Tangled (32 page)

“No
need to get violent,” Lionel said with sorrowful smile. “I loved Selene. I
always have. Always will. But it’s been a long eleven years. And every year
that goes by her chances of recovery decline.”

Adonis
felt the anger leave him in one cold rush, as if he were the one being gutted
and strung out to dry.  “What are you saying?”

“Your
mother’s coming off life support.”

Chapter 19

Adonis
left out early start the next morning. As much as he wanted to hole up in his
apartment, the visit couldn’t wait. He’d been putting this off long enough. Eleven
years to be exact.

He
swallowed thickly, forcing down the knot of emotion balling in his throat.

When
his father first broke the news, his first instinct had been to call Tess. She
was the only person privy to his complicated relationship with his mother. Unsure
of where exactly they stood, he decided against it.

He sped-punched
Cameron’s number instead. Although he’d held out hope, it didn’t come as a
surprise when he didn’t respond to his voicemail or texts.

Adonis
knew he was guilty on all counts of abusing their friendship. He didn’t think
it warranted blatant disregard during one of the darkest chapters of his life. The
feckless little shit. His mother was about to lie in a refrigerated box and
Cameron couldn’t let bygones be bygones for two fucking days.
 

Burying
the hurt beneath festering resentment, he made the journey upstate solo.

Adonis
held no misconception of what his father had really been after all these years.
Shortly following his grandfather’s death, his grandmother had taken ill and
wasted away, leaving all of their assets, properties, brokerage accounts to
their only child, his mother.

Bound
by miles of red tape and legal safeguards, Lionel only had access to a
relatively small portion of her inheritance. In a bout of either absolute
clarity or raging paranoia, his mother had sealed the bulk of her legacy in an
ironclad will, well out of reach of her philandering husband. The real kicker
was her appointment of a close friend as her health care power of attorney.

Unable
to pull the plug, unable to divorce her for fear of losing out on his share of
the fortune, and unable to marry his mistress, Lionel had been forced to vacillate
in limbo for over a decade, the very definition of impotent.

No
wonder he bore such a grudge against him.

But
in lieu of her impending mortality, Lionel’s years of patient waiting were
finally going to pay off.
 

Fury
lit Adonis’s blood at the thought of his father becoming successor. Lionel knew
absolutely nothing about ships. So he owned a few yachts. Yachts were tugboats,
children’s playthings, compared to the massive, thousand ton behemoths that
dominated his grandfather’s shipyard.

Papu
would kill himself all over again if he knew his good for nothing son-in-law becoming
heir to the
Argyros
empire.

Adonis
looked out of the window as the driver turned onto a paved, single-lane road.

Beyond
salt-crusted embankments of blackened slush and ice flanking the street, acres
of snowfall stretched for as far as the eye could see. The picturesque landscape
resembled a page taken from a child’s storybook, a veritable winter wonderland.
He had to squint to distinguish the separation of earth and sky. Everything was
so crisp, so glitteringly white that only groves of barren trees, their boughs
heavy with ice, broke up the space.

After
checking in, the receptionist wrote down his mother’s suite number and offered
him sympathetic smile.

Nausea
pipelined to his esophagus as he shuffled to her room. His feet were leaden
weights. The muscles in his legs contracted, longing to flee. Was the hallway narrowing
or was it his vision?

His
hands clammed as he came to her door.

Time
to nut up or shut up.

Taking
a deep breath, he twisted the knob and stepped inside.

The
room was large, spacious. Goldenrod drapes bordered the windows. The plush
carpet silenced his footfalls. It was obvious no expense had been spared, not
that his mother cared.

Slowly
he approached the twin-sized bed, his gaze skimming everything but the figure
lying in its center. An armchair faced her bed. Adonis made a beeline for it,
eyes still downcast. 

A
dainty hand lying prone on the sheets entered his line of vision first. His
stomach cramped. Her frame wasn’t as bony and wasted as it’d been before the
accident, during the pique of her career. His gaze moved up her neck and
finally to her face.

The
breath rushed out of him.

Eleven
years had passed and yet she looked the same, as if they’d cryogenically frozen
her, encapsulating her youth and beauty.

Tears
stabbed him. Her complexion glowed with health and vitality and if it hadn’t
been for the crisscross of tubes, intravenous drips and the mechanical
respiration machine bleeping steadily alongside the bed, her condition could’ve
been mistaken for sleep.

“Mom.”
The verbalization of a name he hadn’t pronounced for so long shattered him.
Without reserve, he picked up her hand, relishing in its familiarity. If he
really concentrated he could feel the faint flutter of her pulse. She was
alive, not dead, not gone, not yet. Hot tears paved silent tracks over his
cheekbones and he gripped her hand harder.

It
was easier to hate her when she was just a fading memory, a yellowing snapshot he
desperately wanted to keep buried.

