20. Mattias

"She's going to have to go into a home eventually anyway, Matty, unless you're planning on wiping her ass for her in another year or two," the voice on the end of the line was whining.

My jaw hurt, I was clenching it so hard to try to keep from responding.

"This is ridiculous. A tiny town like that doesn't even need a hotel, and the place is worth a fortune. She'd be much more comfortable if?—"

"If I abandoned her," I blurted out, and as I'd feared, once the words started, they didn't stop. "That's what you mean. She'd be more comfortable if I abandoned her and sold everything in the world that means something to her. Maybe you also think I should blow town and never answer her calls. Sounds awfully familiar, doesn't it?"

"Matty," my mother said, the high whine in her voice irritating as hell, and not for the first time I was struck by the understanding that the wrong one of us was the parent. "You can't keep holding that over my head for the rest of our lives. You've shackled yourself to that place. The inn, the town, the whole damned state. Don't you think she'd think it's time you should do something for yourself?"

"If you actually believed that, you'd be whining to her instead of me," I pointed out. "And as far as ‘holding that over your head,' are you referring to the fact that you abandoned me and blew town as soon as I was inconvenient, or the fact that you've never been available when I needed anything, but whenever you need something, you show right up on my phone or at my door?"

On the other end of the phone, she groaned her annoyance with me.

With the truth.

Surprise.

She'd never been a big fan of the truth, when it was so very unkind to her.

Because she was a jerk.

"She's hanging on by a thread, Mattias. How often is she in the wheelchair these days? She needs regular nursing, not to be trying to run a damned business." Her irritation was showing through in her voice now, but the words... well, if she'd taken that tact from the start, she might have convinced me.

Grandma probably needed more help than I could truly give her. She was in her wheelchair about half the time these days, from the ache in her hip and the muscle weakness she'd been fighting since she'd broken it. She worked at it, but it was a downhill battle—the human body wasn't meant to go on forever, and she wasn't ever going to be a hundred percent healthy again.

And me? I was a chef. Yeah, I was a great one, but what the fuck did I know about caring for someone in their twilight years?

Everyone kept talking about it behind my back all over town. To hear them tell it, I was some kind of fucking saint, but that was bullshit. I just loved my grandmother, and wanted every moment I could still have with her. It was pure selfishness that I didn't sell the inn and spend all the money to find her the best nursing care.

Not that that was what my mother wanted. Oh no. She wanted me to find a place for Grandma to stay that would be covered by social security and Medicare alone. She wanted me to sell the inn and property and give her half of the money, and keep half for myself. The whole property was worth a lot, surely, so she reasoned I could start myself a restaurant in "a real place," as though Cider Landing were imaginary.

I didn't even know what she wanted to do with "her half," but it didn't matter what she needed money for. New gambling or drug addiction, house, college for some adopted children she wanted to love her the way I never would. I had no idea, and I didn't care. Grandma's will left everything to me except for some boxes of stuff in the attic my mother had left behind all those years ago.

That would be her inheritance: clothes she hadn't worn since she was a teenager, posters she'd had on her wall, stuffed animals, and other relics of adolescence. She was going to be so fucking mad, and a mean little part of me wanted to see it.

Well, except that it meant Grandma would be dead, so obviously, I never, ever wanted to see it.

My computer pinged in front of me, notification popping up in the right corner. I had an email from Connor.

Instantly, I was tuning my mother out to open my email and check—reservation system. It wasn't an email from Connor. It was an email from the reservation system, saying Connor had made a reservation for two weeks at the end of the month.

He usually came down in the summer, and it was barely April.

A moment later, another ping sounded, and this time it really was an email from Connor.

Hey,

I know, I know, I'm early this year. I also know we talk all the time on the phone and by text. I just... miss you. Maybe I'll come down in June too. See you soon?

Connor

Was he fucking messing with me? Like I'd ever tell him no. Instantly, I hit respond and started typing, only after a moment realizing that the annoying buzzing in my ear was my mother, still talking. Ugh.

"Matty? Matty are you listening to me? This is?—"

"No, actually." The other end of the line went silent, and I pictured her face, slack and stunned. Funny, she looked about my age in my picture of her. Had it been that long since I'd seen her in person? It didn't matter. "I'm trying to run a business, and I don't really have time for this. It's not up to you. It's up to me and Grandma, and we're happy with how things are. Stop calling and trying to weasel money out of us. Oh, and Mom? It's Mattias. No one who knows me has called me Matty since I was seven."

And before she could get herself together and start yelling at me for disrespect and whatnot, I hung up the phone and turned back to my email.

Hey yourself,

Come early, come late, come forever. As long as you come. Feel free to take that as an innuendo or not, as you like. I miss you. Grandma misses you. Hell, Peanut misses you—you're the one who slips him the most pieces of steak under the table. See you whenever you're willing to see me back,

Mattias.