Lovely Wild Read online

  To his mother, who’d never even allowed Ryan a pet fish because of the “mess and the stink” they made, it must’ve seemed like an awful imposition. Still, his throat burned with anger at the way she’d described his wife.

  “You act like she was wearing rabbit skins and throwing her own crap. By the time Dad decided to adopt her, she wasn’t like that anymore. She’d spent years being rehabilitated.”

  “He spent years trying to fix her, when we both knew she would never, ever be right.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Head starting to pound, Ryan closed the closet door with a thud.

  His mother gave him a steel-eyed glare. “She had something about her that ensorcelled him. You, too. I know what it was. I saw the way she looked at him, then at you. The way she moved her body.”

  “If you’re suggesting Dad had a sexual interest in Mari, you’re wrong. And more than that, Ma, you’re disgusting.” Ryan spat the words like bullets and watched her flinch from each one.

  “He chose her over me!” she shouted, fists clenched and waving in fury. “You both did!”

  There it was. Something he’d always known was at the root of his mother’s behavior but had never been brought into the light. “You’re jealous of her.”

  “Of course I’m jealous of her,” his mother said as though the words were razors slitting her tongue with each syllable.

  He could’ve pointed out that maybe one of the reasons his father had spent so much time at work was to escape his constantly nagging wife. Or that Mari had never been a threat to her. Or even that it was inevitable that Ryan would fall in love with someone other than, thank God, his mother, and that she’d have disliked his wife no matter who he’d chosen. He could’ve pointed out that his mother had spent so much of her life disgruntled and dissatisfied with everything she’d been given that she could never be satisfied with what she had.

  Instead, Ryan hugged his mother.

  “I love you, Ma.” He couldn’t remember the last time he’d hugged her like this—maybe at his wedding, just before walking down the aisle. Maybe longer ago than that, as a little boy. Hell. Maybe never.

  “You just don’t know about her,” his mother said. “Not everything. If you knew everything...”

  He pushed her gently from him. “If I knew everything, what? Do you think there’s anything I could know about my wife that would ever make me not love her? We have two beautiful kids, Ma. We have a good life. We have a good marriage.”

  Had a good marriage, he thought. Before he’d gone and screwed it up. Before he’d taken it for granted.

  Maybe Ryan had his own lessons to learn about being satisfied with what he had.

  “Your father told me everything he’d learned about that girl. You think the fact she spoke with her hands was romantic, like something from a story. You think that the fact she lived in filth and poverty was somehow something to be worn like a badge of honor.”

  “It wasn’t her fault.”

  “Well, neither were all those years of care she got, all those years of therapy, anything she can claim as her own effort. Do you know,” his mother said, “your dad did most of that work for free? Because the grants wouldn’t cover the costs?”

  “I knew that. Yeah. It’s one of the reasons I thought it would be important to do volunteer work myself. Helping people who needed it but couldn’t afford it.”

  His mother pushed him away. “And how’s that been working for you, lately?”

  Ryan backed up until he hit the counter and ran a hand through his hair. He hadn’t given his mother any details about his reasons for taking his family to Pine Grove, or about his job or the case. Not about the book. He hadn’t gotten around to asking her for the lost files, yet. All she knew was that a patient of his had died, and her husband was suing him. “I’ve had to quit that for a while. I’ll get back into it.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Maybe,” Ryan said, “you’d just like it if we left.”

  That hit her where it hurt, but Ryan took no pride in it. She was his mother, after all, and even if she could be the most annoying woman on the planet, he knew that most of the time she acted out of love. Her own twisted version of love, but even so, sometimes that was the only kind there was.

  “I didn’t say that. You know I love having you here.”

  Sure, because it meant they weren’t with Mari. “We can’t stay forever. My business is going to be over soon in Philly. Another couple days. And in another few weeks it’ll be time for the kids to go back to school and back home.”

  “So...stay until then. You know I never get enough of my grandchildren.”

  “I thought you said they were spoiled and indulged,” Ryan said.

  His mother sniffed. “That doesn’t mean I don’t love them.”

  “I know you do, Ma. And I’m glad for the help.” Ryan hesitated, deciding to come at least a little bit clean. “Mari and I have been having a few problems. We needed some distance.”

  His mother’s gaze flared. “I knew it.”

  “Don’t start.” He held up a hand, but his mother was already off and running.

  “I told you, Ryan, if you only knew—”

  “Enough!” Both of them looked reflexively at the ceiling, but if they’d woken the kids there was no sound of them from upstairs. He fixed his mother with another hard glare. “I know you hate her. I know you always will hate her. But I’ve told you before and I’m going to say it again, just so we’re clear—I love Mari. All marriages have rough spots, and this one isn’t because of her.”

  His mother looked shocked. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s not supposed to mean anything. It means that I screwed up. It’s my fault. I...” Ryan ran his hand through his hair again.

  “You look like your father when you do that.”

  He stopped. “I had an affair with a patient. The one who killed herself. I lost my job because of it—”

  “Oh, Ryan!”

  “And I was facing charges,” he continued, cutting her off before she could go into full-on wailing. “But they’re being settled out of court. I’m not going to lose my license. They couldn’t prove it.”

  His mother looked stricken. “But you did it. It’s true.”

  He nodded. “I needed to get away for a while.”

  “So you went...there?” His mother’s lip curled. “Why on earth? You could’ve—”

  “Come here?” He laughed harshly. “Right. She knows you can’t stand her, Ma. She’d never have come here.”

  His mother’s back stiffened. “I have never treated your wife with anything but politeness.”

  He found a laugh at that. “Yeah, well, having you over for the kids’ birthdays and holidays when you ignore her like she’s a stranger is a lot different than asking you to put her up in your guest bedroom.”

  “I’m sorry,” his mother said.

  It was the last thing Ryan ever expected his mother to say. “She’s a good person, Ma. I wish you could understand that. Hate Dad if you have to. He’s dead now, and anyway, he was the adult who made the decisions, not her. You have to stop blaming her for what she couldn’t help.”

  “Oh, Ryan, you don’t understand. I know she can’t help where she came from or what she is. But what you don’t understand is that she will never be...”

  “What?” he challenged. “She won’t ever be what? Normal? High-class, like you? I hate to say it, Ma, but if class is determined by how you treat other people, Mari’s got a lot more than most people I know.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  MARI’S OFFER HANGS between them for a long moment before Andrew answers.

  “No,” he says.

  It breaks her heart. Mari sits at the table, her face in her hands. “You don’t love me. You said you did, but you don’t.”

  “Mariposa, that’s not the only way to love someone. I mean, it’s not right.”

  She knows it’s wrong. She presses the heels of her hands to her eye