Page 174 of The Husband Game

“Well how about that?” The auctioneer beamed. “Why don’t you come up here too, Charlie, and say hi to your mom!”

Numbly, Charlie rose to his feet.

He couldn’t see anything but his mother as he crossed the room.

She stood 5’3” tall and even frailer than the last time he’d seen her. Her arms were almost birdlike in her strapless dress and her eyes were huge in her face.

But as small as she was, she seemed to loom over everything else, sucking out all of the oxygen in the room until Charlie could barely breathe.

As he got closer, he could see she’d recently had fillers to pad out the gauntness of her cheeks and they gave her an unnaturally youthful appearance, her skin stretched tightly over them, her eyes a little sunken.

Charlie’s throat thickened because he could see how badly she was doing. How ill she was. And a part of him still wanted her to get better.

He hated what she’d done to him but he also hated seeing her waste away like this.

Feeling like he was moving underwater, Charlie greeted her with a stiff hug then let Dustin usher them both off the small temporary stage and into the nearby hallway.

“Surprise!” Jacqueline said, smiling brightly at them both. “Oh Charlie, your husband is so handsome. I can’t believe it’s been almost five months and you haven’t introduced us yet!”

Numbly, Charlie realized she was going to pretend like everything was normal.

She was banking on the fact that Charlie hadn’t told Dustin about their estrangement. She assumed Charlie was like her, too caught up in maintaining the appearance of being perfect to be honest with the man he was married to.

Charlie glanced over at Dustin, taking in his worried frown.

He was concerned, but he hadn’t taken over. He’d step in if Charlie asked but otherwise, he trusted Charlie to handle this.

The calm certainty and support reminded Charlie he had the strength to do what needed to be done. He took a few deep, calming breaths.

It allowed the fog in his head to lift and with it came clarity.

Charlie turned to face his mom. “Please leave. You aren’t welcome here.”

She let out an incredulous little laugh. “What on earth are you talking about, sweetheart?”

Charlie’s voice shook a little but he squared his shoulders and pointed to the exit door. “I mean it. Get out.”

“I’m your mother.” She had the nerve to look offended.

Charlie swallowed. “You should have been. I worshiped you and you should have been the kind of mother who looked out for her son. Who listened. Who understood when he was hurting. But you didn’t.”

She let out a nervous little laugh. “What on earth are you talking about, sweetheart? Your father and I gave you everything you could ever want. We sacrificed so much for your skating career and—”

“No. You gave me the life you wanted, Mom,” he said calmly. “And I know you don’t understand the difference. I know you will never be able to understand why I left skating or why I cut you out of my life. You aren’t capable of that. Because you’d have to admit you are less than perfect and that you made me hate myself by trying to mold me into what you wanted me to be rather than accepting me and loving me for who I am.”

He took a deep breath. “But I am enough just the way I am and I deserve better from you.”

Charlie glanced over at Dustin. His jaw was clenched and he looked furious, but only on Charlie’s behalf.

“Mom, if you loved me half as much as that man loves me, I wouldn’t have spent most of my life killing myself to make you happy.”

She gasped. “Of course I love you.”

He gave her a sad smile. “You loved me the best you could. But you are ill,” he said. “You need help. And if you had ever come to me and said you were sorry, acknowledged that you were the reason why I ended up in the hospital, malnourished and—”

“Oh don’t be silly. You were a little under the weather, sweetheart. That was all. A little low in B-12.”

“I wasn’t a little low in B-12,” he snapped, incredulous. He knew she was wrapped up in her own little self-protective delusions, but it was terrifying how divorced from reality she actually was. “I was dying. And you couldn’t see that.”

---