Chapter Fifty-Eight

Ghost

B rushing her hair back from her face, I took note of the new tension lines creasing her forehead.

"Hey." I grasped her shoulder.

With a pained inhale, her eyes opened. Her gaze tracked to the fading bruise on my temple, but then she smiled wide. "Grayson."

Her misplaced loyalty stronger than her will, she'd given me the surname of the asshole who'd knocked her up but had never taken care of her. Not even when she'd given birth. I'd fucking hated my name until eight years ago when I'd heard it for the first time from another woman.

Except she hadn't been a woman at the time.

The memory surfaced.

Quickly running through the prechecks on the Gulfstream GV that I'd broken into, keeping an eye on the apron of the private airfield for any approaching trouble, I was firing up the engines when her voice hit my six.

"You are a pilot too?"

Questionable. "I have my pilot's license." I didn't tell her it was a private pilot's license, I'd flown a G-five exactly once before, this was a two-pilot aircraft, and we were stealing it. I repeated my earlier instructions. "Take a seat and buckle in."

"I do not know your name."

I double-checked a few of the tasks. "Ghost."

She sucked in a shocked breath. "How…? You are… not living ?"

I glanced back.

Eyes wide, color drained from her dirty face, her clothes a fucking mess, her hair worse, she looked at me like I was an actual ghost.

I broke my own damn protocol. "Ghost is my call sign. My real name is Grayson."

Her exhale softened her rigid posture, and the alarm drained from her face. Then her full lips parted, and she whispered two syllables like it was her new religion. "Grayson."

I shook the memory away and smiled back at the woman on the couch. "Hey, Mom." I picked up her feet, took a seat next to her, and dropped her legs back down to rest on my knees.

She laughed. "You don't have to treat me like I'm an old lady." She struggled to shift her too-thin frame and sit up.

Noting the decline in her mobility since I last saw her, I helped her ease up with a hand at her back. "Never said you were old, Mom."

She patted my shoulder as she leaned into the worn couch she wouldn't let me replace. Then she took a moment to stare at the ceiling as she sighed. "You didn't have to." She turned her head to look at me. "I can see it in your eyes."

Practiced, but seldom used, I smiled again. "You don't see shit."

She laughed like I knew she would. She'd given me a lecture on swearing when I was five. It didn't take, but her laughter every time I swore after that had. "I see you haven't changed." She brushed a hand over my shoulder. "Except for a few more muscles." The lines in her forehead grew. "What's wrong? Is your sister okay?"

"She's fine." She wasn't. Feralyn never would be. But like Christensen had said, she was safe. "Everything's good, Mom."

Her smile came, but it was reserved and sad. "If that were true, you wouldn't be here, pretending to check on an old woman."

Age-wise, she wasn't old. She'd had me when she was eighteen. But life had ridden her hard. By the time I saw it, I was barely a teen, and the damage had already been done. "I never pretend to check on you." I kept tabs on her, always. I just rarely came to visit. First deployments, then the security risks of exposing her to what I'd become had kept me away. My visits had been calculated, infrequent and too far spaced.

Now she was suffering more than usual. "You taking your meds?" She'd been diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis or chronic fatigue syndrome. All the doctors I'd taken her to before she'd refused to go anymore all said there was no cure for ME/CFS. They told her to rest and watch her diet, then they gave her sleep meds, pain meds, antidepressants, and anti-inflammatories. None of which I could get her to take on a regular basis.

"Don't play parent, and don't you dare help me off this couch." With no little effort, she pushed herself up and stood. Her hand went to her hip, her knees stayed slightly bent, and she looked like every bone in her body ached. "Tea? Or I made some of the granola you love this morning." She pasted on a smile that didn't make her eyes crinkle. "I must've known you were coming."

Taking a defensive position in case I had to catch her, ignoring the parent comment, I stood with her. "Granola would be great." It wouldn't, she needed protein, but if me eating got her to eat, then so be it. "And what's with the must've ?" She didn't believe in coincidences any more than I did. But that's where our similarities ended. To her, coincidences were fate or kismet or some other mystical or mythical bullshit she believed in. Packed in next to her teas, granola, and vegan diet, if anything could be explained by the unexplainable outside of any sort of religious bent, then she was all over it.

