Lex and Lu (26 page)

“Shit, Mom, you still have that Mace?” Lex said, a huge smile on his face, eyebrow raised, taking in the sight of his mother getting ready to spray him.

Jo, completely caught off guard, dropped the can and the luggage, both of which clattered to the floor. Her right hand landed on her heart, which had just about jumped out of her chest. “Alexander James!” she screeched. “What are you doing here?”

For a woman who rarely lost her composure, she presented quite the sight. Her purse askew, eyes wide, hand clutching her chest, she stared in disbelief at her son, whom she’d hardly spoken to since Mike died. She couldn’t believe Lex was standing in her foyer.

He didn’t answer her question, instead gave her a stiff, quick hug, grabbed her suitcase, bent to retrieve the Mace, and gently pushed her inside so that he could shut the door.

She watched him put everything right and waited for an explanation. When the door was shut, he walked out of the foyer toward her room with her suitcase in tow. Still flustered, she righted her purse and followed him. By the time she made it back to her room, he had finished his task and met her in the hall.

“How ’bout a glass of wine?” he asked, barely meeting her gaze.

“Something stronger, please,” she said, moving with him toward the kitchen.

“Have you eaten?” he inquired as he led her, not looking back.

“No. You?” she asked, slightly frustrated. Lex had been home twice since he left almost ten years earlier. The first was for his father’s funeral; the second was today. What was he doing here?

“No. We can order in,” he offered, still not looking at her as he made his way to the bar off the kitchen. He poured a drink for her without needing to ask what she wanted.

“That’s fine,” she said, setting her purse on the counter and heading to the breakfast bar to sit down.

Lex delivered her drink. Surprisingly, he had one in his hand. Normally, he didn’t drink during the season. She looked at him as he leaned against the counter, facing her. She took a moment to study him. He really didn’t favor either Mike or her. He definitely had his own look. When he was a child they’d often wondered who he looked like. The blond hair was easily explained as there seemed to be a blond per generation in Mike’s family. But his green eyes were a deeper green than Mike’s, as if the dark brown from her had given sustenance to Mike’s green. Used to the perpetual spirit of mischief that surrounded Lex, she experienced some surprise at his rather somber façade.

Taking a sip of her drink, she leaned forward, resting her arms on the counter and clasping her hands in front of her. “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but why are you here?” she said.

Lex didn’t answer right away. Rather, he studied his mother. She’d lost weight since his father’s death. But she still looked formidable, even in her grief. The grief had left an imprint on her face. She didn’t look bad, she hadn’t aged, she just looked sad. He imagined that even when she smiled, she didn’t look happy. He remained quiet, sipping his Scotch, thinking about what he wanted to say. It had been an impulsive trip, but he’d still been surprised that she was away.

“Where were you?” he asked, choosing to deflect rather than start down the road he needed to follow.

She paused, cocking her head, illustrating for him where he and Pete inherited the gesture. “Lu’s graduation,” she responded, as if he should have known she would be there.

But he couldn’t help but be surprised. “You were at Lu’s graduation?”

“Yes, of course.”

Brow furrowed, he questioned her with his expression. She ignored him. “Of course?” he said. The question evident.

“I wouldn’t miss her graduation,” she responded.

It pissed him off. Taking a sip of his drink, he stalled. They were all together again and he’d been alone, here, waiting for her to get back. For not the first time since the death of his father, he thought of how disfranchised he felt. His family had this whole other world without him. While he’d made them the outer circle of his world, sharing all of his triumphs with them, he’d been left out in the cold, alone, excluded. He’d been trying to shrug it off for the last eight months. It was time that he had some explanations.

“I need to know what happened, Jo.”

“What do you mean?” she said, obviously confused.

“I need to know why everyone thought it would be a good idea to lie to me.”

Jo’s head dropped, her expression hidden from him. “It’s taken you eight months to ask the question,” she observed.

“Well there’s been a lot of shit going on.” He was back to being resigned. It was so difficult for him to hold on to the anger.

Jo lifted her head and took a sip of her drink. Peering into the glass as though it held all the answers, she shuffled the ice slowly back and forth between her hands, as if it were a hockey puck. “When you left, Lu was convinced that your plan would work. You’d go over there but that you’d come back for her and your child. Her faith in you never wavered.”

That made him smile. He and Lu had come to an understanding early in their lives that they would never lie to each other. Pete and Willa had been there too and some blood had been exchanged.

“It’s hard to look back on this. I’m trying to be objective.” She explained.

“Jo, just tell me your version. I’ll draw my own conclusions,” Lex said, the irritation clear in his voice.

“It was probably six weeks after you left that things got crazy. At the time, Lu was about to complete her first trimester. Amber began to pressure her to have an abortion. To be honest, I was very conflicted about everything. You know how I feel about abortion. I couldn’t allow that to happen, but I wasn’t ready for you to give up your dreams either. I imagine it won’t be long before you’ll understand what it’s like to be a parent.”

For some reason, her statement brought him right back to mad. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped.

“Just that you want things for your child. You want their dreams to be able to come true. You were on the brink. Coming home to be with Lu and the baby would have stalled your career. You wouldn’t be Lex Pellitteri if you’d known about Nina.”

“That’s fucking bullshit!” he said, hostility laced through his words.

