Page 92 of Bidding War

“You are not supposed to be seeing her.”

“And?”

Her eyes go sly. “Your father will not like it.”

“My father can suck?—"

“Anderson!”

“A lemon.”

Her lips go tight with frustration while she fights a smile. “He only wants what’s best for you.”

“He wants what is best for the company, and that, according to Dad, is some mealy-mouthed pushover who looks good in pictures and isn’t too bright. Someone who doesn’t challenge me or him because someone who bores me isn’t going to dig into what we actually do. He wants me to be miserable because he is afraid, and I won’t have that. Not now, not ever.”

Again, Mom sits back to think about what I said. She takes her time about it, and the prolonged silence makes me uneasy. Quietly, she asks, “So then. I’m a mealy-mouthed pushover who isn’t too bright, eh?”

“Wait, what?”

“It makes sense that is what you think of me. That your father found his ideal woman in me, a woman who won’t ask too many questions, a woman who looks good in pictures, all of it?—"

“That is not what I said, Mom. You’re making this about you, and it’s not.”

“Isn’t it?” There is so much hurt in her voice that I’m sick from it.

“No. I have never thought of you like that. You’re quiet, but I’ve seen you give him a hell of a time or ten.”

She cuts a fragile smile at that. “Every man needs to be reminded of his mortality now and then.”

“Mom, I promise I was not talking about you at all. Dad is determined that June isn’t the right woman for me for all of those reasons and more. When it comes to me, he is only thinking about West Media. Not my safety, not my happiness, none of it. He doesn’t give a shit about that if it gets in the way of the company, and I need that to change because I am never giving her up.”

“You love her deeply, don’t you, son?”

“More than I ever knew I could.”

She sighs. “This would be easier if you did not, I suppose. Far simpler to pry a man from an inappropriate woman when he doesn’t love her.”

“Did you just call June inappropriate?”

She smirks. “By your father’s standards, yes. She is.”

She had me there. “Like I said, he can get over it. She is the one who is always there for me. Even now, when I’ve been miserable to deal with, she has been at my side this whole time. When the home nurse comes, she’s there, taking notes so we keep my meds straight. She set a physical therapy reminder on my phone, so I do my exercises. She makes my food, helps me shower … Mom, she has been amazing. I am so damn lucky to have a woman like her. So, yeah. When it comes to June, Dad can go suck a lemon. I cannot find it in me to care about Dad’s standards because she surpasses all of mine.”

“I agree that she has been noble about these things. Truly, she has been. If things were different, then I could see how she would be perfect for you. But do you think she has it in her to be a CEO’s wife? Or, god willing, a Senator’s wife? Do you think she can stand in the background and smile until her face hurts and wear conservative clothes, all the while making chit-chat with the right people and making do while you’re at work eighty hours a week? Or, perhaps the better question is, do you wish to inflict that upon her? Do you want her to face an empty bed every night? To tuck your children in by herself? And once your children move out but you’re still obsessed with work, do you want her to rattle around that hollow home all by herself, day-drinking until she’s a numb shell of the woman she used to be?”

I stare up at her, feeling like I just took a peek behind a curtain I never knew existed. “Mom, are you alright?”

“Right as rain,” she says with a forced smile. “Why do you ask?”

I gulp, suddenly parched. When I reach for the water, she hands it to me instead. It’ll be great when people don’t have to hand me water. Until then, though, I’ll take the help and be grateful for it.

“No reason, I guess.”

“I like June. I do. But I worry you haven’t thought all of this through.”

For all her squabbling about June, I wonder just how much of my mom sees herself in her. Does she take Dad’s side on this for him or out of concern for June? I can’t tell. But in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

So, I tell her, “Firstly, when I run West Media, I will not run it like Dad. Eighty hours in the office is out of the question. I will not be an absentee husband or father. That is not up for debate. Secondly, she is well aware of what my ambitions are, and she knows what she is signing up for by being with me, gunshot wound aside. Thirdly, and most important of all, it’s her choice. I will not break up with her out of some misguided attempt to protect her from my lifestyle. She is here because she wants to be, and I will never take away her choices. She has had enough of that shit in her life. I won’t contribute to it. I am with June. She is with me. End of discussion on that topic.”

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