A Very Badd Christmas (The Badd Brothers #19)

18. Hayden

CHAPTER 18

hayden

I looked with intense frustration at the pile of folded clothes on the bed and then with manic, irrational anger at the already-full suitcase next to the pile.

"Same amount of clothes, all the souvenirs in a different bag, and yet I somehow have less space in my suitcase than when I arrived." I dragged my hand through my hair, which was standing on end already from having raked my hands through it so many times in my fruitless endeavor to pack. “How is it possible?”

I also didn’t need to pack yet, because we still had the cruise back to LA.

The ship was scheduled to leave in a few hours and I had no choice but to be on it. I couldn't leave my mom alone. I had a life to go back to in Indiana—even if just to pack it up and….what? Move to Ketchikan? Where Emerson does not, in fact, live? To Seattle, where she'll only live long enough to finish out the end of her college career?

I had no answers.

How could I leave Mom? I am an integral part of her daily life. When Dad was working and she needed something, she called me. I lived less than ten minutes from them and worked from home, so I could go over to reach that vase or open the jar lid or get the TV back on the right setting so she could watch her reality TV while folding laundry.

Dad's gone. She'll need me more than ever.

Emerson has her life at least roughly planned out—play professional soccer somewhere, somehow. And with her obvious talent, impressive-as-hell statistics (I did some research), and charismatic on-pitch star power, she was poised to become the next big thing in women's pro soccer.

Which wouldn’t happen if she was with me in Buttfuck, Indiana. I'm aware that's not exactly fair to the lovely burgh that is West Lafayette. I exaggerate. But the point stands.

If I love her, the last thing I would do is selfishly derail her dreams, sidelining her immense talent and potential.

I love her. Way more than should be possible, considering how short a time I've known her. Days. Not weeks, not months, not years. Days…which can be measured in literal hours.

"Fuck this," I muttered.

I grabbed handfuls of carefully folded shirts and jammed them into the suitcase, followed them with more handfuls of jeans and khakis and loungewear shorts and underwear and socks, jamming everything in and slamming the suitcase lid closed.

Did it zip?

Not even fucking close.

Sweating, irrational rage pumping through my veins, I leaped into the air and landed a resounding People’s Elbow on the suitcase, aggressively hauling at the zipper. I managed to get it halfway around before the zipper pull snapped off.

" FUCK !" I yelled, my voice turning into a raspy gargle at the end.

"Hayden Reginald McCaffrey!” Mom's voice appeared inexplicably at my left ear. "Now, now, son. This kind of tantrum isn't like you."

"Sorry, Mom," I muttered, slumping onto the edge of the bed, hunched over, head in my hands.

She rested her hands on my shoulders. "Sit up straight."

"No."

Mom sighed. "Hayden." She squeezed gently. "Sit—up— straight ."

With a sigh that was equal parts petulant groan and sarcastic, head-shaking exhalation, I did as I was told. "There. Happy now that my posture is correct?"

Ignoring my outburst, she inhaled with slow deliberation. "Take a deep breath and hold it."

"I don't need a breathing exercise."

"Don't make me repeat myself, son."

What was she going to do? Paddle me?

Yet, I was psychologically incapable of outright disobedience, which was probably at least partially responsible for my current emotional state. If I was capable of that kind of behavior toward my mother, I would be able to leave Indiana to be with the woman I loved.

Thus, I closed my eyes and drew in a long, slow, deep breath until my lungs protested. I held it for a full ten seconds and then let it out over a space of almost twenty seconds, until I was forcing the last of the air out of my lungs.

"Good. Again." She pushed down on my shoulders as she inhaled through her nose while I did the same. We held it together, and then let out our breath in unison.

A third time.

Finally, Mom let me go and pointed at the chair in the corner of the room, opposite the door I'd forgotten I’d propped open in case Mom needed my help while packing.

"Sit."

"Yes ma'am," I mumbled, sapped of all energy now that my anger had been taken away.

I slumped into the chair, kicked my feet out, and slid down into a petulant, childishly provocative half-laying position, my head craned uncomfortably as I lounged halfway out of the chair.

Mom just snorted at me. "Grow up, Hayden."

"Fuck, fine," I snapped, sitting up.

