Page 37 of Loving Taylor
Chapter Eleven
It was there, sitting beside my mother, looking into her glittering eyes filled with excitement, that I had a thought. If I failed to embrace what I could have with her now, I was throwing away the second chance we had been given.
There had to be a reason she had survived to clean up her act. It couldn't all be for nothing.
It made me look at her differently while she told me about her week. Her smile was infectious and I found myself smiling too. I also noticed a light in her eyes that I had never seen there before. For the first time, I looked at her as she was, not the drunken mother who hadn't been able to cope with the responsibility of a young child who had been a constant reminder of one mistake that had changed her whole life.
I would always have the difficult memories from my past, but I couldn't allow them to shadow my future.
That night Sally retired to her room after I assured her I would put my mom to bed later. I stayed up for a while, talking to my mom. It was way past her bedtime when I helped her to her room and pulled the covers up to her shoulders.
"I love you," she murmured. There was so much emotion in her eyes that I found it hard to pull my eyes away from her and sever the connection between us.
I wanted to say the same back but I couldn't. Even if I had realized I could give her more than I had before, I wasn't ready to say those words to her. I still needed more time.
I gave her a kiss on her cheek before switching off her light.
Letting out a deep breath, I sat down in the living room. My phone started to ring and I answered it before it could wake anyone else.
"Boss," the voice said and I instantly recognized who it was. Besides, there was only one person who called me that.
"Jeff," I greeted, leaning back into the chair.
"You at your mom’s?" he asked.
"Yeah."
The call abruptly disconnected and then there was a faint knock at the door. I got up and answered it. Jeff stood outside. His head was shaved and the array of tattoos that covered his body only added to the aura of danger that surrounded him.
He was a good friend of mine and Slater’s who we’d met when we had joined a gang. Unlike a lot of the other members, I had seen some good in him. Like Slater and me, he had only joined the gang for survival. And I trusted him.
It was only after I had inherited the money from my father that I had the freedom to pay our way out of the gang. And there was no way I was going to turn my back on Jeff and leave him to a dangerous life. He was my friend and had pulled me out of more than a few dangerous situations.
"It's good to see you," I said, bumping fists with him.
"I saw your car." He nodded in the direction of my Jeep.
"Yeah, it was a last-minute decision." I shrugged.
Employing Jeff had been the next logical step for me. It was a way for him to earn a living and keep him on the right side of the law. I had someone to watch over my mother. Not many people knew what I was worth but there were a few unsavory people who did and that was one too many for me. Jeff was my security.
From the start of our arrangement he'd gone from calling me by my name to 'Boss.' I had told him it made me feel like a Mafia boss but he had refused to call me something different. He regularly checked in on my mom and kept an eye on things for me.
We talked softly, standing outside on the porch. He lit up a cigarette. It was a habit I was glad I had never picked up.
There hadn't been much going on but I could not let my guard down. I didn’t know if there would ever be a time when I wouldn’t be looking over my shoulder. It came with the territory of having been in a group of law-breaking individuals who had no conscience when it came to getting what they wanted.
Drugs and guns had only been the tip of the iceberg.
"You wanna beer?" I asked. He shook his head.
"I need to go." I nodded, knowing he had responsibilities. He had a sister he looked after. She was younger than him and I knew she was still in high school. I didn't know why his parents were missing in his life. It was something he had never opened up about. Looking back at my childhood, I don't know how I would have coped if I’d had the responsibility of a younger sibling. Getting through it on my own had been difficult enough. It made me respect Jeff more.
He left, disappearing into the night, and I went back indoors.
When I finally made it into bed I was tired. I had come here thinking I would hate every minute of being in my mother's company but it hadn't been that bad. I rubbed my chin as I looked back on my conversation with her.
I didn't feel that usual resentfulness or simmering anger. Somehow I had managed to view the relationship with my mother a little differently and it had made it easier to be around her. We were still a long way off a normal mother-and-son relationship, though.
