Page 18 of Letters to Lily

“I honestly don’t know, Mom.” The last twenty minutes of our drive was me rehashing everything that went wrong and how I had no way of contacting Sasha while we were gone.

“That doesn’t sound like something that girl would do. I could see it in her eyes even when you guys were still young. She’s loved you for a long time. Feelings that strong don’t just go away that quickly.”

“Well, I guess we’ll see. I did mention there were pictures of her with another guy.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Yeah, unfortunately, I torture myself with them at least every other day.” I pulled into the driveway of the cottage I purchased for my mother, but she didn’t even look out the window at her new home. Her sole focus at the moment was on me, waiting to see the evidence of Sasha cheating on me while I was stuck in Vegas helping her.

“Here,” I offered her my phone after I pulled up the pictures that Jason had sent me a few months ago. My mom studied both pictures for a few minutes and then cocked a quizzical brow at me.

“This is what you thought cheating looked like?” She asked me sincerely.

“Um, yeah. His hands are all over her.” I sniped back.

She shook her head and glanced back down at the images. “Do you want to know what I saw at first glance?”

“What, Mom?” I rolled my eyes waiting for her response.

“I saw a girl being comforted because she was obviously falling apart.” My head snapped over in my mother’s direction. She was holding the cell phone up with the first picture, the one where Sasha was in some guy’s lap on the landing outside of her apartment. I wish I could see his face in order to read the emotion there. Hell, all I could see of Sasha’s was in profile, half of her face hidden in his shoulder, almost as if… Shit, it was almost as if she were hiding tears. How had I never noticed that before?

“Her fingers are curled up around his shirt like she’s holding on for dear life, there are papers scattered about their feet like she dropped some bad news or something.” My mom’s words came out sorrowful. “I hope Ashley’s okay. I can’t imagine too many things that would make a girl lose it like that.” My mom took possession of the phone back long enough to change to the other image. “I’m sure you failed to see her roommate in this picture too, because the only thing her boyfriend would see is the fact that a man was carrying her. Take another look, Son.” She handed my phone back and I did look. I looked beyond the image of Sasha and the mystery guy and saw Kristin there in the doorway. Then I pinched in on the photo, zooming in tighter on her, and she appeared worried.

She could have been worried that her friend would be caught cheating, but I didn’t think so. Kristin would put her foot up Sasha’s ass for something like that, best friend or not. She didn’t tolerate people who weren’t true to themselves and loyal to the people they cared about. Damn it, I should have pushed Jason harder while I was in Vegas to get me a phone number.

“Why didn’t you ask Mick to find her?” My mom finally asked as I continued to stare at the image on my phone that now held so many more questions and less certainty than it had before.

“What?” My head shot up, surprised by her question.

“Why didn’t you get Mick to find out her new phone number, or whatever?”

“Jesus!” I hissed the one word under my breath, because in all this time it had never occurred to me that I could do that. I was too lost in everything else that was going on, and what I allowed myself to believe about Sasha, that it never even crossed my mind to have a professional track her down after Jason failed me. Sure, Mick was a lawyer, but he knew people who could have found out the information. Hell, he had those types of people on retainer for the firm.

“I blame myself. Everything got messed up for you because I was too busy being an idiot and making you clean up my messes. When did you become the parent and I become the child?”

I gave her a half-hearted laugh then. “I’m not sure, but I’ll take a role reversal again any time now. I’d love to be 19 again instead of 40.” She seemed slightly dejected by the truth in my statement so I did the only thing I could. I went for distraction. “Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“Look up at your new place.” She did, and I had the first reason in months to celebrate something. Her face glowed with a surprised smile.

“Oh, my goodness, this is adorable!” She was out of the Jeep and heading to the front door before I even got my keys out of the ignition. “I love the flower boxes.” She beamed in my direction, moisture gathering in her eyes as she moved her focus from the little cottage back to me. “It’s perfect, Kaden.” In a reverent whisper she added, “This is what I always dreamed of having instead of that garish display of wealth your father made me buy all those years ago.”

“Good, maybe now you can focus on being happy for a while.” The first genuine smile I’d had for my mother in months finally decorated my own face. I couldn’t hate her in this moment, no matter what her actions may have cost me. This was the first time I’d seen my mom truly happy in a long damn while. I only hoped that carried over to the interior of the house as well.

Aug. 1

Two days after my mom and I first laid eyes on her new house I was finally ready to go take care of business. First up, was to head on over to Jason’s apartment – my old place – and clear out all my stuff. I paid up the rent for a full six months when I first went to Vegas and let him know that at the end of those six months, no matter what, I would be moving out. I thought it would be a move to become my own man and get my first place as an adult – whether alone or with the woman I love by my side. As it turned out, I didn’t even know if the woman I loved was still around, and I was moving in with my mom until I was certain she could handle life on her own once more.

I had a key, but I knocked anyway. I saw Jason’s truck sitting out front when I rolled up, but honestly, I still wasn’t sure what to do about Jason. I didn’t know what to believe, and I guess I was trying to keep a distance between us until I could figure out this whole situation.

The front door opened, and my stunned, slack-jawed, former roommate and best guy friend stood there. He was shirtless, jeans barely pulled up, let alone buttoned, and he looked like he hadn’t slept or been sober in a week. “Dude? What are you doing knocking on your own door? Did you lose your key or something?” He quickly checked the space around me as if he were looking for something or somebody else to be there.

“No, I just haven’t been here in months, so it felt…” I ran my hand through my hair in a semi-nervous gesture. “I don’t know, I just felt knocking to give you a heads up to company was the best way to go.”

“Company? Fuck, dude! You’re my brother, what’s up with this company shit?” At that he moved forward and dealt out an awkward chest-bump, back-slap style bro-hug. “It’s good to see you man. I still can’t wrap my head around the family drama that blew up on you.”

He stepped back into the apartment, which was a wreck, and I followed him inside. “Damn, Jase, do you even bother to clean anymore?”

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