Mom scooped everything out of my suitcase and onto the bed. Ignoring me, she refolded all of my clothes and neatly arranged them in the suitcase with such precision that Marie Kondo would have been impressed. The lid closed easily and she used the other zipper to shut the maroon, hard-sided suitcase.

She patted it with a smile at me. "There. Nothing a little mommy magic can't fix."

I glared. "Thanks, Mom."

She eyed me for a long, silent moment. With a frown and a sigh, she slid the heavy suitcase to the floor, kicked off her mint-green ballet flats, sat on the bed, swung her legs up, and lounged. Patted the bed beside her. "Come. Sit by Mama and let's talk."

I shot her a droll look. “Really?"

"Yes, really."

"I can talk to you from here."

"Yes, but you'll do it from here .” She patted the bed again. "Come. Sit."

I stared at her, but her gaze brooked no resistance. "Just say whatever you have to say."

"I will. Once you come— here .”

"Mom—"

"Behave like a six-year-old, and I'll treat you like one. Now, come sit beside me like a good boy."

Feeling roughly six inches tall, I did as I was told and shuffled with immense teenaged angst to the bed, sitting beside Mom. I threaded my fingers behind my head and stared at the ceiling, hating the burning lump in my throat with every fiber of my being.

"Mom, I—"

"Hush, son, I'm thinking."

I clapped my mouth closed and let her think. She never, ever spoke to me this way, which meant she was deadly serious. When Mom stopped being the sweet, adorable little Kindergarten teacher and out came the core of steel that was usually hidden by her ten-mile-deep layer of sweetness, even Dad knew to shut up and pay attention.

So, in the interest of self-preservation, that's what I did.

She didn't speak for a very long time. When she did, it was in a soft, quiet, almost distant voice. "I miss your father so badly, Hayden. So badly. I wake up thinking about him, and I go to sleep thinking about him."

"Mom, I—"

"Shut up and listen to me, Hayden."

My mouth shut so fast my teeth clicked together. She has never once in my entire life told me or anyone else to shut up.

She didn't look at me. She lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling with her hands folded on her stomach, heels together, toes pointing away in a V.

"Harold was my entire life," she said, eventually. "We met when I was nineteen. You probably aren't aware of this because I don't discuss it very often, but I came from a very broken, dysfunctional, and extremely abusive home, Hayden. My father was a vicious drunk who beat my mother regularly."

" What ?" I breathed. "Are you for real?"

"Yes." Her voice was faint, coming from a distance of fifty-some years. “My mother was his greatest apologist, too. ‘He doesn't mean it. He doesn't understand what he's doing. He loves me, he just doesn't know how to show it. He came from a very bad home.’ The excuses were endless, even though he beat her so badly she was in the hospital at least once a month. There was nothing anyone could do because she never said a word about what actually happened. She fell down the stairs. Bumped into a corner. All the classic excuses. When he wasn't beating her to within an inch of her life, occasionally quite literally, he was yelling at her, berating her, demeaning her. And me. I hated my life. I hated my parents. I hated my house, the town I lived in, the state I lived in. So, I buried myself in school and focused on getting into a university as far from them as I could. And I succeeded. The day I graduated high school, I packed my belongings and took a Greyhound bus from Bangor, Maine to West Lafayette, Indiana. I'd gotten special permission to live on campus over the summer while I worked. I got a head start on the reading, waited tables, and learned to enjoy my newfound freedom."

"Mom, I had no idea."

"I know, honey. Like I said, it's not something I've ever told you. I don’t like talking about it because it’s ancient history and because you were too young, and then when you were old enough, there didn’t seem to be a point in bringing it up.” She shrugged. “I vowed that when I had a family of my own, I would never, ever allow things to be like they were for me growing up. Anyone who exhibited even a hint of violence or aggression, I avoided like the plague. Once I was free from my parents, I discovered I liked people. I found my voice. I discovered a personality beyond conflict avoidance. And then, on the first day of my sophomore year, I met a handsome young chemistry major named Harold McCaffrey. He was playing chess in the library and wiping out everyone who challenged him."

"Sounds like Dad," I said. "I never even came close to beating him, and I was captain of the chess club."

