Chapter Twenty-Two

Will

It killed me to watch her walk away, and when I followed her home, I waited for her to get to her door before driving away. It took everything in me not to turn around and go back to her place. I wanted to make her listen, but I knew it wasn’t going to help.

When I got back to the house, Mom had cleaned up what was left of lunch. I heard the radio playing softly, so I went upstairs to work on the guest rooms. They had finished my room that morning, and the other upstairs bath had already been completed. All that was left to do was stuff I was taking care of on my own and could be done at my own pace.

Painting the room was a mindless task, but it helped me to try and focus on something other than the fact that Leah may have walked out of my life forever.

I had two walls finished before I stopped to take a break and get some water. My muscles were stiff from stress and the repetitive movements of painting just increased the tension in my neck and shoulders.

When I went back downstairs, I saw Mom lying out on the couch. The music was replaced by the low sound of the TV. Her eyes were closed, but I knew she was still awake.

“I’m sorry, Will. I didn’t mean to cause problems.” She didn’t open her eyes, she didn’t move, she just spoke knowing I was there.

“It’s ok, Mom. If there is any hope for us, she would have needed to know anyway.”

“There had to be a better way to tell her though.” She sat up and looked blankly toward the sound of my voice.

“There’s no right way to tell someone news like that. Keeping it from her any longer would have made things worse.”

“How are you going to fix it?” she asked softly. Her expression was one of concern and sadness.

“I’m going to go work out in the morning.” I turned to go to the kitchen so I could grab some water.

“Your dad called.” Her words made me freeze as I was walking toward the kitchen. I turned around, my arms rigid, and the knots in my shoulders were tightening up even more.

“What did he want?” I hated the man. He may be my dad, and I unfortunately carried his name, but he and I were nothing alike. He was a pompous, arrogant asshole, a liar, and a cheater.

“A divorce,” she said simply, with a shrug of her shoulders.

“Good. Let him have it,” I said, relaxing a bit and moving to sit down next to her. “We can be done with him fully then.”

“He also wanted to know when you were coming back to work. Your cases need handling.”

I laughed. “I will go in long enough to put in my letter of resignation from the firm. I’ve already emailed my clients that I’m leaving the firm.”

“Will, are you sure this is what you want?”

“Yes. I’m going to go off on my own. Take the clients I want to take and work with. No more forcing myself to go to the fucking country club to meet puffed up assholes and women that want to know your bank account standing before they know your name.”

“They aren’t all bad,” Mom said with a drastic roll of her eyes.

“Perhaps not, but I don’t want that kind of life.”

Mom laughed a bit. “For a rich guy, you are kind of a rich snob.”

I laughed. She was right. I lived in a modest home. Though my car was a classic and cost quite a bit. I could have bought something much more expensive. My bike wasn’t new, but rather a couple scrap boxes I grabbed and put together with parts I’d gotten at junk yards.

“Maybe.” I sat quietly for a moment. “Now that you’re out of Dad’s house, do you want to get you a dog?” Mom had talked about it before, but my dad adamantly said he didn’t want a dog around the house.

“Are you sure this is what you want, Will? I can find somewhere else to go. I’m sure they have places that will help me.”

“This is your home, Mom. I’d always intended for you to have the bedroom downstairs in case you ever left him.” She gasped. “He’s an asshole. I hate that I call him my father. He more than provided for us, but you basically raised me single handedly. The only time he ever took any interest in my life was when it came to school. Then he pushed me into law school, never asking what it was I wanted.”

Tears filled her eyes. “Will,” she said, pain and sorrow etched in her voice. “You could have switched majors at any time. I would have supported you.”

I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “I have no doubt you would have supported me, but Dad wouldn’t have. I guess he never told you he pulled me into his office my senior year and told me where I was going to college and what I was majoring in. He said if I didn’t comply, I could get the fuck out of his house and forget about any support or assistance.”

She gasped and trembled. Sobs wracked her; her heart breaking in front of me. I almost hated myself for telling her, but she needed to know she was better off without him.

“It’s ok, Mom. I promise.”

“What do you want to do?” Her watery voice and hiccups tore at me.

“Keep practicing law, though with fewer clients. One or two major clients that will give me enough work to pay for a paralegal, but not keep me at the office all the time.”

“How do you plan to get that?”

“I already have it. Three of my clients from Dad’s firm have already called me saying they won’t work with anyone but me.”

“Isn’t that against your contract?”

“Dad never made me sign one. I don’t think he thought I would ever leave, so I’m under no contracts with the firm.” Dad’s was a small but lucrative firm. He didn’t have partners like the major firms because he didn’t want to leave anything in anybody else’s hands. In that way, we were alike.

I didn’t want to join a major firm and work my way up. No. Like my father, I wanted to be in charge. Unlike my father, I didn’t want a lot of underlings doing the work for me. I wanted to do the work myself.

“I informed my clients that I would be leaving the firm soon and their cases would be distributed among the other associates. I have the emails to back up that not one of them did I ask to leave with me, so he can’t take me up to the ethics board.”

“So, you’re leaving with the clients in hand?”

“Only three. More asked to go with me, but I told the ones I didn’t take that they would be more than taken care of with Weise and Maloney.”

“Your dad won’t like this.”

“I stopped caring what Dad liked years ago, Mom. You were the only reason I stuck around. You were the reason I moved above the garage. I knew he wouldn’t be around enough to help you out or keep you company.”

“You’re a good son.”

“I have a good mother,” I said, tears filled her eyes again – only this time they were happy. “Go get some sleep. I’ll see you before I head to the gym in the morning.”

“You’re going to the gym?”

“Yeah, that’s where Leah is.”