Chapter 26
Candy
Another night I got home, and I saw my mother's car in the driveway. Like the last time she’d ambushed me in the parking lot, I wasn't ready to talk to her this time either. After finding out that she had tried to delay the divorce so that she could make some money off of it, I knew that the lawyer was going to charge a lot because of my mom’s antics and I wasn’t in the mood.
“You really should call first mom.”
“Do I really have to call my own daughter to see her?”
“Well considering that it is almost nine o'clock at night, I would if I were you.”
She was offended, but she always was so that was nothing new. I groaned inwardly and then asked her what it was that she wanted.
“Do I need to want something to see my only daughter?”
“Why do you keep answering questions with questions? I have to think that it is something that I'm not going to like, that you want.”
I opened the front door and left it open for her to follow me. I made my way to the wine, because I knew that I was going to need it. This conversation, like every other conversation with my mother, was better with a little alcohol in my system.”
“Do you want some wine?”
She told me that she did, and I found it funny that it was the only question that she actually answered without a question attached.
“And I did try to call you earlier Candy, but you didn't answer. Actually, it said that it had been disconnected and I came over here tonight to find out why. Is everything okay? Did you forget to pay your bill or something? Are you broke?”
I ignored her bombardment of questions and got to the one that I wanted to answer for myself.
“My number was disconnected?”
She said that it was, and I took her phone and called it. I had the same number for years and I didn't believe her. When I heard the sound of the operator telling me that it was a disconnected line, it started to make sense why I didn't have any calls today. I didn't really have any many calls yesterday either, so I wasn't sure how long it been like this.
“I didn't know. I wasn't avoiding you, although sometimes it may seem like it. It has just been really busy at work lately, it has nothing to do with you. I don’t know what happened to the phone. I paid my bill and no, I’m not broke.”
My words seemed to appease her a little bit and she settled down more. Cynthia sat down on the other side of the couch next to me and took a couple of sips of the wine. Whatever she said, I still did not know the real reason she was here. The reason that she gave was obviously not the case.
“So, what's up mom?”
“I don't know, I just wanted to come over and see how you were doing. You didn't come for dinner, you haven't in weeks and I don't know what's going on with you anymore. I feel like we are drifting away.”
To me, that was about the only thing that was good that had come out of all of this. I went from having a fiancé that was rich and a successful lawyer, to being alone and living in a small house. It was certainly a step down from where I was a couple of months before, but the space that I had gotten from my mom, had been a blessing in disguise.
“We aren't drifting away mom. I am just busy with my life right now.”
She mentioned something about me working too much and I wouldn't have to if I had a decent husband, but I just ignored it because I knew that she was just trying to start an argument. I don't know why my mom thought she could bully me into it, and maybe it was true at some point, but not anymore. Things had changed. I don't know why a couple of days with a random guy had changed so much, but it had.
“So, I was at the lawyers this afternoon…”
I smiled at her and took another drink my wine. This is what I was waiting for.
“Oh? Did they finally get the papers drawn up and sent through? I was hoping to have it finalized by now.”
“Yeah, I think everything is in order, though he said that there were a few things that you hadn't signed yet. I was going to come over here anyways, so I told him that I would take them to you. All you have to do is sign them and the filing will be complete. The lawyers don't think that it will have to go to court, as long as he agrees, but since he's already signed it, it shouldn't be a problem.”
I wasn't going to pretend that I understood all the legalities of it. All I knew was that I wanted this chapter of my life to end. I had toyed with the idea of calling Colt, but I didn't get past the thinking stage. We had left things in the best way and I wasn't sure enough about my feelings to mess with him. I didn't want to take him on the same rollercoaster ride that I was on.
She pulled out a stack of paperwork and I just made a disgusted sound. For a marriage that I was never really in and a husband that I hadn't remembered, Colt came with a lot of paper work. It also brought me around a lot of lawyers, and I can't say that I really liked them. I know that Jax was one, but he had never brought his work home with him.
“So, all you have to do is sign them dear and I will take him back to the lawyers in the morning. Easy enough.”
I started to read over them and she started talking about something else and I just went to sign the bottom. I didn't want to go through almost twenty pages of tiny print and the reading was rather dull. The highlight was I was getting divorced and that was really all that matter to me. It was a part of my life that I had to end, so I can start the next chapter.
When I signed all the places that had little tabs for me, I handed it back to her and thanked her for taking care of it. I didn’t want to deal with the family lawyers and I knew that mom thrived on it. She would go around telling everyone how she would help me so much, but it didn't matter, it was done now. She could say whatever she wanted to. Cynthia could live in her own little world as long as she wanted to as far as I was concerned.
She was ready to leave not too long after that. She asked about Jax, if that was ever going to happen, but I told her that it wasn't. Apparently, she was still talking to Jax, and they were plotting ways to get us back together. I told her that it wouldn't do any good, but of course, she did not want to hear that.
Mom was half way in the door and halfway out and I was trying to get her to leave. She was going on and on, making it impossible not to get rid of her without being rude.
Suddenly I had a wave of nausea and I had to run to the bathroom. It had been happening a lot the last couple of weeks and I was silently hoping that she would be gone when I came out. She wasn’t.
“Are you okay, dear?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I have just been working a lot and my stomach has been screwed up for a week or two. I don’t think I have every gotten this sick, for this long, in my life.”
“You’re on the pill still, right?”
I didn’t understand what that had to do with anything. I told her that I hadn’t been for a while, me and Jax were talking about starting a family.
“Well, don’t you think that you could be pregnant?”
I told her that I didn’t because I wasn’t getting sick in the mornings. I was actually getting sick all day long and it was rather hard to deal with. It was mainly night time, so ‘morning sicknesses didn’t seem to be an option.
“Just because they call it that, doesn’t mean that it is only in the morning. When I was pregnant with you, I swear I was getting sick several times a day for almost the first trimester. You were a nightmare.”
I had heard her say that phrase before, about the nightmare part and her being sick, but I hadn’t even thought that it would be an issue. My sex life was nil now, so my mind hadn’t made the connection.
“I can’t be.”
She smiled in a mischievous way and I got a cold feeling that ran up my spine. This wasn’t going to be good at all. Now I had to think about the main question that bothered me. Whose was it? This was just getting worse by the moment.
“We should tell your lawyer.”
“Why?”
“Because it is pertinent information.”
“Leave the lawyers out of my uterus mom. I just want this done and over with. I haven’t even wrapped my head around it and you could be wrong.”
“I’m not dear. You are pregnant, and I couldn’t be happier.”
“Dying to be a grandmother, huh?”
She gave me a disgusted look and I knew that she was never going to let my child call her that. I could barely call her mom in public. I had to wonder how the title of grandmother was going to feel. That idea made me smile to myself.
“Don't you dare start calling me that.”
I laughed a little, but at the same time I felt like crying. I didn't know if it was extra emotions or the fact that I was carrying a child that could be one of two men. The worst part was that I was talking to neither one of them and I wasn't sure what to do.
Mom didn't stay much longer after that, saying that she had some errands to run. I would have asked her for emotional support, if she was a different mom and I was a different daughter. But at the end of the day, I was glad to see the backside of her, and I was happy that I had a little bit of time to think about what was going on. Suddenly I had a weight on my shoulders that I never imagined before. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do with it.