“He could have played in international tournaments; he was that good. But his real love was chemistry. He just enjoyed chess, and he worried that if he played it professionally, it would stop being fun." She sighed, remembering. "I knew from the moment I saw him that he was going to be the rest of my life. I never spent a single day apart from him from that day forward. I have never so much as held the hand of another man. We never talked about dating or going steady, we just… were . He proposed the day we graduated. He bought the ring for a hundred and fifty dollars at Sears." She held up her left hand, sliding off a thin, tarnished gold band with a shard of cubic zirconium so small it barely caught the light. "This ring."

"You never upgraded?"

She shook her head, smiling to herself as she looked at it in the early morning light streaming through my cabin window. "Of course not. I couldn't care less about a diamond. He wanted to upgrade it, ohhhh, ten, fifteen years ago? I didn't want a new ring with better gold and a real diamond. I wanted this ring, the one he put on my finger that day on the quad, still wearing our graduate robes and hats." She slid it back on.

I waited, knowing she was just getting started.

"We wanted kids so bad, Hayden. So bad. But IFV wasn't really a thing back then, and it's not like we had the money anyway. I just couldn't conceive. And if I did, it didn't last more than a few weeks. Eventually, we just gave up hope. I focused on my kids—my students. I showed them the love I wanted to give to my child. Harold taught high school chemistry while working on his graduate degree and eventually got a job at the university. We traveled in the summers. We played bridge and bowled with friends. We fought about your father refusing to go to church with me."

"Why did he refuse? I've never understood."

"Oh, well, that's a long story. The short version is that he grew up in a very strict, very controlling home. In a very different way, he was as abused as I was. There was no alcoholism or physical abuse, but there was mental, verbal, and emotional abuse. And it was all done in the name of religion. It turned him off to the whole thing. He had no problem with me believing and attending, and even bringing you, after you were born, but he refused to have any part of it. He refused quietly, as was his way, but his resistance to religion, and anything that even smacked of it, was total and unyielding."

"And to you, your faith was what helped you heal from what you went through," I surmised, putting the pieces together.

She looked at me with a smile. "Exactly. It was the one point of contention in our marriage. I am not a religious person. I am, however, a spiritual person. My faith is quiet and personal. Mostly. I did everything I could to be loving and patient with him about it, to show him a different way, but…he just couldn't get past his anger toward the whole business of religion, faith, and churches."

"That makes a lot of sense."

Mom fell silent for a while again. She rolled to her side and looked at me. “We come to the reason for me telling you all this."

"You mean it's not just a mother-son bonding moment?" I asked, smirking at her.

“Not exactly, no." She smiled. "Back to my first statement. Your father was my entire life. From the day I met him, I was never apart from him. The longest we were apart was when your father went to a chemistry symposium of some sort in Palm Beach. He lasted one night, called me in the middle of the night, and had me on a flight before noon the next day. He couldn’t bear it, and neither could I."

I shook my head. "One night? Really?"

She smiled. "I think you're probably starting to understand that, aren't you?"

Oh. I was starting to piece together what she was angling at. "Mom—"

"Just listen, Hayden. Nothing I have ever said to you in your whole life is as important as this, okay?"

"Okay, Mom. I'm listening."

"Harold is gone. I am not." She touched my lips as I opened my mouth to…I wasn’t sure what I intended to say, honestly. "Hush, son. Hush and listen to your mother. I will never not miss him. I will never remarry. Neither would he, had I had been the one to go first. He was it for me. He was my life, and now he's gone. So…now what? What do I do with myself? How do I go on without the one person who made sense of my existence?" Her eyes watered. "Just listen. Just listen." A wet sigh, as she let the tears trickle down to wet the pillow.

A long silence.

"I am not your responsibility, Hayden.” She clapped her hand over my mouth yet again. "Still talking." When I subsided, she continued. "I'm not . I have to learn to stand on my own two feet, now. I have to redefine who I am. I have to rebuild my life. And Hayden, my dear, sweet, wonderful boy, I can't do that if I'm reliant on you."

"Mom—come on, listen to me…you—"

Her eyes blazed. “No! You listen to me , Hayden McCaffrey. I love you more than life itself. I would do anything for you. And I know you. You're a mama's boy. But it's time."

"Time?" My voice cracked. I cleared my throat and tried again. "Time for what?”

"For you to launch."

"I have my apartment, a car, a whole life. I have launched, Mom. I'm not some thirty-year-old living in your basement with Cheeto dust on my fingers while I play World of WarCrack.”