“The person you are right now, the one who’s achieved so much, you wanted that from the time you could talk. Anything less would have chipped away at you. Anyway, Amber started to wear Lu down. She was sad, missing you, and she started to believe that she couldn’t be a teenage mother and fulfill her dreams. They made the appointment. And so help me Lex, I was OK with it. I thought that both of you were so full of promise that this was the best thing to do. I was relieved.”

That surprised him. His mother had always been pro-life.

“There I was, going against everything I believed so that you could get what you wanted.” She stopped and finished her drink. “Your father was very quiet during this. Amber was here almost every night. We’d talk through everything. I understood where she was coming from because I knew what would happen to you. Then, the night before the procedure, Lu came over. She was pale, drawn, looking every single one of her seventeen years. She begged me to talk to Amber. Lu couldn’t do it, she couldn’t have an abortion. She knew that I could sway her. I wanted to help Lu. I loved her like she was one of my own. And I just couldn’t, in the end, see that my soul could handle it if she had an abortion. But I still wanted to save you. So I convinced her that we should tell you that she had it.”

Lex continued to lean against the counter, although he wanted to move. Even though he had known that his mother had to be behind all of this, it still shocked him to the core that she had managed to conceal this from him for so long. She’d outflanked a seventeen-year-old.

“Lu was so grateful that I would help her that it took nothing to get her to agree to the rest.”

Lex nodded his head. Raising his eyebrow, he asked, “How’d you convince Dr. A.?”

“That was far more difficult.”

“I bet.”

“We pushed if off until it was no longer the first trimester.”

“Sounds like it was quite a busy couple of weeks for you. You don’t sound like you regret any of it.”

“What would you like for me to regret, Lex? Should I regret the fact that we have Nina? Or perhaps that you’ve been so successful?”

“You’ve been lying to me for nine years. Do you regret that?”

“I regret that I had to do that, yes.”

“You don’t sound very sorry.”

“I’m not sorry,” she said, her voice becoming higher. “You were one of the first Americans to play in the English Premier League. You’ve just signed a multimillion-dollar contract to do what you love to do. I did what I had to do to help you make that happen. I. Do. Not. Regret. It.”

“You may not regret it, but I do. I regret that I lost the only girl I’ve ever loved at nineteen. I regret that I didn’t get to hold my newborn daughter in my arms. I regret that I didn’t get an opportunity to see her first step, hear her first words, or put money under her pillow when she lost her first tooth. I regret that I stayed away for so long because the thought of Lu aborting our child kept me from crossing the Atlantic until my father died. I regret that you made that decision for me without even considering that you might be making a mistake. I regret that my mother didn’t think I had it in me to achieve my goals while also being a good guy and a father. I’m sure you don’t see it, but to me that’s a reflection on you more than it is on me. What I’m not going to regret is walking away from you now and not looking back.”

His flight didn’t leave until the next day, so he took off in the direction of Long Boat Key, heading for the Ritz-Carlton that had not too long ago sprung up on the shore of the Intracoastal Waterway. But as he passed over the North Bridge, he knew he’d forgo the Ritz. He passed through the Village and pulled into the now familiar driveway. Grabbing his bag from the back of the rental, he made his way to the door. His knuckles wrapped succinctly on the door.

“Lex?”

“Will—I need a place to crash tonight.”

Willa didn’t say anything. She merely stepped aside and held the door open for him to come into her home.

Aside from the frosty reception from her mother and the tension between Amber and Jo, there had only been one moment of disappointment throughout her weekend home. Although she knew it was impossible, her heart had this overwhelming wish—hope, really—that somehow Lex would show up to see her walk across the stage and receive her diploma. It was like the hope that you’ll wake up on your sixteenth birthday and there will be a car in your driveway. You already know, in your heart of hearts, that it can’t happen and you convince yourself that it won’t happen so that you can’t possibly be disappointed. But part of you holds on to this infinitesimal particle of hope.

Partly because she was proud of herself and partly because of Willa and Pete, Lu let her disappointment dissipate, much like her hope that Lex would come to celebrate with them all. She could barely contain her excitement over Pete and Willa. She’d done her best to not high-five, chest bump, or drop to her knees while crossing herself, but truly she felt a rush of exhilaration she thought she could only feel if something amazing happened directly to her. All in all, the weekend had worked out quite well, Lu thought as a smile hovered permanently on her face, while she prepped for her meeting with Mr. Helms.

She’d had time to meet with her mentor, Dr. Zeigler, while she was there. He’d been most encouraging of this opportunity for her to work while she was in England. Even as he encouraged her to continue to work with her football teams via Skype, he saw this as a chance for her to expand on her work. And he was all about challenging her. He didn’t know any of the personal struggles she would encounter by working with soccer players; however, his excitement about the prospect for her career captured her imagination and served to bolster her confidence in her decision to meet with him.

As she stepped out of her apartment on the way to her lunch, she almost knocked over two vases of flowers that had been left on her front step. A little stunned, she bent to retrieve them and bring them into her apartment. The first was an assortment of different flowers, the second, a beautiful bunch of Stargazer lilies. Pulling the card from the first, Lu smiled at the thoughtfulness and wooing power of Mr. Helms. Very strategic to send the congratulatory flowers right before their meeting, she conceded. She paused before pulling the card from the lilies. Her absolute favorite flower, she knew that they had to have been sent by someone who knew her well. Pulling the card from the holder, Lu froze, slightly dumbstruck.