Page 54 of Chance's Choice
“Can we sit, Mom?” I lift my chin and direct it towards the formal living room, a space filled with antique timber furniture set against lush cream carpets and floral wallpaper.
“Of course.” She leads the way into the room, and my heart pounds in my chest.
I tell myself that, regardless of her reaction, I’m going to be fine. I’ve made it twenty years without her in my life so, if she’s disgusted, I will manage to survive without her. Still, my palms are sweating and my stomach roils as I settle myself down on the cream leather couch with the scrolled timber armrests; the same couch I was never allowed to sit on as a child.
Mom perches on the edge of one of the two matching armchairs, in the one kitty corner to the end of the couch where I’m now seated. I swallow and decide to just drop all the information straight up, like ripping off a Band-Aid.
“I’m into kinky role play,” I tell her, which I’m sure comes off apropos of nothing, so I forge on. “Like, pet play and age play. With my boyfriend. Uh, Kade. Do you remember Kade? It doesn’t matter.” I shake my head. “Anyway, we, uh, we role play at home. My home. Which is supposed to be private.” I can’t look her in the eye, never having imagined that I’d have to make such a confession to my prim and proper mother. “Like…I don’t have close neighbors and my fences are six feet tall and there’s forestry…Well, you get the idea. So, imagine my horror to find out that Dad has had my place under some sort of surveillance. That he’s apparently got photos…” I trail off as Mom gasps.
“What?!” She sounds utterly horrified, but whether it’s at the idea of my kinks, or at the last bit of information I dropped, I’m not sure.
I glower across the room at the ornate fireplace which is unlit. The weather’s nowhere near cold enough to need it yet. “So, yeah. That’s, uh, why I’m here. He…he threatened Kade with the photos. Told him to dump me or lose his job. Kade chose me. But those photos are still out there somewhere and-”
“I’m going to kill him,” Mom seethes, which startles me enough that I snap my gaze over to her.
She looks livid. I think the only other time I’ve seen her so angry was the time I accidentally spilled a bottle of her nail polish over the carpet in my bedroom. (I was thirteen and I was going through a phase.) Her cheeks are mottled pink with her ire, and her scowl is only deepening all those new lines on her face.
“Wha-?” I attempt to ask, but she pushes out of her chair and storms out of the room, hollering for my father. I scramble to my feet, but I can’t make myself follow her.
My motherneveryells. Not even during the nail polish incident. Her anger has always been delivered in an icy, clipped kind of way. Until now.
There’s a muted clatter from somewhere further in the house, most likely Dad’s home office. Then I hear his heavy footfalls and the muffled sounds of his voice, presumably asking her what’s wrong.
Mom’s screaming blue murder at him by the time I force my legs to move, and I leave the living room and head into the house proper, making my way down the hallway where the noise is resonating from. As I step around the corner, I stop short at the sight in front of me.
There’s my diminutive mother, holing my father up against the wall and screeching at him almost indistinguishably while he holds his hands in surrender, utterly bewildered.
“Mom!” I shout, worried that she’s going to give herself a heart attack or something. “Mom, calm down.”
I step forward and put my arm around her shaking shoulders, pulling her away from him. “But he-”
“I know,” I say calmly, still a bit shell-shocked at this turn of events. “But we’re going to talk about it like adults.” Even though I’d come here with the intention of tearing into him myself, seeing Mom do it for me is satisfying enough. Now I just want to put it all behind me and get his guarantee that those photos will never see the light of day.
Dad’s blustering now, demanding to know what I’m doing in his house.
“It’s my house, too, Donald,” Mom hisses at him, and I tighten my hold on her just a little in case she decides to go into attack mode again. “And he’s our son.”
Dad scoffs, “He stopped being our son when he walked away twenty years ago, Deb. And if you knew half the depraved things he’s doing-”
“In the privacy of his own home,” she snaps at him, taking the words right out of my mouth. Before I can stop her, she’s marching forward again, poking a manicured nail into his chest. “Or whatshouldhave been considered private. What kind of lunatic are you, Donald Baker? Who violates their own child the way that you have?”
I’m in awe of my mother at this point.
Dad stammers, clearly never having seen this side of his wife either. “I…I…”
“You will get those photographs and destroy them, do you hear me? You’ll destroy any and all evidence of their existence.Thenyou will sign a document to promise that you’ve destroyed them, and that if any should somehow turn up unexpectedly to cause trouble for Chance and Kade in any way, you will forfeit your shares in the company to Chance and turn over the deed to this house to him. Am I understood?”
Holy shit. Can she even do that?
“Mom…”
She continues to stare Dad down, holding a single index finger up in my direction. “No. I’m handling this. I’ve lost two decades with you because I was too meek and mild to stand up to your father, but no more. He’s gone too far this time.”
Dad’s face is turning purple with some combination of rage and indignation. “Deborah,” he pleads, “be reasonable.”
“You will do exactly as I’ve said, Don, or not only will I divorce you, I will destroy you.”
“Mom!” I feel like I’ve walked into a soap opera.Days of Our Lives, eat your heart out.
