Page 86 of Tru Blue
Ice chilled Gemma’s veins. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, Gemaline. Surely you didn’t think I would let you see a man without having him thoroughly checked out. I can only assume you didn’t know about his felony conviction.” Her mother did not look at her as she spoke with maddening casualness. She was too busy nodding and smiling at her guests.
Anger assailed Gemma, stomping over the mild embarrassment that came with her mother’s unveiling of Truman’s dark past. “You would let me?”
“Of course, darling. You are my daughter. Someone has to watch out for you.”
When have you ever watched out for me?
“The man is a convicted murderer. You’re not safe with him, Gemaline. Now, you’ve had your little rebellion. It’s time to move on and find a more suitable man.”
Gemma’s stomach plummeted, not at her mother’s newfound knowledge or the casual way she delivered it, but at her mother demeaning her relationship with Truman. “And you were so worried about me, you chose to wait and tell me this at your fundraiser, where you thought I wouldn’t make a scene,” she seethed. “The truth is, Mother, I’m very safe with him. Safer with him than I ever was with you, because he’s a good person. He knows how to love with his whole heart, and he cares about me, not what I look like or what anyone else thinks of me. Do you even know why he was in prison, or don’t you care?”
“Murder, Gemaline. Nothing matters beyond that.”
Gemma stepped in front of her mother, forcing her to see her, maybe for the first time in her life. “His mother was being raped. He saved her. That matters. That’s the only thing that matters. Do you know what doesn’t matter, Mother?”
Her mother’s jaw tightened. She lifted her chin and looked down her nose at Gemma in cold silence.
“My dress,” Gemma said through gritted teeth, tears of anger and hurt filling her eyes. “What these people think of me, or—and it pains me to say it, even though it shouldn’t—what you think of me. None of that matters, because none of it is real. I’ve spent my life attending these functions because they’re important to you, and on some level I always hoped I’d become just as important. But it’s clear that all you see when you look at me is someone to marry off so you can throw a wedding or be connected with another rich family. Well, guess what? I’m done.” She held her mother’s steely gaze. “I’m done with trying to do the right thing by you when you have never done right by me.”
“Don’t you take that tone with me. What would your father say?”
Gemma scoffed, a bitchy, loud, attention-grabbing jeer. “How would I know what he would say? He never talked to me. And neither did you, except to tell me the litany of things I needed to improve. And you know what? I grew up just fine despite the two of you and your rampant need to be stoic and oppressive.”
Too carried away with the truth to stop, despite the guests now gaping at them, she continued her rant. “I know how to love, and I’m lovable, which I wasn’t really sure of for a good part of my life. I’m done coming to these ridiculously snobby events, and next time you speak to me, you will call me by my name. Gemma. And you’ll ask me how I am, or you won’t call me at all.” Under her breath she added, “Maybe a fake birth certificate isn’t the worst thing a child can have.”
“What?” her mother snapped.
“Nothing. Goodbye, Mother.”
On shaking legs, she made a beeline for the exit before her mother could misinterpret her tears for anything other than what they were—final acceptance of how little she meant to the woman who had given birth to her and finally moving on from it.
Waiting for the valet to bring her car was hell. She threw herself into the driver’s seat, and sobs erupted as she scrambled to pull her phone from her purse. What was she thinking, making Truman decide between keeping his children and doing what she thought was the right thing? He was the right thing. For the kids and for her.
She drove out of the parking lot and powered up her phone, intending to call and tell him just that, when her phone vibrated with a call and Truman’s face appeared on the screen, bringing more sobs.
