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Understand and have sympathy for your fellow man. He wanted Vivian to understand why he was so upset over her actions in Las Vegas—even if she hadn’t actually cheated. She needed to see why the person responsible for the Sisyphean task of keeping cheating out of the city of Chicago couldn’t be living with a woman who’d been one second away from cheating herself.
If you can’t bring yourself to understand why she might have done what she did, you can’t expect her to understand you. The truth of that statement was as uncomfortable in his mind as the kneeler was on his knees.
When Mass was over and he’d greeted the priest and several other parishioners he knew, Karl stepped out into the grey Chicago winter and checked the text message on his phone.
Working the lunch shift at Healthy Food. Your mom has been asking to see you. Be a good son.
What did Vivian know about being a good son? She was hiding from her father.
She’s hiding from her father because he asked her to violate her morals and she’s afraid she’ll say yes if she sees him again. You should support that. And you are hiding from your mother.
Forgiveness and understanding should be easier with the realization that he shared something in common with Vivian. And that she was right about being the good son. He got into his car and turned out of the parking lot toward his mother’s house.
Letting himself into his mother’s house and finding her sitting in an easy chair with a blanket wrapped around her and a pot of tea on the side table, Karl disagreed with his conscience. He wasn’t hiding from his mother—that would imply she could seek him out. He was avoiding seeing his mother’s pale face and the pills on the coffee table.
“Don’t look so scared. I just woke up from a nap.” The rosy-cheeked, robust woman who nagged him about running for mayor was gone, replaced by a stranger with sagging skin at her neck. When had his mom gotten old? “If you’d come to see me after one of my short walks with Vivian, you’d see I’m hale and hearty.”
He gave her a kiss on her dry cheek and sat on the couch. “You look fine, Mom. Better.”
“You’re lying, but you’re doing it more to comfort yourself than me, so I’ll forgive you.” She smiled indulgently at him. “It took you three days to come see me.”
“I’ve been busy.” God, those words sounded hollow while worrying he would knock over her pill bottles. He counted three. Were there more? “Is Vivian taking good care of you?”
“She’s a sweet girl.”
“We were here for dinner, and you didn’t like her at all.”
“I didn’t know you were having a baby.” His mom patted his knee. The last time someone had patted his knee had been the doctor at Vivian’s prenatal appointment—and before that it had been years. At least his mom’s wasn’t a pity pat. “She’s caring and patient. Good at managing me without seeming like she is. She’ll be a good mom to my grandbaby.”
Vivian could have horns and spit fire, and his mom would still love her because she was providing the grandchild. His sister Renia’s daughter, Ashley, had been given up for adoption. And even though Ashley had gotten back in contact with Renia, an eighteen-year-old girl two states away wasn’t the same as a newborn his mom could coo over. His mom was excited to have Ashley back in contact with the family, but Karl thought it only reminded her how much she wanted to be surrounded by grandkids. Not to mention she was still looking for someone to take over Healthy Food one day. Tilly wouldn’t do it; a grandchild might, eventually.
“Which sister spilled?”
“Vivian told me. She said everyone else knew, so I might as well. I don’t know why you were keeping it a secret.”
Because Vivian wanted to, and I still wanted it to be a dream. Not wanting to change the past wasn’t the same thing as looking forward to the future. “It’s bad luck to tell people before the third month.”
“Edward says she’s doing really well at Healthy Food. The neighborhood is excited your wife is working there and she took to the register and hosting really naturally.”
She took to the register really naturally….