Laid
out in front of him, so helpless and vulnerable, he couldn’t demonize her. He
didn’t see the woman whose capricious mood swings taught him early on how to tread
lightly. Who didn’t care enough about their family to get better, to hold it
together. Who would disappear for weeks on end without a
word.
Who would yell and shriek at him for no reason. Who would crash to her knees in
tears and yank him into her arms when she realized what she did.

Despite
the ugly truth, she was still his mother.

“Here Adonis. You try.” Her smile was
blinding, beautiful as she handed him the paintbrush, the slick-tipped bristles
already primed. “It’s easy.”

“Painting is stupid.”
 

“It’s only stupid because you suck at
it.” His brother cackled.

He hurled the paintbrush at his forehead.

If
only she would wake up, he could forgive her. They could be a family again. They
could leave the country and move to Greece. He’d take over the shipping
business and she could go back to painting. He would even show her the things
he’d dabbled in during her lengthy absence.

He huddled near the base of the
staircase, knees pulled tight to his chest as she screamed. He shrunk back as a
plate shattered against the wall.

Someone sitting next to
him.
“Adonis, what’re you doing?”

“Why is she acting like this?”

“It’ll be over soon.”
His
brother’s thin arm cradling his shoulders.
“Come on. Let’s paint
something for her. It’ll make her feel better tomorrow.”

She
tried so hard to get him involved with art as a child. Petulant as he was, he
refused to become involved.

But
not this time.
This time, things would be different. They would be different. They could seek
therapy together and coach one another to take their meds.

And
all she had to do was open her eyes.

“Look Mom. I made something for you.”
Tentatively presenting the picture.

Her lying face up on the sofa, her eyes
vacantly fixated on the ceiling.

“Please, Mom.” Pushing her shoulder.
His stomach bloating with anguish, anger.
Why couldn’t she
be normal? “Say something.”

Her head rotating.
Tears spiking her lashes.
They fell harder the longer
she stared at him. “I’m sorry.”

He
mentally willed her to do so, pleaded to her. He was tired of being alone.
Tired of struggling to find a reason to live every day.
 

The
longer he stared, the harder the tears began to fall.

Fuck.
This was exactly why he’d never come to see her. What use was it sitting by her
bedside hoping that she’d magically awaken? Adonis had saved himself years of
agony. He didn’t understand how people could do this, wishing and praying day
after day.

“No matter what, I’ll never stop loving
you.”

He was tired of hearing that. It made his
tummy hurt when she forgot or left them. “I don’t need you! Just go away and
stay away!”

Her arms falling around
him.
He put up on a show of shaking her off,
but in reality, he couldn’t get enough of her warmth. “Whatever happens just
know that. I’ll always be with you.”

Why did she always have to lie?
 

Selfish
as he was, perhaps this was the best course of action. She needed to be released
from machines that pissed, ate, and breathed for her; unbind her from this
miserable excuse of a life, hooked up to plastic and steel and dwelling in some
never-ending void non-being.

Forcing
saliva past the sandpapery walls of his throat, Adonis wet his chapped lips.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to see you, Mom,” he said hoarsely. “I couldn’t see
you like this. It was just, I couldn’t.” He lowered his head. “I want you to
know that I forgive you.
For everything.
Tell Nikolai I
miss him. I miss you both.” His voice chipped off. “Give
Yaya
and
Papu
my love too. And tell
Papu
I’ll take care of his ships. I won’t let your husband fuck everything up.” He
rose abruptly from the chair, the searing pain in his chest becoming
unbearable. “I love you, Mom. Good-bye.”

Adonis
gazed down at her, believing that any moment she’d open her eyes and profess
her love for him.

But
she didn’t.

His
presence had changed nothing.

He
leaned over the bed and placed a lingering kiss on her cheek, the last kiss
he’d ever give to her alive. His eyes squeezed shut as the distinct scent of
her skin invaded his nostrils. God, she even smelled the same; the smell he
associated with the word mother. Adonis buried his face in her neck and fought
to keep a stranglehold on tears and emotion bucking in his chest.

And
when Adonis finally managed to pull himself away, he didn’t look at her again.
He couldn’t, because if he didn’t go now, he would hold on to her and never let
go.

________________

For
a woman who’d spent the last decade in a coma, the turnout to Selene
Argyros
’ funeral was impressive.

Shock
couldn’t begin to describe her emotions when she tuned into the nightly news and
saw the segment on Selene
Argyro’s
scheduled funeral.
When had they taken her off life support? Why hadn’t Adonis told her?

But
Tess recognized why he kept mum. Cameron, on the other hand, could have at
least shot her a text, not that they were exactly on speaking terms.

Despite
her dubious standing with Adonis, Tess figured she would pay her respects.
 
She couldn’t remember the last funeral
she attended, but she was positive there hadn’t been a guest list.