Still, this moment belongs to the two of them, Mom and this handsome stranger. He reaches the passenger side door and stares down at her with steely violet eyes—down at my mother who never cries, down at my mother who’s now bawling like a spanked child—his face contorted in a rainbow of so many emotions, some that I can’t even name.
Then Grom the Triton king sinks to his knees in front of her, and a single tear spills down his face. “Nalia,” he whispers.
And then my mother slaps him. It’s not the kind of slap you get for talking back. It’s not the kind of punch she dealt Galen and Toraf in our kitchen. It’s the kind of slap a woman gives a man when he’s hurt her deeply.
And Grom accepts it with grace.
“I looked for you,” she shouts, even though he’s inches from her.
Slowly, as if in a show of peace, he takes the hand that slapped him and sandwiches it between his own. He seems to revel in the feel of her touch. His face is pure tenderness, his voice like a massage to the nerves. “And I looked for you.”
“Your pulse was gone,” she insists. By now she chokes back sobs between words. She’s fighting for control. I’ve never seen my mother fight for control.
“As was yours.” I realize Grom knows what not to say, what not to do to provoke her. He is the complete opposite of her, or maybe just a completion of her.
Her eyes focus on his wrist, and tears slip down her face, leaving faint trails of mascara on her cheeks. He smiles and slowly pulls his hand away. I think he’s going to show her the bracelet he’s wearing, but instead he rips it off his wrist and holds it out for her inspection. From where I’m standing it looks like a single black ball tied to some sort of string. By my mom’s expression, this black ball has meaning. So much meaning that I think she’s forgotten to breathe. “My pearl,” she whispers. “I thought I’d lost it.”
He encloses it in her hand. “This isn’t your pearl, love. That one was lost in the explosion with you. For almost an entire season, I scoured the oyster beds, looking for another one that would do. I don’t know why, but I thought maybe if I found another perfect pearl, I would somehow find you, too. When I found this though, it didn’t bring me the peace I’d hoped for. But I couldn’t bring myself to discard it. I’ve worn it on my wrist ever since.”
This is all it takes for my mom to throw herself into his arms, bringing Rachel partially with her. Even so, it’s probably the most moving moment I’ve ever encountered in my eighteen years.
Or at least it would be, if my mom weren’t clinging to a man who is not my dad.
* * *
I’d rather be in the adjoining hotel room with Rachel, even if it meant watching television on mute while she sleeps with her bullet-ravaged foot propped up on a pillow. But apparently my presence is needed here. Apparently it’s very important to hear Mom and Grom fill each other in on the last who-knows-how-many decades they’ve been apart. To hear how she’s missed him so much and still loves him and thought about him every single day. To hear that he swore he sensed her sometimes, that he thought he was losing his mind, that he visited the human mine daily to grieve her loss, blah blah blah.
Galen happens to be in possession of my favorite pair of arms—his—and most of the time when they’re wrapped around me, I feel whole and secure and like my blood has turned into hot sauce running through my veins. I should especially be feeling all melty right now. After all, I’d virtually lost him then gained him back within the cruel space of twenty-four hours. But right now his arm feels like a shackle chaining me to the hotel bed—and not in a good way.
What’s worse is that he’s doing it on purpose. Every time he feels me tense up, as Mom and Grom exchange mushy sentiments and googly eyes, Galen tightens his hold on me. Which makes me wonder what my face must look like. Does it reveal all the betrayal and hurt and pain I feel inside? Is it obvious that I want to fling myself across the hotel room to where they sit together in one chair, my mom on Grom’s lap, wrapped around him like there’s no such thing as gravity and she’s trying to keep him grounded? How apparent is it that I want to put Grom into a headlock until he goes to sleep, and yell at Mom for not loving Dad or caring that he’s dead?
I know Mom and I talked about this at the diner. That it was never love, that it was an arrangement that suited them both and that I was an added one-time bonus to that arrangement. But somehow I just can’t believe that Dad wouldn’t mind seeing this if he were here. Fine, it wasn’t love at first sight for my parents. But how, after all those years together, could it not have been love at all?
But maybe my expression isn’t as bad as I think it is. Maybe Galen’s just really good at reading me. Or maybe he’s just being overly mushy himself. He is a tad protective, after all. I glance at Toraf, who’s sitting on the other full-size bed next to Rayna. And Toraf is already looking at me. When our eyes meet, he shakes his head ever so slightly. As if to say, “Don’t do it.” As if to say, “You really don’t want to do it.” As if to say, “I know you really want to do it, but I’m asking you not to. As a friend.”
I huff, then adjust myself in Galen’s death grip. It’s not fair that Galen and Toraf silently ask me to accept this. That my mother is putty in Grom’s proficient hands. That her temperature barely raised a degree around my dad, yet Grom, within an hour of reunion, has her titanium exterior dissolving like Alka-Seltzer in hot water.