Read Online Mirrored (Follow Your Bliss series Book 4) by Deirdre Riordan Hall - Free Book Online Page B

thoughts collided into
Finn. He hadn’t heard from him, even after the smashed window.
    “I’ve been thinking about you and your mother,” Brighton
said.
    He stopped strumming the acoustic guitar in his lap.
    “Especially after coming so close to losing mine. Or at least
grappling with that notion. You should find her, your mother I mean.”
    “Funny ya should say that,” Chaz said, appearing in the
doorway. “I’ve been thinking about that myself. Claire called before you guys
got here, filled me in. I reckon she’ll be okay. She warned me not to let
Brighton near any sharp or blunt objects,” Chaz said with a laugh and an
eyebrow raised in her direction. “Or fast cars, loud guitars…though I s’pose
there’s not much I can do about that.”
    “We’ve talked about this,” Alex said with a snarl in response
to the mention of his own mother
    “I know we have, lad. And you know I don’t like that woman at
all. I don’t expect you will either. But she is your mother. And she is,” Chaz
cleared his throat, “sick.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Gran knows everything. I moved her out to Bearsden, but she
still has a line on the old neighborhood. You could probably ask her about any
resident of this city, and she’d grub up some dirt on ‘em.”
    Alex rolled his eyes.
    “Naw, I don’t expect much of it, but hell, it might make her
soul rest a little easier if ya see ‘er.”
    “How do you know she wants to see me?”
    “Gran,” Chaz said, sighing, “said she asked after ye.”
    Alex fought against the soft parts, in the center of his
chest, which bowled against his rough exterior.
    “I’d do it today or tomorrow at the latest. I’ve already said
goodbye to her. She had a tough life, that one. Maybe it’ll be sweeter on the
other side.” Chaz set a scrap of paper on top of the piano by the door and
exited.
    “I’ll be with you. I’ll help keep you between the ditches,”
Brighton said, handing him the paper with the address to the hospital.
    That evening, they set out into the city in one of Chaz’s
cars. The lights smudged around the edges and glared off the perpetually damp
cement.
    “What do I have to say to her?” Alex said as he parked the
car.
    Brighton was quiet a beat. “You could tell her how much she hurt
you. But maybe she didn’t make the wrong decision. Maybe she would have been a
worse mother had she stayed. It’s possible you were better off with your dad
and the family band.”
    Alex tried to shake the already-sprouted seeds of doubt from
his head.
    A nurse led them to a non-descript room in a quiet part of
the hospital. “She’s been asleep awhile,” she said before squeaking down the
hall.
    Alex gazed through the double-glassed window. A strange,
unfamiliar woman lay still, in the bed, with a sheet tucked snuggly under her
arms.
    “I’ve only seen a couple photos of her. She looks old.”
    Brighton took his hand and led him closer. “You have her
lips,” she whispered.
    Alex hoped that was all. Her frail body looked foreign and
helpless. The little boy in him, who was rarely quiet, hushed and wanted her to
hold him, promising her love, and never to let him go. But that never was and
never would be. Maybe Brighton was right, perhaps he’d been better off without
her. But if that was true, where did he put all the agony and anger at not
having a mother? What about the resentment and rebellion? What did Suzie and
all the girls he’d cheated on her with mean if he was just supposed to be a boy
with only a dad. He couldn’t close the loop with an answer.
    Brighton took his mother’s hand, patting it gently. His
girlfriend exhaled. She was a jellybean, all right, with a tough
break-your-tooth exterior and a squishy, melt-your-heart, compassionate center,
like him. She leaned over and kissed his mother's forehead.
    “Thank you for giving us your boy. You’ll be happy to know
how deeply he’s loved and cared for.” She turned and left the two of them
alone.
    He