Page 51 of Restless
“She do.”
Dropping his hands, CJ backed away and stared at his father. “Dad, tell Mom you don’t want any more children.”
“That’ll break her fuckin’ heart.”
The fucking logic wasn’t logic-ing. “But leaving her won’t?”
Sadness crept into Dad’s eyes, a feeling CJ identified with for so many different reasons.
“I thought she understood the risk,” Dad whispered. “She don’t. Or she don’t care. If I force her to give up havin’ babies, it’ll break her heart,” he repeated in a tone raw with fatigue.
CJ loved his mother and greatly admired her. She was the backbone of their family. More than that, she loved his father with everything in her. In this instance, anger filled him at her selfishness. He liked living, so he wouldn’t use those words as he tried to reason with his father. “Her heart will break?”
Dad nodded, yawned, and swayed.
“Like yours is breaking?” CJ pressed, concerned for his father’s mental and physical state. “Mine? Reb’s? My brothers’? If she ends up pregnant again, we’re all going to be fucking zombies, worried she’ll die. Is that fair to us or to you?”
“Life not fair.”
“But Mom is.”
“Your ma not perfect. She a spoiled lil’ pain-in-the-ass motherfucker.” He pointed to his temples. “She put all this fucking white in my hair.”
“Momisperfect, Dad. Everybody says so. She’s like Pollyanna, flitting through life and looking after everyone.”
“You know how Reb ain’t able to understand we wouldn’t ever stop loving her just because we had another girl? She couldn’t appreciate her relationship was different, not lesser. All Megan know is taking care of motherfuckers that need her.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” CJ asked in frustration. “What does having twenty children have to do with that?Weneed her. The club needs her.”
“I’m a grown motherfucker like the club members and their bitches, CJ. Gunner and, now, Jo, gonna need her in a different way, even from Axel, Ransom, and Ryder. Babies need your ma, like whiny Dinah needed her.”
“What?”
“Your grandma grounded your ma for sayin’ she wanted to be a homemaker. Then, she made Meganherma. I know Megan and I know when she lookin’ at Dinah picture sometime she feel like she failed her. She grieved for her and she grieved for Patrick. I know she feel like she failed him, too. When I got shot, not long after your ma came to the club, I told her I wanted a kid. She ain’t wantin’ to fail me like she think she failed her ma and our boy. It don’t matter how much I tell her sheeveryfuckinthingto me, that wound inside her ain’t healin’ up.”
“Then maybe she needs counseling.”
Dad shrugged.
“Is that why you want to leave her?”
“I don’t want to leave your ma, boy.”
“But you just said…fuck, never mind. What the fuck do I know?”
“I just don’t want your ma to die.”
“Even Jesus died, Dad.”
“For our sins. His death had a purpose.”
CJ shifted. “Er, Rule’s been praying for you?”
“Wilcunt been prayin’ for us, too.”
“Right. Uh, my point iseveryonedies.”
“He’s not everyone. He’s a Divine Being.”