“I know that, my love."

“Then what are you saying?"

"Why are you angry?" She asked, an abrupt redirect. "Why were you taking that anger out on your poor, innocent luggage?"

"I couldn't get it to close,” I muttered, knowing how futile the lie was.

“Hayden."

I rolled my back and groaned. "Ma. We're not talking about this."

“We sure as hell are, son." I glanced at her in shock. “Yes, you and your new friends are rubbing off on me. It seems I curse, now.”

“Guess so."

"I'll ask you again, and I expect an honest, forthright answer." She grabbed my hand and squeezed hard. "Why are you angry?"

“I’m not angry. I'm… frustrated. Confused."

"About what?"

"What to do."

"About what?"

I sat up and pivoted to face her. "You really want me to say it?"

She remained lying on her back, head turned to the side. “Yes, I do."

“I don't know what to do. My life is in Indiana with you. Hers is in Seattle, and then wherever she ends up after that, playing soccer. I love her, and she loves me, but our lives are in opposite directions."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about, Hayden." She sat up now, mirroring my position. "I'm telling you that it's time for you to go a different direction."

"I don't know what that means, Mom," I said, panic and hope warring in my gut. "What different direction?"

"I really need to spell this out for you?"

"Apparently, that's what we're doing right now, so yeah, I guess you do."

She sighed, looked down at her hands. "I'm retiring effective immediately. I'll stay long enough to see a good temporary replacement installed in my classroom and say goodbye to my students. But I'm selling the house, retiring, and leaving Indiana for good.”

I shot to my feet, paced away a few steps, and stared at her, lungs empty, mind reeling. " What ?! Since—since when?"

“I decided this morning. I've spoken to Shelly, the principal, and Shawn, the superintendent. They’ve been expecting it and have a temp ready to go and a list of permanent candidates to interview lined up. Roger, my friend Tammy from book club's husband, is a realtor. I told him where the spare key is, and he's going to take photographs and get the house listed this week. He expects it to sell within weeks at most."

"Where—" I halted, cleared my throat, and tried again. "Where will you go?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure, long-term. Short-term, once I’ve settled things in Indiana, Olivia's husband, Lucas, is planning a four-week hunting trip to the interior with his son and business partner, Ramsey. While he's gone, she's taking a trip to Mallorca, and she's invited me to go with her."

"Mallorca?"

"It's an island in the Mediterranean."

"I know where Mallorca is," I muttered.

"Olivia and I are a lot alike. I enjoy her company, and it will do me good to get out by myself, away from everything, and pick Olivia's brain about life as a widow and starting over, moving on, all of that.” She took my hands. "I don't know where I'll end up after that."

"But…" I shook my head. "You're retiring, selling the house, and leaving Indiana… permanently ?"

She smiled. "Yes."

"What…what about me?"

She just laughed. "Surely I raised you to be smarter than this, honey."

"What?"

"You're staying here, Hayden."

I boggled at her. "I…"

"You would never leave me. You think I need you." She held up her hand to forestall me. "And you're not wrong. I have relied on you for a very long time. It hasn't been fair to you. You've been trapped in Indiana, Hayden. You never even considered another college."

"Because I got Dad’s discount on top of my scholarships and grants. It was almost free."

"And when you graduated, you were offered incredible jobs all over the country. All of the top companies in Silicon Valley offered you lucrative positions. Which one did you take? The one that let you stay in Indiana and work remotely." She squeezed my hands. "I have to stand on my own two feet. And you have to go find your own life, which is most definitely not in Indiana. It's here, with Emerson. It's wherever and however you and Emerson decide to live your lives together."

To say I was stunned was a colossal understatement. "Mallorca?"

She laughed. "The house has been paid off for almost twenty years, and the market has only made it more valuable. Your father had a remarkably well-funded life insurance policy. I'll have my retirement and social security, as well. All that to say, I won’t have to worry about money. So, I’m going to go through our belongings, and I'm going to donate most of it, save a few important things for myself and for you—sentimental objects, mostly. The rest I'll either sell or throw away."

“But—but—that…that house…our home, everything in it…" I stammered, trying to wrap my head around the idea of that house no longer being home, no longer being where Mom and Dad were.

