Page 74 of Sticks and Stones
She didn’t believe him. If she’d been in his position, she’d have thought of little else. “Okay.”
“Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, okay? I have thought about it.” He stared straight ahead, his fingers drumming on her leg. “But what am I supposed to do? Call her up and ask her why the hell she abandoned me? Why she didn’t care enough to come back for me? Whether she’s ever thought about me or…” He drew a shuddering breath and her heart ached for him, but she knew she couldn’t absorb his pain, as much as she might want to. “Regretted her decision. That’s what I really want to know,” he whispered. “If she had it to do all over again, would she do anything differently?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Gianna whispered. “Call her, Gunnar. Ask her to come here. Or you go to her. Whatever you feel is best.” She’d be there by his side if he needed her to be, though she understood if he felt it was something he had to do alone.
“I’ll think about it,” he promised, drawing her in for a kiss. “I promise, I will.”
***
Gunnar lay in the guest bedroom, trying to sleep. He and Gianna had made love after the girls fell asleep, but they agreed it would be best if they slept in separate bedrooms until they were ready to make it official again. He was ready. But he had to let her set the pace.
He was too tired and wired to sleep. Physically, he was exhausted. Mentally too. But his mind wouldn’t shut down. He kept playing it out in his head, imagining what he would say to his mother when they finally spoke.
He glanced at the clock on the bedside table. 2:04 a.m. “What the hell,” he muttered, reaching for the number and his cell phone. He could live with waking her up.
It rang a few times before an unfamiliar voice croaked, “Hello.”
“It’s…” He swallowed, propping a pillow behind his head. “Gunnar.”
“Gunnar?” she whispered in disbelief. “Is that really you? Oh my god, I can’t believe you’re really calling me.”
“Neither can I.” There was a long silence before he asked, “Why’d you wait so long to reach out to me?”
“I don’t know.” She coughed so long and hard it made him wince. “Why’d you wait so long to call me back? Same reason, I bet. You were scared, same as me.”
“I wasn’t scared,” he lied. “I was pissed. Big difference.”
“Okay, you were pissed. I get that. You have every reason to be.”
“Why’d you do it?”
It was the one question he’d always wanted to ask her, but he couldn’t believe he was asking it on the phone. Gianna suggested they meet in person, but he wasn’t even sure that was necessary. He didn’t want this woman in his life. He didn’t need her anymore. He just needed answers. He needed to know why she’d abandoned him.
“I had no money. No job. We were going to get evicted from that crappy apartment. The car wasn’t running. We would have frozen to death. I didn’t want that for you.”
“We could’ve gone to a shelter. At least we would’ve been together.” And he wouldn’t have been scared out of his mind, all alone in the world.
“And you wouldn’t have had a chance at a better life. That wouldn’t have been fair to you.”
“You think what you did was fair to me?” His voice was raspy, the heartache bleeding into every word. “It wasn’t. Don’t make yourself out to be a martyr, lady. You just didn’t want to be saddled with a kid, and you dumped me on someone else first chance you got.”
“If that’s what you want to believe, I can’t stop you. But it’s not true. I loved you. Still do.”
“You’re such a liar. You don’t even know the meaning of the word. You have no goddamn idea what it means to be a parent.”
“Do you?”
Her question couldn’t have hurt any more, especially since he’d been questioning that himself. “It’s not like I had anyone to teach me.” That wasn’t true. He’d had Gianna. She’d been the best example he’d ever seen of a loving and supportive parent. Thank God their girls had her.
“Neither did I. I guess that’s why I messed up so bad with you.”
He’d always wondered why he’d never had grandparents to take him in the way other kids did. “What happened to your parents?”
“I ran away from home when I was sixteen. Old man was a drunk. Living on the streets was better than livin’ in fear of him.”
Gunnar wanted to know if he’d ever hurt her, but that might mean he’d feel an ounce of compassion for her, and he was still too angry for that. “So you learned early on how to run, huh?”
“You too, I imagine.”
