A Mother Would Know (7)

“I guess.” Hudson drops the articles back into the box, and then, wandering over to the couch, he takes a sip of his wine.

I frown as I close the file folder, his dismissiveness making me feel stupid. “Well, I find it interesting.”

“Yeah, no, I think it is,” he says, even though his tone betrays that he doesn’t. “I was just surprised. I thought maybe the box was filled with, like, new music you were writing or something.”

“Oh.” I carry my glass to the couch, joining Hudson. “No, I don’t have any new music.”

“You’re not doing music at all anymore?”

“No, not right now.”

“Why not?”

I close my mouth, run my tongue along my top teeth a minute, thinking of how to answer. I have no idea how much Hudson knows. Kids understand a lot more than we think. And he was a teenager when Flight of Hearts broke up. But he was also dealing with his own crisis—Heather—and on the heels of that, his dad got sick.

What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

So I give him the pat answer: “It’s just not the right time.”

Hudson lets out a bitter sound, kind of between a snort and humph. “Seems like this is finally the right time.”

I’m dumbfounded. “Really?”

“Yeah, I mean, you have nothing else going on.”

I run my fingertips along the stem of my wineglass, my flesh catching on a minuscule chip in the glass. A tiny bubble of blood appears. I wipe it away. “That’s not true. You have no idea what I’ve got going on. You haven’t been around.”

“Neither were you when we were growing up.”

“That’s not fair.” I expect this kind of pushback from Kendra, but I’m a little surprised that it’s coming from Hudson. “I was working. And it’s not like you were alone. Your dad was with you.”

“Yeah,” he huffs. “Dad.”

“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” my mother always said.

It’s not like I don’t know what he’s referring to, but I’m in no mood to get into a conversation with Hudson right now about his father. The one we are already having is uncomfortable enough. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been berated for the time I spent away from my family. The insults used to come from the other moms.

“She’s never around,” they’d whisper, loud enough for me to hear when I’d pass them at the school or in the grocery store.

“That poor Darren does everything for those kids.”

It wasn’t true. But so what if it was? Darren was their dad. Was it so terrible for him to do things for his own children? He’s the one who wanted to be a father so badly in the first place.

I’ve taken the abuse all these years, but now I’m tired of it.

“I shouldn’t have to make excuses for pursuing my dream,” I snap. “You’d understand if you’d ever had one.”

The sides of his mouth twitch. One eyebrow cocks, the vein in his forehead pulsing.

“I’m sorry,” I say, wishing I could shove the words back inside.

“You always go too far, Valerie,” Darren used to say, frowning. “Aim right for the jugular.”

My statement doesn’t even ring true. Hudson had had a dream once. For many years, actually, he’d wanted to become a professional baseball player. Worked hard at it, too, and he was pretty good. Darren cautioned him to come up with something more realistic, but I’d admonished Darren for his negativity. My parents had been that way about my dream to become a professional singer, too. Many Christmases, I asked for voice or piano lessons, but never got them.

I did save my own money from Christmases and birthdays in order to buy myself a keyboard when I was ten, though. After that, I taught myself how to play the chords. Finally, in high school, I got a job at a local pizza place and made enough to pay for lessons on my own. My parents always told me it was a silly dream. They thought I should focus on more practical goals. To my dad that meant going to college or “beauty school” (his words, not mine). To my mom, that meant marrying a rich man. Neither of their ideas appealed to me in the least, and I had hoped to one day prove them both wrong. Show them that my dream wasn’t silly. That music was a viable career. But by the time Flight of Hearts’ first album was made, Mom’s mind was gone. Dad was still alive, but he never acknowledged my success. I think he went to his grave thinking I’d chosen the wrong path in life.

I’d had no intention of squashing my son’s dream. I did everything in my power to support it—paying for lessons, driving him to practices and dropping him off at the batting cages. Unfortunately, Hudson’s life came crashing down after that horrible incident in high school, and he gave up on his dream. Pretty much gave up on everything.

It wasn’t his fault, and now I feel like an ass for what I said.

Hudson stands. “I think I’m gonna go to bed.”

“No. Wait.” I stand, too, glancing at the red liquid remaining in his glass. “At least finish your wine.”

“Fine.” He knocks it back. “I’ll put my glass in the sink,” he says, hurrying from the room.

Sighing, I sink back down on the couch to finish my own glass. By the time it’s empty, the house is quiet, save for Bowie’s snoring, the occasional tick of the clock, the moaning of the floorboards beneath my feet. There’s no way to walk stealthily in this house. Every step creaks and cracks like an old lady’s bones. I’ll admit, I found it annoying when the kids were younger, when the noises would wake them just as I’d gotten them to sleep.