Perfect Together by Kristen Ashley

“I haven’t asked Yves. I should. I’ve no idea, but I hope I could imagine. Sandcastles and family vacations, and Christmases and Mom and Dad together. I’d hope it was something like that. And I have a first memory too, Dad, as we all do. Mine is Mom throwing a shoe at me and hitting me in the face.”

“Remy,” Guillaume said quickly, to cut him off, divert him, move this somewhere where he didn’t have to deal.

“It was a pump. The spiked heel cut my cheek. I don’t remember why she was furious that time. In my memory, I was scared, but I wasn’t shocked. I’d seen it before. Her tantrums. I’d see it after. Her tantrums. But that was my first memory. And I was four years old.”

Guillaume said nothing.

Remy did.

“That cut didn’t scar. But she’d leave scars, not many you could see, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t many.”

“Your mother is highly strung,” Guillaume, as usual, defended.

“She beat me with a brush when I was six.”

“Mon Dieu—”

“She broke my arm, twisting it, when I was eight.”

“This really is not the time to—”

“Also when I was eight, I was her date to some event, a fundraiser, black tie. I wore a tux because I’d had a custom-made tux since I was six. And she’d drilled me on how to behave at dinner since I could sit up straight. But still, I did something wrong, that something being I was not you, and she had to take her eight-year-old to an event as her date. When we were in the car coming home, she shouted at me about all the things I’d done wrong, embarrassing her, and she slapped me so hard, repeatedly, I had a black eye the next day. But I didn’t embarrass her, you did by not being there.”

“I should have been home much more, for her, for you, for both of you. This was my failing, son.”

“Yes, you should have. Absolutely. Though you didn’t break my arm or shove me into an armoire so hard, I cracked my head against it and got a mild concussion. She did.”

“This was all a long time ago, and look what you built, who you’ve become, the woman you made your wife, the family you created—”

“Yes, let’s talk about that. We already got into her calling Wyn trash. But do you know that the last time Mom phoned Manon, before I took my daughter’s phone, blocked her grandmother’s number and deleted her contact, was maybe two days after I left Wyn. And Mom told Manon it was now time she stepped in and ‘took her in hand.’ And therefore, if she had any hope of landing an appropriate husband, she immediately had to start dieting and take off twenty pounds.”

“Women of your mother’s generation have an unhealthy idea of—”

“My daughter is not overweight, Dad. But if she dropped twenty pounds, she sure as fuck would be underweight. But even in that dysfunction, Mom called her and said this shit to my fucking daughter two days after I walked out on my family.”

“Remy, we should discuss all of this, I agree. It’s long since time. But I will say that none of it trumps the fact your mother is dying,” Guillaume snapped. “And she misses you. She misses her grandchildren. But mostly, she misses her son. Non, je déteste sérieusement the manner in which I forced her to behave those years she had sole charge of you due to my shortcomings. But this is all water under the bridge now.”

Water under the bridge?

“Dad, I lived my whole…fucking…life scared out of my goddamned mind I’d put a foot out of place, and she’d lose it with me. And at the same time I was doing everything I could to be her perfect boy, I was doing it to be yours so you wouldn’t leave us. Leave her. Leave me with her.”

“Mon beau Remy—”

“And being groomed to be all things to both of you all my life, when I found a woman who loved me for me, I didn’t see that. I needed to be that for her too. And when I couldn’t be, I couldn’t deal.”

His father sounded like he was getting pissed when he asked, “I’m sorry, are you blaming your mother and me for you failing your wife?”

“Yes,” Remy replied firmly. “I am.”

“Merde,” he bit and then, “That is not the son I raised.”

“It fucking is,” Remy gritted out. “One thing I learned very well, Dad, is that I had to be all things to all people. I had to be perfect. But most of all, to keep the woman I loved happy, that woman being your wife, my mother, I had to be all things to her.”

“Wyn is not your mother,” Guillaume scoffed.

“No, she isn’t. But I’m my father and I’m her son.”

“And because of all of this, you will keep yourself and your children from your mother when she’s dying,” his father stated flatly.

“No. I’ll tell the kids. And I’ll tell Wyn. And I’ll let my children individually decide how they want to handle it. Wyn can also decide what she wants to do. But I’ll come home to say goodbye.”

“I am now uncertain that’s my wish, if you’re coming home simply to upset her.”

“Even if she’s dying, if they decide to come with me, I won’t allow her to abuse my family,” Remy warned. “But I’m not coming home to force her to fix things that can’t be fixed. Like I said, I’m coming to say goodbye. And if she lets it be that, that’s what will happen.”