Page 38 of Undeniable

“Oh, hi, hon. I thought I was going to get your voice mail, but I’m happy to hear your voice.”

I simultaneously felt awful and so much better at hearing the surprise in my mother’s voice.

“I’m between meetings, and you know I always pick up when I can.”

I heard a rustle over the phone and she mused, “I was just sitting down on the patio with my coffee and realized we haven’t talked in a while.”

There was a pang in my chest at her longing, so I filled her in on everything new going on in my life, although it wasn’t much.

Work was all I had to really talk about, and I purposefully kept details of Ivy to myself. However, I did mention Hazel’s pregnancy, which she was over the moon about, just as I suspected she would be.

She and my dad were doing well. They were enjoying retired life and had adopted a new cat. And apparently, she was planning a fundraiser for the town park. It was falling apart when I was a kid, so the fundraiser to buy new playground equipment and resurface the basketball court was long overdue.

Once we exhausted all of the usual topics, Mom hesitantly broached the subject she’d yet to bring up.

“I talked to Cat yesterday, and she said Ivy’s doing well. Still so crazy that she wound up working at Murphy’s. But I’m glad she’s enjoying Austin; she needed a fresh start.”

I perked up at that, straightening in my seat and waiting for her to continue. Cat, or Catherine, was Ivy’s mom and my mom’s best friend. When she didn’t respond, I prompted, “She needed a fresh start?”

I’d heard something similar about Ivy from Amanda, but I hadn’t paid attention at the time. Hearing it from my mom, though, was something different.

“We all do sometimes, don’t we?” Her voice wavered slightly, and I knew there was more to Ivy’s move to the city, but I wasn’t going to get it from my mom. She was rightfully hesitant to discuss Ivy with me—I didn’t think I’d uttered a word to my mom about her in thirteen years. And it wasn’t for her lack of trying either.

“Anyway, I’m excited to see her this weekend.”

“Are you coming here?” I tapped the speakerphone button and set the phone down on the single clear spot on my desk. Shuffling the papers around and trying to organize the mess into some semblance of structure, I almost missed what she said next.

“No, it’s the end of summer festival. Ivy does face painting every year and promised she’d come back for it this year.”

“She’s coaching, Mom. And it’s the beginning of the season—how is she possibly going to take time off?”

There was a quick knock on my door, and a moment later, Shelley stepped inside and motioned for me to check my email and then tapped her wrist to signal the time.

I nodded and gave her a thumbs-up, and she slipped back out.

The door clicked closed, and I could almost hear my mother thinking on the other end of the line.

“I don’t know, James,” she sighed, and I stopped typing. “She said it was a priority to her—that coming back and supporting her mom, who organized the whole damn thing, was important to her.”

My mom never cursed. In my thirty-two years on the planet, I’d never once heard her utter the word “damn,” and the use of it then made me pay attention.

I opened and shut my mouth several times while trying to conjure up a response that would fully encapsulate how apologetic I was that I didn’t visit more. And that it hadn’t dawned on me to go back for the festival. I hadn’t been since high school, although my mom was also one of the chief organizers. But the one reason I hadn’t gone back was no longer even living in the town.

“Mom, I—” The loud ringing of my office phone didn’t allow me to finish.

“I’ll let you get back to work, honey. I… I hope I’ll see you soon.”

And she hung up before I could say anything else.

FOURTEEN

James

Since hangingup with my mom, I’ve had a one-track mind.

I’d already stopped by our CFO’s office that afternoon and had Shelley clear my schedule for the next two days.

She thought something was seriously wrong when I requested it—that there’d been a death in the family or I’d been abducted by aliens while sitting in my office. I told her there hadn’t been anything wrong, but sitting in the back of the car I’d ordered, I reconsidered.

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