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colton
My mind is racing, trying to understand why the hell Verona Carpenter would fly all the way across the country to see me. It must be important, but at the same time, it must be something of benefit to her, otherwise there’s no way in hell Melody’s rich bitch of a mother would have gotten on a plane to handle this. She would have had her asshole husband sort it out for her.
I had planned to reach out to her about visitation with Teddy, to make sure they know they can come see him in California, or that I’d make time for them when I visit my parents in South Carolina. But I’ve been so wrapped up in…well, I’d like to say I’ve been wrapped up in work, but really I’ve been wrapped up in Emily.
Dammit. If I’d just been focused, maybe I could have avoided whatever this is.
She didn’t visit us here after we moved away, only talking with her daughter on the phone and commenting on how small our house looked through FaceTime. And I can see on her face now as she takes everything in—the height of the ceilings, the furniture, the toys scattered on the rug—that she thinks just as little of it now as she did when she saw it over the phone.
“Why are you here, Verona?” I ask as she stands in my living room, looking at the photos I put up of me and Teddy on the mantle.
“I’m here to tell you that you and Teddy need to move back to Charleston.”
I pause, waiting for the rest of…whatever she’s going to say. But she’s silent, finishing her perusal of the photos then turning to look back at me.
“Uh, no. But thank you for the very kind invitation.”
“It’s not a request, Colton,” she tells me, her head tilting to the side. “It’s a requirement.”
At that, I actually start laughing. The audacity of this woman to come into my home and demand I pick up my life and move across the entire country…again…is absolutely laughable. Which is why I’m laughing.
“You’re out of your mind if you think you can come into my home and make demands like that,” I tell her. “I had been gearing up to reach out to you to talk about seeing Teddy, because as much as I think you’re a horrible human being, you and Bellows are the only connection my son has to his mother. And if you’re interested, I’m happy for you to spend time with him here in California, or when we’re visiting in South Carolina. But if you’re going to do bullshit like this, make sweeping demands when you have no right—”
That’s when Verona begins to laugh, the sound sending a chill racing down my spine.
“Oh, but I do have the right,” she tells me, her arms crossing as a witchy smile stretches across her face. “Here’s the deal, Colton, and you won’t have very long to accept it. You and your son will move back to Charleston so Teddy can have access to all the privileges a life like his mother’s would have afforded.”
“I already told you no.”
Her face goes red. “And if you refuse”—she lifts her shoulders and opens her hands in a bullshit What can you do? gesture—“we will file paperwork with the court to have a DNA test done to prove you are not Teddy’s father, after which we will petition the court for full custody.”
The floor drops out from beneath me.
My heart stops beating.
The earth ceases to spin.
“What are…”
I want to ask what she’s talking about. How she could do this. Where she would even come up with that idea.
But a small part of me has always known, right? I always knew there was a chance something like this could tear me apart one day.
I just have no idea how Verona would have learned…where she could have possibly gotten this information…
She walks toward me, looking like the cat that ate the canary, the pleasure in her expression almost enough to make me vomit. She is reveling in this, in the idea of tearing her grandson away from the only father he’s ever known.
“You have no…grounds…” I try to tell her.
But she laughs again and pulls a small book out of her purse. A small purple notebook that looks oddly familiar.
“I have plenty of ground,” she tells me. “You see, I’ve always known my daughter couldn’t be happy in a relationship with a man like you. Someone so…” She shrugs. “Well, you. But it seems she always knew it, too.”
I swallow thickly, staring at the purple book as Verona dumps it into my hands.
“She liked to journal when she was unhappy, you know. I remember her doing it as far back as high school. She had all these notebooks arranged on a bookshelf in her bedroom, detailing the very difficult life she led and how much she hated herself and wah, wah, wah.”
My shoulders fall, my soul aching at the idea that Melody had been writing out her feelings for almost two decades, that she had been struggling through something for years, and nobody really knew. Except for her mother, apparently.
