Hero(74)

“She was a sweet person,” I said. “A good person. But around my dad she changed. Our vacation at Good Harbor ended abruptly after my father showed up. Everything was okay the first day—more than okay, it was exhilarating like always. But the next day he was suddenly gone and my mom wouldn’t stop crying. She packed us up and cut the vacation short. It was kind of a theme as the years wore on.”

“Do you forgive her? For abandoning you for him?”

“I don’t know. She stopped being the mom I had when I was a kid. She put him before me.”

“She was human. She was flawed, Lexie. It doesn’t mean she didn’t love you.” He squeezed my hand. “Perhaps you should stop poking that seagull.”

My step faltered.

Caine smiled kindly. “She’s gone. It’s done. The only one you’re hurting here is you, baby.”

I blinked back more tears and squeezed his hand in return. “How did you get so wise?” I gave a halfhearted teasing laugh.

“I’ve always been very wise.” He tugged me gently back into step with him. “My mom was the same around my dad.”

It took every ounce of self-control I had not to trip in surprise at him mentioning his mother. As far as I was aware, this was a completely taboo subject. I kept utterly quiet, hoping he’d continue.

“My mom was a different person around my dad,” he admitted somberly. “It was like she was trying to be who she thought he wanted her to be.”

Tentatively I asked, “What she did … the choices that she made … did they shock you?”

“Yeah.” He stared out at the water as we walked and I studied his profile, looking for any signs that he was upset. But he seemed perfectly calm. “I was just a kid. I had no idea she was that selfish. It was just like you with your mom. You thought she was a superhero, right? Until you grew up. For me … I just happened to have the truth knocked into me a bit young.” He looked at me. “Do you want to know how I get through?”

I held my breath and nodded. I was transfixed. Awed. Gratified.

Caine was confiding in me.

“I concentrate on all the good things. Because people aren’t just one thing. Your mom wasn’t just weak and selfish and neither was mine. Your mom wasn’t unhappy all the time and neither was mine. There were times when my mother was more alive than anyone I ever met.

“She was obsessed with the color yellow. Wore it nearly every day, even if it was just a ribbon in her hair. And she had a ton of yellow ribbons.” He smiled softly, his gaze reflective. “She kept them in this cheap little jewelry box I won at a school fair.

“And she made everything an event. Even Sunday morning breakfast. She had this yellow dress … like a fifties dress. Dad and I would get up in the morning and there she was, in that dress, smiling as she made baked goods for breakfast. Not eggs and bacon, none of that. It was cakes and pastries and muffins. Because me and Dad had a sweet tooth.”

I fought back the tears at the thought of Caine’s happy childhood with a mother who sounded vivacious and caring.

“Dad was always saying how beautiful she was. How I had the most beautiful mom in the world. And I’d feel proud walking down the street with her. I’d feel proud as she walked me into school, because I had the most beautiful mom in the world.

“And she loved me,” he said, his eyes now filled with pain when he looked at me. “It took me a while after it all to remember that, but she loved me. It was always all about me as a kid. But looking back, I realized she would hold parts of herself back around my dad. It was just little things. Like, she used to sing all the time when he wasn’t there, but she wouldn’t sing around him. She was quieter. She deferred to him in everything, even things I’d seen her cope with on her own, understand by herself. And it was because he needed her to be that way; he needed to feel needed.

“But when she was with me she was take-charge. She knew what we were doing, where we were going. And she wanted a lot for me. That’s what I remember the most. She would tell me nearly every day how much she wanted me to have everything. Everything she never had.” He threw me a rueful smile that caused an ache in my chest near my heart. “She named me after some guy in a romance novel. She said his name made him sound like somebody, and she wanted me to be somebody when I grew up.”

“Is that why you’ve worked so hard to be somebody?”

He didn’t answer me. Instead he said, “Maybe you need to remember the best in your mom to forgive her, to move on.”