"It was our home, Hayden. Harold’s and mine. And yours, too, for a while. But really…it was ours.” Her smile was soft and sad. "Every room, every inch of every carpet, every corner—all of it is ours . I personally painted every room. Your father built the deck himself. We designed the kitchen remodel together."

"Exactly! How could you sell it?"

"How can I not ? How can I live in that house another moment? Every second I spend there is a reminder that Harold isn't in it. My husband is gone . The life I had is over."

"Mom—"

"It is , Hayden. I have to accept that. And so do you. I have to start over, and I can't do that in the house I lived in with my husband for fifty-one years. I have to sell it. I have to leave Indiana." She tipped her head back and sniffled. “I’m not forgetting him, Hayden. How could I? But he's not in that house. He's my husband, my best friend, and my soulmate. He lives in my heart and my memories. My love for him will never die, never fade. But if I mope around that house and that town, seeing him every time I shop for groceries, every time I park the car in the garage and get nervous about scraping the side again, every time I go up the stairs and expect him to goose my bottom, every time I pass his study, every time I go past the university…I'll not be living —I’ll be waiting to die so I can be with him."

" Fuuuuuck , Mom," I whispered.

She didn’t correct me, which said as much as any of her words. "Harold wouldn't want me to live out the rest of my life, however long that may be, waiting to die, haunted by him. I have to do this for myself. And I also have to do it for you because you're so damn stubborn and so damn loyal that you won't choose yourself. You won't choose Emerson—you'll choose me. And as your mother, I simply cannot allow that.”

"You're my mom ."

"And she's going to be your wife and the mother of your children." She leaned forward, face close to mine. "But only if you have the courage to choose that. To leave behind everything you've ever known, strike out on your own, and build for yourself the life you want. You can't do that if you’re trapped in West Lafayette, Indiana, chained to my grief."

“I wouldn’t be chained to your grief, Mom, good lord. And when did you become so rhetorically gifted?”

“You would be. This is me setting you free. I love you. I will miss seeing you every day. I'll still call you an obnoxious amount. But it's time. Long past time. You don't need a mother anymore, anyway, Hayden, you need a girlfriend, and then a fiancé, and then a wife. It's her, and you know it. It's as plain as the nose on your face, my sweet boy. Choose her. Choose yourself."

I shook my head. "Mallorca."

She laughed in exasperation. "Mallorca is just a vacation with a new friend. Stop getting hung up on Mallorca. It's not about Mallorca. I'm not moving there. Good grief. Stop fixating on the wrong thing.”

I laughed. "I guess I am, aren't I?"

"You are."

"This is really what you want?"

"What I really want is for your father to be alive. But he's not. Honestly, Hayden, once my initial shock wore off, I started to feel…desperate. Desperate to get out of there, to get away from…everything. And now that the cruise is winding down and I'm faced with the prospect of going back to live there? I just can't. I cannot . I cannot sleep in that bed alone. I cannot wake up alone. Make coffee alone. Go to work alone, and come back, alone, to a silent, empty home that you're not in, that he's not in, that I’m in alone . That's no kind of life. Not for me. I can't do it. I was awake all night thinking about this, and I realized I just couldn't go back. The house is being sold, and our fifty years’ worth of stuff—whatever I don’t get rid of, that is—is going into storage. I'll rent a short-term apartment while I go through the stuff, I suppose. I just simply cannot spend another night alone in that house.”

"I have a better idea," I said. "I bought my condo furnished. For me to pack up and move out is a matter of a few suitcases and a handful of boxes. I’ll put the bulk of my stuff in storage with yours, and you stay in my condo. Once you're done, I'll sell it."

"That's a good plan. I like it."

"You don't want me to help you go through everything?” I asked.

She shook her head. "No. It's part of the grieving process. I have to do it alone. If I need help with heavy lifting, I have plenty of friends from work and my book club with big strong husbands.” She patted my hand. "And if you stay to help, it'll only make it harder for you to leave. So what you're going to do is take your suitcase and go back to the Badd's house. You're going to spend the rest of break with her and figure out what the next few months look like for the two of you. You're going to pop back into town to get whatever you need, put the rest in storage, and go. Wherever that is, whatever it looks like, as long as it's with the woman you love."

"It's a terrifying prospect," I whispered.

"It truly is. I've never been alone. I had that first year, my freshman year, and that's it. I'm almost seventy years old and starting over. So yeah, it's really frightening. But also…a little exciting."