Walking slower than usual, she huffed out a laugh as she stepped into the kitchen and braced a hand on the counter. "You're right. Fate knew you were coming to visit, and she told me to get my butt out of bed and make your granola this morning." She threw me a teasing grin. "But I didn't leave out the dried cherries."

I chuckled. "Of course you didn't." I'd started bitching about extra sugar about the same time I'd discovered girls and the school gym. Then a Navy recruiter had come to talk to all the upperclassmen. Seeing a way out, recognizing financial security, I'd upped my game—on all fronts.

My mom eyed me like no one else. "You going to pick them out this time?"

"Of course not."

She held her locked gaze. "You know I can tell when you're lying."

I winked. "I would never disrespect the granola."

Shaking her head, she laughed true, the one that was almost childish as she moved toward the baking sheet still on the stove. "Grab the milk, and I'll get the bowls."

"Yes, ma'am." I turned toward the fridge, and she groaned. Spinning back around, ready to catch her if she was about to fall or faint, I stilled when I saw her shaking her head.

Her back to me, she reached for a spatula. "You know I hate being called ma'am. Just because you're in the Navy and became this important SEAL doesn't mean I like the patriarchy of it or being lumped in with a term reserved for old women and Southern values that I don't have."

"Roger that." Not bothering to argue the merits of respect, I left the ma'am statement alone and grabbed the milk that was a shade off. "New recipe?"

"For what?"

"The milk." I lifted the lid off the glass jar that was probably older than me.

She glanced back with a look of confusion.

"I'm drawing the line at smelling this." If she couldn't remember how old her homemade shit was, I was going to the store and buying her a case of shelf-stable vegan milk.

Recognition came back, and she rolled her eyes. "It's soy milk, not almond. Stop being dramatic and bring it here."

I set it on the counter next to her and casually asked. "When'd you switch?" Tofu was cheaper than almonds. I kept her bank account as flush as she'd let me. Anything over what she deemed reasonable, and she'd stop using it altogether. I'd learned that the hard way.

"Few months back."

"Why?" She loved almond milk, or so she'd said.

"No reason." She scooped granola into bowls, filling one with a considerably larger helping.

Reaching around her, I grabbed two spoons. "Go sit. I'll bring these to the table."

"I see you're still bossy," she hazed, but she put down the spatula.

Surreptitiously picking it up as she turned, I dumped half the portion she'd given me back onto the pan. "I see you're still stubborn."

"Takes one to know one."

Christ. "Who's the parent here?"

She half laughed as she eased herself into a chair at the table that rivaled the couch for age and wear. But then her voice quieted. "You are. You always were." Pulling her long hair off one shoulder and shifting it to the other, she looked down as I set a bowl in front of her. "I probably should finally apologize to you about that."

Taking the seat next to her instead of across from her like I used to, I set down the milk and gently gripped her arm as the burner in my pocket vibrated with an incoming call. "Don't." I ignored the cell phone.

She looked up. Peasant blouse, prairie skirt, her blonde hair starting to gray, eyes the same color as mine, she looked more like a child than she had when I first realized she was young for a mom. "I can't say what I want to you?"

"Of course you can. But I don't need an apology for anything." Picking up the milk, I poured it over her granola and tipped my chin as my cell stopped vibrating. "Eat."

She watched as I doused my serving with fucking soy milk, but she didn't pick up her spoon.

Fighting not to order her again to eat, I grabbed my spoon and took a huge bite.

She waited.

I chewed my childhood.

Then I smiled. "It's great, Mom." I nodded at her bowl again. "Eat." I winked. "Before it gets soft."

She scoffed, but she picked up her spoon. "I do not make soggy granola, and you know it."

Crunching through another bite, I gave her the compliment in earnest. "No, you don't."

She quietly spoke into her bowl. "I love you."

Gripping the shoulder of the woman who taught me vulnerable souls need reassurance and protection, I squeezed. "Love you, too, Mom. Always."

My burner vibrated again.

The teenage mother who had done her best as a single parent looked knowingly at me. "Are you going to answer that?"