Page 123 of Here's to Now

“Please, I just want to talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” She glowers at Haley. “Either of you, for that matter.”

I hold my hand up to my chest. “I’m your blood, Mercy. Your nephew. Give me ten minutes to explain everything.”

She purses her lips together, making the wrinkles lining her mouth more pronounced. Her angry stare flashes between me and Haley. “I suppose you both want to enter.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Trying your hand at manners, I see.”

If I was in the position to do so, I’d clutch my chest in shock, because that’s the closest Mercy’s ever come to cracking a joke.

“Please.”

“Fine,” she relents. “You have five minutes.”

“Ten, Mercy. I’m gonna need all ten.”

“We shall see.”

She turns and walks away, leaving the door slightly ajar. I send Haley a quick glance and rush after my aunt. We hurriedly make our way to the living room, where we find Mercy perched on her chair, waiting for us to take our seats.

“Your time is ticking,” she says moodily.

I jump right into what I’ve prepared to say as soon as my ass hits the couch.

“I know I screwed up, multiple times, okay? I get that. I should have never walked away when I got into the fight with my parents. Hell, I shouldn’t have gotten into the fight to begin with, and I damn sure shouldn’t have taken your crap and left after they died.” She raises a gray brow, a warning for my language, I’m sure. “All that shit I got into, all the breaking and entering, the stealing, the drinking, it shouldn’t have happened. None of it should have. But it did, Mercy. All of that happened and more.”

I rub my hands against my legs, trying to burn out the tension coursing through me. Feeling hot all of a sudden, I roll my sleeves up and clasp my hands together between my knees. I make sure to keep eye contact with my aunt the entire time, showing her I won’t back down.

“You can’t continue to judge me for my past. You need to see me in the now. I work hard, really damn hard, and you know that. You know it when I pay the bills, when I stock the fridge with groceries, and when I buy whatever necessities the kids need. I spend all my waking hours away from this place working to make sure it stays afloat, and I do it with a smile. You want to know why?”

She doesn’t make a move.

“Because I love them. With every fiber of my being, I love them.”

“I seem to recall you saying multiple times how much you despised them.”

I snort. “Yes, and I also used to think Vanilla Ice was a lyrical genius. Things have changed.I’vechanged. We all have. I’ve worked hard on it too. I’ve done everything I could possibly do to ensure I’d have guardianship over the kids, and I can’t let you take that away from me because I got married.”

“Hastily,” she argues loudly, pointing a shaky finger at me. “You went off to Vegas and eloped! How is that a sign of responsibility, Gaige? How am I to trust you won’t run off again? That one of the kids won’t get hurt on your watch…again? How can I trust you when all you’ve done is let me down?”

Her words sink into me, and they sting. In a way, she’s right. I’ve given her plenty of reason to not trust me, but I also think I’ve done my fair share of just the opposite.

“I ran off when I was sixteen, Mercy. That was almost ten years ago. I don’t judge you for what you did ten years ago, so don’t hold it over my head. That’s not fair.”

“I’ve also never ran off on my family.”

I laugh and it sounds dark even to my ears. “Oh? You’ve never turned your back on someone who’s needed you? Are you sure?”

She nervously twitches in her seat, wiggling around like she can’t get comfortable. Then she straightens her back and sits up fully, regally almost. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You turned your back on my mom when she was sixteen and pregnant, didn’t you? That’s what I’m talking about.”

“My husband had just died!” She explodes. “I couldn’t take in an infant or my kid sister! I was barely holding myself together. How was I supposed to support her or her immature boyfriend?”

“And how was I, at sixteen myself, supposed to cope with losing my parents? Cope with knowing I’d have to someday raise four kids when I was barely able to make the right decisions about my own fucking life?”

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