Cullen called two days later.
I almost let the phone ring until it stopped.
Then I remembered that avoiding him would not make the problems disappear.
“Hello, Cullen.”
“Mom, can we talk in person?”
I looked toward Nile's photograph on the mantel.
“About what?”
“Everything.”
I asked whether he meant the house or our relationship.
There was a pause.
“Both,” he said.
I agreed to meet him at the beach house that afternoon.
I told him to come alone.
He said he would.
Before leaving, I made coffee and placed two cups on the kitchen table.
I did not set out the envelope.
I did not want the conversation to begin with a document.
When Cullen arrived, he knocked instead of trying the handle.
That small change did not fix anything, but I noticed it.
I opened the door.
He looked tired.
His expensive travel clothes had been replaced by jeans and a plain shirt.
He glanced past me into the house.
“Can I come in?”
“Yes.”
He stepped inside and closed the door gently.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then he looked toward the mantel.
“Dad's picture is back.”
“It never should have been taken down without my permission.”
He lowered his eyes.
“I know.”
I waited for him to explain who had moved it.
He didn't.
He told me he still couldn't remember seeing anyone take it from the mantel.
I believed that he might not know.
But I also knew that not knowing did not make the photograph less important.
We sat at the kitchen table.
I pushed one cup toward him.
He wrapped both hands around it but did not drink.
“I've been thinking about what you said,” he began.
“Which part?”
“That I made plans without asking you.”
I nodded.
“I did.”
He looked up.
“I thought the house was going to be mine eventually.”
“Why did you turn that belief into a plan for September twenty-sixth?”
He stared at the coffee.
“Because I thought the paperwork was finished.”
“Did you read it?”
“No. Not properly.”
“Did you ask me whether I had agreed to transfer the house?”
He took a long breath.
“No.”
I let the silence remain between us.
I was not trying to punish him.
I needed him to hear the question without rushing to defend himself.
“I thought you were preparing everything,” he said. “I thought you wanted to make it official around the wedding.”
“I had been considering what I might do someday.”
“That sounds like the same thing to me.”
“It isn't the same thing to me.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I see that now.”
I asked him why he had announced to people that he and Blythe would live at the beach house.
He said he had spoken about it with Blythe and her parents.
He had told them the arrangement was settled.
He had repeated it until it became a fact in his mind.
“But you never heard me say yes,” I told him.
“No.”
“Then you had no right to tell everyone I had agreed.”
He nodded.
This time, he did not immediately offer an excuse.
We sat quietly while the coffee cooled.
Then I asked about the wedding.
He looked uncomfortable.
“I should have told you about it before we went.”
“Yes.”
“I knew you'd be hurt if you found out afterward.”
“You knew I would be hurt, and you chose to let me find out afterward.”
He looked at me.
“I didn't know how to explain the guest list.”
“You could have told me the truth.”
He admitted that he had wanted a wedding that fit the image he and Blythe had built for themselves.
He said they had invited people they considered important to their social and professional lives.
He had worried that a conversation with me would become difficult.
“So you decided I didn't belong there,” I said.
“I didn't think of it that way.”
“But that's what your decision meant.”
He looked down again.
I asked whether he had told the guests I was unwell.
He hesitated.
“I said you couldn't make it.”
“Why?”
“Because people asked.”
“And you didn't tell them you hadn't invited me.”
“No.”
I felt the familiar ache in my chest.
I had not expected every person at that wedding to understand me.
I had expected my son to tell the truth about his own mother.
“I would have been hurt if you told me I wasn't part of the wedding,” I said. “But I would at least have known where I stood.”
“I know.”
“No, Cullen. You know now because the photographs appeared and someone asked after my health.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“I am sorry.”
I believed he was sorry about something.
I still needed to understand how much of that sorrow came from hurting me and how much came from the consequences he had faced.
I did not ask him to prove it that afternoon.
Instead, I asked what he planned to do about his housing.
He said he and Blythe were staying somewhere temporary.
They had not found a permanent place yet.
“I am sorry you're dealing with that,” I said. “But I cannot make the house yours because you planned your life around it.”
He nodded slowly.
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“I think I do.”
I told him I was not offering the house for them to move into.
I also told him I was not making a final decision about what might happen years from now.
He looked disappointed, but he did not argue.
“I wanted to believe it was already settled,” he said.
“Believing something doesn't make it true.”
He finally took a sip of coffee.
We talked for another half hour.
The conversation did not turn warm all at once.
There were pauses, uncomfortable questions, and things neither of us knew how to say.
But for once, he asked before assuming.
When he stood to leave, he stopped beside the mantel.
“I wish Dad were here,” he said.
“So do I.”
He looked at the photograph for a long moment.
Then he turned toward me.
“Can I call you next week?”
“Yes. Call me because you want to talk, not because you need an answer about the house.”
He nodded.
At the door, he asked whether I wanted him to help repair the porch railing.
I told him I would think about it.
He did not insist.
After he left, I carried the cups to the sink.
I could not say our relationship had been repaired.
But the afternoon had given us something the gathering on September twenty-sixth had not.
We had spoken without an audience.
And no one had asked me for my keys.
Click here to continue reading: PART 23: The House Needed Repairs, My Son Needed to Learn Patience, and I Needed to Decide Without Turning Love Into a Bargain
The Sunday Morning Call That Made Me Question Everything I Thought I Knew About My Only Son
Part 22 of 24
