Page 66 of What We Had

“Connor.” My mother’s voice. Soft and low. “Sit, darling,” she said in a careful tone, as if speaking to a wounded animal. “Please.”

Moving on autopilot, I pulled over one of the wooden chairs next to her nightstand and sat at her bedside. My eyes were open, but I didn’t look at anything.

“This is all in regard to that boy, Bennett. Isn’t it?” she asked. I nodded. “He meant a great deal to you then. He does now, again. Yes?” Another nod. She breathed evenly for a beat. Then, my mother reached out her bony hand with an open palm. I slipped my hand into hers. So small, so frail. Incredible that those fingers of hers typed out some of the greatest plays of the modern age.

Cordelia took in a breath. “I see now what my actions have wrought. I apologize, Connor. I know that will not change the past.” She looked away from me. Shook her head. “You must understand that I didn’t quite understand your…” She pursed her lips. “I’ve known plenty of gay men in my life. God knows the theater is a safe haven for them. I knew the difficult life they had to live and I did not want that for my son. I thought, perhaps, that if I had you pursue other avenues, I might spare you that difficulty by nudging things forward for you. I had assumed that high school paramour of yours was nothing more than a phase.”

She looked down at her hand still holding mine and squeezed. I waited, held my tongue. When she looked up, she said, “I was wrong. I was so, very wrong. Look at the man you have become.” She released my hand and pointed to the secretary desk anchoring the corner of the room. “In there, if you will.”

I stood and walked to the desk, lifting the accordion lid to reveal a stack of printed paper. The topmost page had a script in the center. “Through the Winterby Cordelia J. Clarke.”

I picked up the stack and walked back to the chair. Sat beside her again. “Is this what you’ve been working on?”

“Indeed it is.” I flipped to the first page but her hand moved to stay mine. “Not yet, darling. Not yet. Tonight, after I’ve gone to sleep. Read it then. We can discuss in the morning.”

“Okay,” I said and locked my hands around the stack. “Feels… a little light for one of your plays.”

She smiled then. Something fierce. Prideful. “That’s because it’s not done. I won’t be finishing it.”

A well of tears formed. I blinked. “Ma…”

“Youwill finish it, darling.”

My back went stiff. “What?Me?”

“I’ve written the climax. The story is mostly complete. However, I need you to write the denouement. I think you’ll find it… cathartic.”

I could read between those lines. I laid my hand flat on the top of the unfinished manuscript. “Why now?”

“Don’t ask questions to which you already know the answers. It’s—”

“Unbecoming,” I finished for her with a smile. The well in my eyes had sprung free. “I’m sorry I came in so hot the way I did. Bennett and I just worked through some things. Prompted by a phone call from twelve years ago. Or, lack thereof, I guess.” I didn’t look at her when I said that. No, I still did not agree with how she withheld that information, but I understood why. Borne from a place of love. To protect me. “I’m sorry,” I said again, more to absolve myself for the anger toward my terminally ill mother that finally abated.

She nodded slowly. Her version of “apology accepted.” She looked to the window when she asked, “Do you love him? Walt’s boy.”

“I do, yes. More than anything.”

“Your uncle wishes to take the house from you specifically on the grounds that you are incapable of continuing your father’s line.” She rolled her eyes, a pedestrian gesture from someone as refined as her. “What a fool.” My mother looked back at me. “Fill this house with love, darling. It needs it.”

I stood and kissed her softly on her forehead. The lump in my throat continued to grow while a thin stream of tears went down my cheeks. My insides quaked. Toes crunched inside my shoes. I needed to get away, to be alone, so I could crumble. I gently shut her door and made haste into the kitchen, where I dropped the manuscript on the island. I took in shaky breaths. Little whimpers threatened each inhale and exhale. I paced, as if I could hold everything off. As if my masculinity was the only thing holding back some immature outburst that my ma was dying and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

“Connor.”

I turned, startled. Rachel stood under the arched entryway of the kitchen. She wore casual clothing, hair tied back in a ponytail. “Hey, come here,” she said and opened her arms to me. I collapsed into her, fought so damn hard to keep myself in a single piece of flesh. She cooed and whispered in my ear as I shook and convulsed.

“You gotta save those tears for when you read the play,” she said after a time.

“That good?”

“Magnum opus, I believe they call it.”

My mother was a talented storyteller. Each work she chose to release could have been considered her best, but that only ever came from the critics, never from within the circle. The fact that Rachel, her longtime assistant, unflinchingly named this one as the greatest, spoke volumes to its power.

“And,” Rachel said, in a quieter voice, “she wants me to direct it. That’s why she let me read the unfinished manuscript.”

I pulled out of our embrace. The shock helped shove me away from that odd fusion of grief and elation. “What? Stop it. Really?”

Rachel had been crying, though I didn’t know when. “Right after she fired me, of course.” We both laughed at that. “Called me incompetent. When she caught me rolling my eyes for the umpteenth time, she dropped that little bomb on me. I swear I have never seen her so happy in her life the moment she basked in my total surprise.”

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