Page 40 of The Wish List
“I was seven, Suzy was five and a half. My father was away on one of his constant business trips. It was Suzy, Mom, and me as usual. She hadn’t been feeling well all day—Mom, that is. Tired. Out of sorts, she would call it. I had heard her ask my father not to go away that morning—to stay home and help look after us because she wasn’t feeling herself. He told her that was what nannies were for and to hire one, and he left. Mom was quiet all day, and she didn’t eat much supper. She kept rubbing her temples, but she would smile and say she was fine when I asked. After dinner, she said she was tired and going to have a nap and asked me to watch over Suzy. We played for a while, but Mom was still asleep.” He paused, his voice getting thicker. I could hear his barely contained emotions, and I braced myself for what he was going to say. I already knew how this ended, and I was horrified.
“I helped Suzy get ready for bed, and I brushed my teeth and got in my pajamas. I thought Mom would be so proud of me. I went to tell her and let her know I was going to bed, but—” he swallowed convulsively then took a sip of his scotch “—I couldn’t wake her.”
“Asher,” I breathed.
“She had an aneurysm. She’d fallen a couple of days before and knocked her head on the edge of the counter. She’d gotten up and laughed, saying how clumsy she was, and did nothing about it. It caused a blood clot. If my father hadn’t been so wrapped up in business, he could have stayed home. Made the connection between her fall and how she was acting. Taken her to the hospital and maybe saved her life.”
I moved closer, and he tightened his grip on my hand. He hadn’t looked at me once as he spoke, as if too wary to make eye contact. “I was seven. Alone with my baby sister and my dead mother. We lived in a large house, and the staff wasn’t there. We had a housekeeper, but she only came three times a week. Mom refused to have anyone help her ‘raise her babies,’ as she used to say, so no one was around. Not even a close neighbor, as we lived on a large estate.”
“What did you do?” I whispered.
“I was panicked. Scared. Emotional. But I remembered what Mom taught me. Called 9-1-1. The police and ambulance came. They took her away. Put Suzy and me in a foster home for the night. Tracked down my father.” He wiped a hand over his face. “My entire life changed that night, Rosie.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded and turned his head, finally looking at me. “When you said you had a headache, it all came rushing back. Finding my mom. Being alone with her. Scared and not knowing what to do. When you didn’t answer your phone, I became irrational. All I could think about was getting to you. To little Asher. Suzy told me I was overreacting. She warned me. But I had to come. I had to call Sherman and get him to come see you. I prayed so hard that I would find you okay. That there was a simple explanation for your not returning my calls.” He swallowed before speaking.
“That you weren’t lying dead on the sofa and AJ finding you. That through some sick twist of fate, I’d lost another woman the same way I’d lost my mom.”
His voice cracked, and I couldn’t stop myself. I climbed into his lap, wrapping my arms around him and holding him tight.
“I’m here, Asher. Right here.”
He gripped me tightly. “Thank God.”
* * *
ASHER
I had taken a chance, coming back to Rosie’s place. One I knew could blow up in my face. I had crossed a line that morning. Suzy had tried to warn me, begged me to be patient, but I hadn’t listened. I couldn’t listen. The images from my childhood hit me hard, wrapping around my brain until that was all I could see. Feel. Think about. I had to make sure Rosie was okay. And on the off chance she wasn’t—I wanted AJ to have someone there to care for him. I never wanted a child to feel the swamping panic and grief I’d felt at a situation they couldn’t control.
But she had let me in and listened. Now I had her in my arms again, a warm, soft weight on my lap. I inhaled her feminine scent, feeling the calm she brought with her. It settled into my chest and thawed me. Eased away the tension I had been carrying around all day. First the fear of something happening to her, then her anger when I stuck my foot in my mouth.
I had wandered my condo all day, unsure what to do with myself. How to put aside the feeling I had somehow lost something intrinsically precious to me with no idea how to get it back.
She eased back, cupping my face. Her lovely eyes were damp.
“I’m sorry,” I said, sliding my hand around to the nape of her neck, the skin silky under my touch. “Please tell me you forgive me and we can go forward.”
“Is that what you want?” she asked quietly. “To go forward?”
“Yes,” I insisted. “Aside from this morning, has anything indicated I don’t?”
“Our lives are so different. You need to get somewhere fast, you take a helicopter. I take the bus. You can buy anything you want. I save for the smallest of treats. I don’t think I can compete, and I wonder how long it will be until those differences become too much.”
I shook my head, the panic returning. “I don’t want you to compete. Yes, I can buy anything I want. For me. You. AJ. Anyone. Those are material things. I can’t buy the feeling I get when I’m close to you. When AJ makes me laugh. How much of a man I feel like when I do something and you smile at me. Kiss me. Those things are far more precious and rarer.”
She frowned, and I pulled her close, kissing her again. “The time I spent with you and AJ made me feel alive. Happy. I have missed you so much and was so anxious to get back here. The only other person I have ever missed is my mother.”
“What about your dad?”
I sighed, hating this subject. “My dad wasn’t a bad person. He didn’t beat us or hurt us in any way, except to avoid us. Mom was the main parent. He was driven to succeed. Work was his top priority all the time. The only disagreements they ever had were about his being gone so much. I remember her telling him that his presence was more valuable than more money in the bank. But he was obsessed with wealth. He’d grown up dirt poor and made himself into the business tycoon he became. He always said he’d stop when he had enough money to relax.” I barked out a low chuckle. “He was never satisfied. After Mom died, we had housekeepers, babysitters, tutors. He buried his feelings and his mind in accumulating more wealth. Power. Status.”
“He never remarried?”
“No.”
“He must have loved your mother very much.”
