what I walked into. “I guess that’s true,” I say lightly. I give her a look that says drop it.

Grace shoots me a look back that says she knows I’m avoiding the subject at hand. “Of course it’s true. I have an excellent memory. I might look old, but my mind is young. You’re never old in your mind, or your heart. And I don’t ever remember meeting a girlfriend. Just Lane. But you never bring her around anymore.” Her eyes are too knowing.

My hand squeezes around my water glass. “I don’t want to talk about Lane.” Why is everyone so damned obsessed with her?

“Okay,” she says mildly. We both watch as my mother putters around the kitchen, all energy and angles. She doesn’t give herself time to grieve or be alone with her thoughts.

“It would make her very happy if you settled down. And I don’t mean a marriage of convenience,” Grace whispers. The word happy is loaded. Happy is something my mother hasn’t been in a long time. Grace was the one who found her the day she collapsed. Grace helped me get her to inpatient therapy and rehab, where they force-fed her meals and got her nutrients through an IV. Happy hasn’t been in our family’s vocabulary for years. And Grace is playing dirty by even mentioning it.

I shoot her a hard look. “I’ll think about it,” I say shortly. It’s a lie, and I know it, and I think she knows it too. The way her lips press into a thin line, the disappointed shake of her head tell me that yeah, she sees right through me.

She sees that being alone is all the future holds. I’ll never bring a woman home, because there will never be a woman. I’ve seen what love can do, and I want no part of it.

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