Page 70 of Sawyer
“No, as a mother.”
Her mouth flattened. “Shut your mouth. I’d be a terrible mother.”
“No, you wouldn’t.” He wasn’t seeing spots, but he could feel the brandy loosening up the tightness in his chest, making it easier to breathe. “You’re kind. You listen, and while you’re fiercely protective, you can be tender too.”
“Doc, you really must have lost a lot of oxygen to your brain if you’re calling me tender. I’m about to sharpen my cleaver and go hunt your bitch of a mother down with your dad as my next victim. Was it always like this when you had anxiety attacks growing up?”
“Yeah.”
“Who helped you when you had them?”
“Usually it was just me in my room—or if I was at school or a tutor’s place, the bathroom.”
She was grim now. “That’s what I thought. You know, you might have grown up in a fancy house in a cul-de-sac withtwo parents with big-time jobs, but it wasn’t so different for you and me.”
“What happened?”
They both turned as Kyle rushed through the back of the house, a worried look in his blue eyes.
“Who called you?” Madison barked.
He scowled as he reached them, putting a hand on Sawyer’s shoulder. “We have policies in this restaurant, remember? I get called if we have a disturbance. The head server called me about Sawyer’s parents showing up. Which my gut told me had something to do with Doc resigning yesterday.”
“Bingo,” she announced.
“So I went to find Doc and found him gone. I called back here and heard he was here with you, having some kind of episode our server feared might be medical.”
“It’s only a panic attack,” he managed, too weak to feel embarrassed. “I lost my shit. Because yeah, my parents are here because I resigned. My dean told them. They’re going to try and stop me from throwing my life away.”
“No one’s stopping you from doing anything, Doc,” Madison gritted out. “Now take another breath. You’re starting to freak out again.”
He sucked in more air as Kyle dragged another chair closer, sitting beside Madison. “Where are his parents? I want to?—”
Madison put a hand on Kyle’s knee, cutting off whatever he was going to say. “My cleaver has already come up. But we have to get Doc back into good shape, and then we need to talk about what he wants to do. Because he is not visiting them alone?—”
“After this?”Kyle spat. “Not happening. Sorry, Doc, I’m the first one to say everyone has a choice, but look what they do to you. And you haven’t even seen them yet.”
He hung his head, the ice bag slipping down his neck.Madison’s firm but gentle hands held it in place. “Dammit, I know. I was feeling so good. On top of the world. Completely at peace with resigning—like I told you last night. I woke up this morning happy. Even with Phoebe away in New York. Now look at me.” He held up his left hand. “It’s still shaking.”
“This is long-term abuse.” Kyle’s voice had a nasty edge. “All right, let’s go through what happened. From the beginning.”
Sawyer told his part, bolstered by a deep breath and another sip of cognac. When he finished, Madison filled in her portion about them coming to the restaurant, banging on the front door unceasingly until the head server cracked the door open, something he hadn’t known.
Yeah, his mother was relentless. She hadn’t liked hearing Sawyer didn’t live on the premises anymore and had demanded to see Nanine, which the server had said was impossible. The man had closed the door in her face, but his mother had continued to pound on it until Madison had arrived. She’d agreed to get a message to Sawyer after his mother had raved that he was out of his mind, quitting a successful job like he had. They’d ultimately left afterward.
“I lied about not knowing where you live, Doc, but if I go to hell for that, then there’s no shot at heaven for any of us.”
“I’m glad you lied,” he whispered, his chest aching now. “I’m sorry you had to deal with her. I know how awful she can be. My teachers used to avoid her when possible.”
“You should have called me, Mad,” Kyle told her. “I would have handled it.”
“We had a crazy woman banging on our front door, yelling. Do you really think I was going to wait for you to arrive? I couldn’t call the police on her either, obviously. Although give me a sec and let me imagine her being hauled off by the gendarmes in her mink coat and Jimmy Choos.”
“I told her that wearing fur’s insensitive,” Sawyer raspedout, taking another sip of brandy. “She scoffed, saying that’s what animals are for. And that it was a hundred-thousand-dollar coat and told people she was rich as fuck.”
“Your mother says ‘fuck’?” Kyle asked.
“Yeah, since I was a kid. She said it makes her a tough woman in business. You don’t mess with her. So true. I was always scared of her.”
