Page 90 of Burning Love
“I swear, Talia. It’s like pulling teeth.”
“I told him about my call with West.”
“Oh. Was he annoyed about that?”
“Boy, you don’t let me get this out before you ask more questions.”
She put her wine down and went for the cookies and tore them open.
“I can’t help it. Give me one of those.”
Talia gave her mother two of the hard chocolate chip cookies. It reminded her of the day she wanted to make cookies when she came home from traveling and Jace appeared in her life.
She started to sniffle and then cry.
“I’m sorry. I’m so confused. I’m never this confused.”
“Yes, you are. You’re an emotional creature like me. I used to burst into tears all the time at your age for no reason.”
“Really? And I’ve got a reason.”
“I had one too. I was alone in a foreign country with kids to raise by myself. Your father was there, but not around much. We lived in the States when he was deployed, but overseas, we were on base and it was lonely.”
“Which is why you had so many kids. I know. But you made those choices even if it was hard. Jace makes his choices too and they suck.”
She could see her mother was getting frustrated by the curling of her lips. “What choice did he make?”
“He says I’m better than him. Not the money or anything. That he’s damaged and I’m just a better person than he is. It’s like he opened this door to let me walk in tonight and before I get out of one room, he blocked me by throwing up that wall.”
“That’s frustrating. And degrading to himself. He shouldn’t think so little of himself for decisions his mother made.”
“I said that. Then I stormed out after telling him he self-sabotages himself to think he’s damaged rather than looking at all he’s accomplished. That he had to get out of his own head.”
“And that’s when the door hit you on the ass on the way out?”
“Pretty much. I was wrong, wasn’t I?”
“Nope. You were one hundred percent correct. It sounds like he had no tough love from his father because they didn’t want to rock the boat after all the turmoil in his life,” her mother said.
“I don’t think that was a bad way to go about things for Jace back then.”
“No. But it continued. He was allowed to wallow in his guilt.”
“I think his father told him to let it go today. Maybe it had something to do with me in Jace’s life. I don’t know.”
“Then look at it that way. That his family knows how he is and they are supporting your presence in their son’s life,” her mother said.
“They haven’t even met me. Only Kelsey for about ten minutes, if that.”
“But they know Jace and maybe they are seeing a change in him. I’m not sure what to tell you, Talia, other than he opened up to you tonight. You think he threw a wall up, but you dumped the concrete at his feet to build it stronger.”
She absorbed what her mother said, then reached for another cookie.
Shit!
27
THE TRUTH
