Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

“Dad, I’m at work. What’s so urgent you’re blowing up my assistant’s phone?”

“What’s so urgent?” his father asked.

“Yes,” Remy said shortly.

“Fiston, I haven’t spoken to you in three years.”

Again, short when he said, “No, you haven’t.”

“Neither has your mother,” Guillaume went on.

“She definitely hasn’t.”

“Remy—”

“You can’t have forgotten, Dad, that the last time I spoke with Mom, I told her Wyn and I were divorcing, and she said, ‘Excellent, it’s about time. That girl has always been trash. Now you might be able to meet someone worthy of you. Sadly, it’s later in life. But fortunately, women are smart enough not to have issue with gaining the attention of a successful mature man.’”

And that might not be verbatim, though it was the gist.

But the first two sentences were word for word.

“We both know que ta mère often does not weigh her words.”

“She called the love of my life, my wife of two decades and the mother of my children, trash.”

“Remy—”

“And when I blocked her, you phoned to tell me to sort myself out, call her and make amends, when it should have been the other way around.”

“Son—”

“Dad, there’s no use going over this. It’s done. Even more done than you can imagine since Wyn and I are reuniting. Now, just tell me why you’re phoning.”

“You and Wyn are reuniting?”

He tried to ignore how happy Guillaume sounded.

He couldn’t when his father kept talking and told him just that.

“I’m delighted, Remy. This is the best news I’ve heard in…well, three years.”

His mother could barely stand Wyn and didn’t hide it.

His father cherished her, and he didn’t hide that either.

Which was unfortunate, because Guillaume thinking Wyn walked on water exacerbated how much Colette detested her.

He shouldn’t have said anything.

“Again, why are you phoning?” he pushed.

“Remy, I…”

He didn’t go on.

“Dad, I have things to do—”

“Your mother had a touch of breast cancer.”

Remy sat still, staring at his desk with his phone to his ear.

“It was a few years ago. Nothing since. They took it out. She…refused further treatments because…”

Because her hair might fall out or her skin might wrinkle, or whatever it was that would affect her looks was out of the question even if it might save her life.

“We’ve been lucky. There was not a recurrence. That luck ran out,” Guillaume concluded.

“She has it again?” Remy asked.

“Yes, and it’s much worse and very aggressive. And although she will be doing a few treatments to see if things can be…prolonged…it will…it’s impossible…at her age with the advancement of the disease.” He took a second. “I’m sorry, fiston, they’re not giving us very long.”

Remy sat in silence.

“Remy?” Guillaume called.

“And again, why are you calling?” Remy asked.

He heard his father’s sharp breath before, “Qu’est ce que tu viens de dire?”

(What did you just say?)

“I said, why are you calling?”

Guillaume’s words were sharp when he replied, “I just told you that your mother is dying.”

Remy sat back in his chair.

He considered what to say next.

He made a decision.

And then he shared, “When he’s up from school, Sabre stays with me most of the time. As much as it pains me, it wasn’t a surprise when all three of my kids were devastated I walked out on their mother. But I’m fortunate. They love me more than I deserve. And I think Sabre understands in a way I don’t think he even gets how he understands that maybe most of the pain in all of that was felt by me. Even after what I did to his mother, our family. And that’s why he sticks close to his dad.”

He took a breath.

Guillaume didn’t say anything.

Which was good because Remy wasn’t done with his story.

Not even close.

“He was up from school, we were sitting by the pool, and we got to talking. I don’t remember how it came up, but he told me his first memory was sitting in the sand with me, and the only other thing he remembered was his mother’s red swimsuit. But I remembered all of that. I was showing him how to make sandcastles on Paloma Beach. He was four.”

“I remember this too, when you were with us in France. He was so little,” his father said softly. “You and both of your boys, once so little to get so big.”

Remy didn’t get stuck in his father’s gentle reminiscing.

That wasn’t even close to what this was about.

“This made me think,” Remy continued like Guillaume didn’t speak. “So when I went down to Tucson for a dad and daughter date with Manon, I asked about her first memory. She said Christmas. Me taking a picture of her and her mom was helping her open a big present. She, too, was four.”

Now having a hint where this was going, it was hesitant when his father tried, “Son—”