Page 80 of Alfie: Part Two

Of all the days of the year.

“Mom,” I said.

She didn’t look comfortable one bit, and that made two of us. Why on earth was she here? She’d been perfectly happy with my ignoring her calls for so long.

She sniffed and picked off her gloves. “Are you going to invite me in, son?”

Must I?

I opened the door wider, and she shuddered at the cold and walked in.

I didn’t have the energy for this.

“I’ll get right to the point,” she said. “Your father is thinking we should disown you.”

I furrowed my brow, waiting for the anger to surge forward, the hurt, the disbelief, but not a fucking thing showed up. I barely even wanted to ask why.

I stared at her, this woman who’d raised me—alongside a nanny or three—and I saw a stranger. But then, she’d always been that way. Hadn’t she? It wasn’t as if we’d ever sat down to have a heart-to-heart about hormones, college, feelings… The closest I’d gotten was one day in my senior year of high school when I’d come out to her and Dad.

“I assume this has to do with Alfie and me,” I said.

The corners of her eyes tightened. She wasn’t happy. “The fact that we had to hear about you getting back together through neighborhoodgossip, West…” She glanced around herself, seeing the moving boxes, some toys on the floor—and it never ceased to amaze me how she always managed to come off as stuck-up and arrogant. Most people tried to hide that. She wore her holier-than-thou personality like a badge of honor. “Now we’re hearing all sorts of things,” she muttered. “That boy—he still lives with you. Well-known mafia members come and go.”

I needed a refill.

I walked into the living room and poured a new glass.

“Do you even care, West?” she pressed.

“I care about a lot of things,” I replied. “I care about finally being reunited with the love of my life. I care about our family, our children, our friends?—”

“Your friends?” she laughed. “And who are they?”

“Oh, I’m sure Dad has a list of names,” I said dryly. “I take it that’s why he wants to disown me, then? Because Alfie’s in touch with his family on the O’Shea and Murray side?”

She jutted her chin. “So you won’t even deny it.”

“Am I supposed to?”

“Yes!” she cried out. “Yes, you are, West! You’re supposed to do more than that! You’re supposed to choose your own family over an entire mafia organization!”

I took a quick sip of the whiskey, then set the glass on the coffee table. “I did choose. Ironically, it’s Alfie who’s been trying to get me to call you—or, at the very least, make sure the children maintain a relationship with you.”

She had nothing to say to that. She merely watched me as if I spoke in a language she couldn’t understand.

“But I think I’ll pass,” I said. “If Dad wants to disown me, I won’t stand in his way. It’s not the threat you think it is.”

Confusion and hurt flicked by for a moment, and I could practically read her mind in that instant. She knew me as little as I knew her. She was just realizing it now.

“What happened to you?”

“I stopped pretending.” I couldn’t help but get a little cold in my response, because I was so over this. If I was completely honest, I probably hadn’t planned for more than a hiatus. Despite Alfie’s worries, I supposed I saw us moving on one day to keep the peace somehow, to see my parents every once in a while, if only for the children. But now…? What was the point? They were never going to change, and I was never going back to what had once lost me my husband.

Shan did have a point. I could exist in more than one world—but my parents’ wasn’t one of them. Instead, I had work. I had Alfie’s family, his parents and grandparents and cousins and…all of them. And then, the Sons of Munster. More cousins. A new uncle for Alfie whom I enjoyed golfing with.

In a couple of weeks, Alfie was going to put on nice clothes and accompany me to the annual holiday party at my office. We were going to drink Christmas cocktails and eat shrimp. We were going to survive by sending each other lingering looks that promised oflater. And the morning after, we’d head out to Finn and Emilia’s for our own little Christmas brunch and gift exchange.

Those were my worlds.

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