Page 29 of Breakdown
Either way, it didn’t seem like a great idea to let Nik stick around his mother any longer than he had to. “Better get back to work, huh?” Peter prodded gently. “Thanks for the coffee, Nik.”
“No problem. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do,” Nik said, directing his gaze at Peter. “I am just in the garage if you need me.”
“Thanks again,” Cynthia called to his receding back. She watched him until he disappeared behind the closing door and then arched a knowing eyebrow at Peter. “Business partners, huh?”
Peter had been worrying a little about what coming out to his mother would look like. It was just one of thousands of moments they’d missed in the decades apart. Something in her tone told him she already knew, perhaps had known before she ever walked out the door, and she planned to make this easy for him. It didn’t tamp down his misgivings entirely, but he wanted to hug her for that simple gift.
“We’re together,” Peter said, and he couldn’t keep the stupid, ridiculous grin off his face that broke out whenever he really stopped and thought about that fact.
Something golden and genuine sparked in his mother’s eyes, the skin creasing at the corners, lighting up her whole face. “How long?”
“A little over a year and a half.”
“And how long have you been trying to go legitimate?” Cynthia asked, like she already suspected the answer.
“A little over a year and a half,” Peter admitted.
“Thought I had pretty good odds on that one.” She smiled softly. “And he’s good to you?”
“Yeah, Nik’s...”Everything.Peter dialed it back a few notches, not just because he’d die before he uttered anything that sappy or that truthful out loud. Cynthia’s gift was ingratiating herself with people, even as a kid he’d seen that. He didn’t want to give her too much of himself until he knew why she was back and if she planned to stay. “—a really great guy,” he finished lamely.
“You two look good together. Not even just now but...” Cynthia sketched her hand in front of herself vaguely. There was a story in that dismissive gesture but, like Peter, his mother was holding things back until she had the lay of the land. “Frank sent me pictures sometimes. From the restaurant security cam. You and Liv, mostly, when you’d go over after school, but there was one of you and Nik, too, last year,” she continued softly. “I kind of felt like I got to see you grow up, even though I wasn’t there in person. It was something at least. I know it wasn’t enough, but it was something.”
Peter felt his throat lock up at her admission. Christ, it wasn’t fair how that splintered him and put him back together all at the same time. All the nights he’d lain awake as a kid, staring out over the lights in the valley and wondering if she ever thought about him, feeling unworthy, abandoned and stupid for even considering it, she had been.
And yet she’d stayed away, even after Erik was behind bars. She hadn’t needed Peter the way he’d needed her. She’d seen those photos and that had been enough. Perhaps, she looked at those pictures and been sure her flesh-and-blood son could never match the uncomplicated one smiling in those photos. Peter was more than worried she was right.
Cynthia stood up from the chair again, resuming her fidgety inspection of the cramped office. She didn’t bolt out the door though, and Peter considered it a small victory. “This is a nice life you’ve made for yourself here.” She returned to the princess doll, stroking the hem of the sequined dress pensively. “You got a little girl?”
Peter shook his head, then amended the motion to settle into an awkward half-nod as he struggled to keep his voice steady. “She’s Nik’s, thank God. I’m not exactly great at the whole ‘setting a good example’ thing as a parent.” He still couldn’t shake the way Mia had looked at him the other morning, terrified and anxious.
“Hate to break it to you, kiddo, but I think that sort of runs in the family.” Her expression was rueful.
“I’m sorry for Liv tonight,” he muttered. He didn’t sound like himself, choked and gravelly.
“Don’t be. She’s not wrong. Cynthia Bauer, reigning loser of Mother-Of-The-Year thirty-four years and running.” She blinked hard. “Look, I don’t blame your sister for being pissed. Or you, for that matter. I don’t have a magical explanation that will make everything better. I did what seemed best at the time, but most of my decisions to that point had been bad, so I’m not sure that one was any different.”
It had been easier, almost, once he started believing her dead: to forgive her, to forgive himself, to move on. Her being alive all those years meant something different. In theory, he knew that, but it hadn’t caught up to him yet. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted it to. Because he wasn’t mad, really. Hurt, yes. Frustrated, confused, betrayed even. But not angry.
He didn’t want to speak for Liv, but it was easier than diving into his own murky pool of emotions. “I think it’s just sometimes Olivia feels robbed of a childhood, you know? She had to grow up pretty fast. It got hard for her after you left.”
“It sounds like it got hard for both of you,” his mother said quietly, staring down into her cup.
Peter rubbed at the scar on his forearm self-consciously, hidden from her beneath his sleeve. It was still too raw after all these years, and he couldn’t articulate the misery of that moment to her properly. How could he explain that his father snapped his arm at eleven years old in the middle of the kitchen, and he’d just spent most of his life believing he’d deserved it? He didn’t know how to burden her with his childhood full of abuse and the nagging feeling in his soul that he’d never be quite free of it.
“Not like I did myself any favors. I was a pretty shitty kid.” He sniffed aggressively—a stupid, pacifying gesture, like some unseen bump of oxy might make this question easier. But God, he had to ask her. So she would stay this time. So he wouldn’t accidentally drive off Nik the same way. “S’why you left, wasn’t it?” He tried to keep it light, but his voice betrayed him, cracking on the last word.
“Sweet-pea.” She reached over to brush his hair behind his ear, a sudden, tender gesture that he wasn’t sure if he remembered or just imagined from his childhood. It was different now though, the ache of need causing his chest to clench up. “It wasn’t anything you did. I left because of me, not because of you or your sister. I was a drug addict in an abusive relationship. I needed to get myself better.”
He’d heard it all from Dr. Kavazanjian, that of course it wasn’t his fault. His father had used his mother’s absence to gaslight and control him. He knew it intellectually, but here was his mother in the flesh validating him.
It was everything Peter wanted to hear. So why did it still feel like a letdown?
She left to get well, but she didn’t seem to understand the type of sickness she had left behind—in Peter, in Liv, in all those empty, lonely, vacated moments—with her absence.
“Trust me, kiddo, you and your sister were better off without me. I was never going to be the mom you needed me to be,” Cynthia said, grim and resolute. “I just wasn’t cut out for it. On some level, you understand that, right?”
“Yeah, sure.” Peter’s hands were trembling so hard he had to set down his coffee. “I get it.” Fresh shame washed over him and along with it, the reminder of all the times he’d thought about just slipping out the back door on Nik and Mia in the middle of the night so they could find someone more equipped at giving them the life they needed.