I laughed. "It feels wrong, somehow, to be excited. But…yeah."

She shook her head. "It's not wrong. It's right. It's what your father would want for us both. We're not going off to enjoy our lives while he's wasting away with some terminal illness, Hayden. He's dead and buried and looking down on us from Heaven, telling us to move on already, dammit."

I laughed, the sound thick with emotion. "You're right."

“I’m your mother. Of course I'm right."

My next laugh was less emotionally charged. "And so humble."

“The other change I'm going to make is a haircut. I was thinking a blue mohawk."

I stared at her. "No.”

A laugh. “Not a blue mohawk, then. But I won't be a teacher anymore. I'm getting rid of most of my teacher clothes, and I’m cutting my hair, and I’m gonna start dressing like a sexy granny."

"Mom." I put my hands over my face. "If you show up in leather pants and a bustier, I'll have an aneurysm."

She patted my hands. "I don't know about all that, but we'll just have to see, won't we? I just want you to be prepared for a new me the next time you see me." A sigh, a smile. "Mrs. Mac is no more."

"Mrs. Mac?"

A shrug and a nod. "It's what everyone at school has called me for years. Students, faculty, everyone. I'm not sure some of the younger teachers even know my real name at this point."

I flopped onto my back. "It's a lot to wrap my head around."

"It is."

"Why do I feel there's a whole part of you that's about to come out that no one ever knew existed?"

She hummed a thoughtful noise. "Hmmm. Interesting. I suppose because it's what's happening. I've been this person my whole life—the teacher, the wife, the mother. I love being those things—I have loved it. I don't regret a single thing. But now I have to become someone new, and this time, the only person I have to consider is myself. I can't be who you want me to be. I can't be who I was with your father. I can't be the person I am at school with the kids and my colleagues. I have to be a new person only for me. And honestly, I’m looking forward to it. I'll bring my love for Harold with me. I talk to him at night. But I have to move on, and I'm going to.” A pause. “I’m not okay. But I will be. I’ll become the new me one day at a time. And I will do it with the same energy and spirit and joy as I've tried to approach everything else in my life. I'm still me, but I’m just…I'm being forced to evolve, Hayden. And so are you."

"I guess I have some thinking to do."

"No, you have some talking to do—with Emerson." A pause. "Some advice, Son?"

"Please."

"Open your mind. Totally. Rethink everything. Where you go, what you do, what you want to do. Do you love your job? Are you passionate about it? Is it a calling? Or just a job? Is it a career you want to spend the rest of your life pursuing?"

"I…"

"You don't need an answer now, honey. You need to think about it. Talk to Sunni about it. Reflect and really be honest with yourself about who you are, who you want to be, and what you want out of life."

"You're sure it's not crazy for us to be looking at life together when we've only known each other a matter of days?"

"If it is, you’re asking the wrong girl. I knew the very moment I saw Harold that he would be my husband. I heard it like a voice from God. 'That man right there is the rest of your life.' I never doubted it. When the heart knows, it knows. And your heart knows. So does hers. I see it and so does everyone else." She rolled into me and kissed my cheek. "But it only matters that you and she know it."

"And we know."

She slid off the bed. "Exactly. Now, get your big butt off that bed and go get the girl."

I threw a pillow at her. "Big butt?"

"Oh shush. You're fitter than those silly models on Instagram that Becky is always showing me."

"What?" I laughed.

"Nothing. Never mind. Just get out of here. Love awaits, my son." She stood in the doorway and blew me a kiss. "I love you. I'm proud of you. But if you're still here in five minutes, I'm gonna be mad."

“Yes, Mother," I said, laughing.

"I have a hair appointment followed by a mani-pedi, so if you'll excuse me." She wiggled her fingers at me, blew another kiss, walking backward. "See you in a month or two, Hayden."

And then she was gone.

I looked around the cabin, spotted my charger still plugged in by the bed and pocketed it.

I set my suitcase on its rollers, shouldered my duffel, and headed toward the exit, wondering how mothers always knew exactly what you needed to hear when you needed to hear it.

And somehow, it never occurred to me even doubt that someday, Emerson would be exactly the same way.

I was whistling as I all but jogged to shore, hailing a ride-share on the way.

Time to see about a girl.