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L O G A N
My mother was getting frailer every day. Her dress fit but looked as if it
were on the hanger, and the muted blue reflected on her skin as if she didn’t
have any color of her own. The formal twist in her hair and the makeup
she’d had someone carefully apply were a merry falsehood.
If she found out I’d lied about this, she’d break. In my grab for power, I
hadn’t even considered what losing trust in me would do to her health.
“I just haven’t had a chance to see you two together.” Mom put her
shaky hand on my arm to reassure me. “To feel it, is all.”
“Are you basing your opinion of my marriage on whether or not you
had the tingle? Mom, really?”
“I trust you know what you feel.”
“You should. You know I wouldn’t do this lightly.”
“I know,” she said. “I think I’m just angry with your father. He
shouldn’t have made that ultimatum. I told him not to.”
“Don’t be mad at him. Listen. Let me wait for Ella to get out, then we’ll
meet you out there, okay?” I kissed her cheek, and she hugged me as tightly
as she could. “I love you, Ma.”
“I love you too, sweetest,” she said. “You’re a good boy,”
With a smile seemingly meant to erase her own doubts as well as mine,
she walked carefully away, getting smaller in the distance until she was part
of the stream of people moving between dinner and the dance floor.
This was bad.
I’d made a mistake I couldn’t ever recover from. Not just my reputation
as the public face of Crowne Industries. Not only with the people I loved.
But my opinion of myself had curdled into a thick, sour mass.