Doreen’s eyes widened. “I’d like that.”
“Don’t look so shocked.” Ean tossed her a wry smile. “It’s not as though I’ve never cooked for you before.”
“And every time is a pleasant surprise.” Doreen shifted in her chair to face him. “Do you need any help?”
“No, thanks.” With his back to her, this seemed like the perfect time to introduce a difficult conversation. “Mom, Dad told you not to tell me he was dying, didn’t he?”
Silence dropped into the room. He felt Doreen’s tension beating against him like a blast of frozen air.
“What makes you ask that?” Her tone was brittle.
Ean pulled the pans from one cupboard and ingredients from another. “Why did you let me blame you for not telling me?”
Doreen was silent for so long, he thought his mother would ignore his question. “Your father and I had been together for more than forty years, you know.”
“I know, Mom.” Ean worried at the husky note in her voice. Was she going to cry? If she did, then so would he.
Doreen exhaled a shaky breath. “He meant everything to me. He gave me everything I needed to be the person I wanted to be.”
Memories of his parents talking, laughing and dancing to music only they could hear played across his mind like a favorite film. He recalled their public displays of affection that had grossed him out as an adolescent and had filled him with envy as an adult.
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“I know, Mom.” Ean poured a glass of ice water from the refrigerator and offered it to his mother.
“Thank you.” Doreen’s voice was a whisper.
His throat was too tight to respond. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea, after all. Ean gulped his own drink.
Doreen continued. “We were lovers, spouses, parents, friends.” She hesitated. Her voice grew huskier. “The hardest role I had to play was caregiver.”
Ean returned to the stove and set his glass on the counter. He lifted an egg, intending to break it into the pan, but he couldn’t do it. He set the egg back into the carton.
“Why didn’t he want me to know he was sick?” He spoke with his back to his mother.
“Watching him die was unbearable for me. I tried not to let him see how much I was hurting—for him, for myself, for you. But he knew. And it was intolerable for him. He didn’t want you to go through that.”
His eyes stung, thinking about the two people he loved most in the world in so much pain. He turned to face Doreen. “But I should have been there with you.”
Doreen raised her gaze to his. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears. Her voice was raw with sorrow. “This wasn’t about you or me, Ean. This was your father’s dying wish. And as much as it hurt me, I respected that.”
And he had to respect it, too. That didn’t mean he had to like it. “I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye.” The cold water did little to ease the burning in his throat.
“Yes, you did. Every time he spoke with you, you ended the call with ‘I love you.’ What more was there to say?”
How was he to know that, to his father, “I love you” meant “good-bye”?
“He’d sounded so weak and tired on the phone. I kept asking him about it. He said he would be OK.”
“He is.” The muscles in Doreen’s throat worked as she drank more water. “It gives me comfort knowing he’s in a better place—that he’s not in pain any longer.”
“I’ll have to take comfort from that, too.” How much longer before that comfort replaced his guilt and grief? Ean carried their empty glasses to the sink. “I’m sorry I blamed you, Mom.”
“Better that you were angry with me than your father. We have the time to reconcile. Your father didn’t.”
He washed the glasses and set them on the drain to dry. “I understand why Dad made his choice, but I still don’t like it.”
Doreen stood. “I would be upset, too.”