CHAPTER 23 LINCOLN

"Everything okay with you and Dad?" I ask my mother over the phone later that night after the wire transfer to Asher goes through.

She sighs. "Fine, honey. Why do you ask?"

"Asher said you called him looking for Dad. Just curious what's going on."

"Oh, you know your father. Turns out he told me he was meeting Asher when he really went to the casino. He didn't want me to know he was gambling again."

The oh, you know your father line throws me a bit. Do I know him at all? I'm surprised he went to the casino without her, even more surprised he lied about it, and some level above surprised but below shocked that she said he's gambling again.

"What do you mean by again?" I ask.

"He got into some trouble a few years ago when we were in Vegas. Some private poker game," she says, but she doesn't share more than that.

Apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

In fact, I can't help but wonder whether Asher and my dad actually were together last night—for part of the night, at least.

"I listened to your podcast," she says. "Just so you know. Dad didn't, though. But I love that you're giving back to the community. You're a good boy."

I chuckle. Nobody has called me a good boy in years.

"I just wish it was with anybody else," she admits. I don't bother commenting. I know her feelings on the Bailey family. She and Joanna were best friends before Joseph's injury, and between my dad, my mom, and me, we all lost someone important to us that day. My mom lost her best friend. I lost my girlfriend. And my dad didn't just lose his best friend. In many ways, he also lost his son. And further down the road, he lost his restaurant, his money, his self-respect.

All because of one stupid move.

So maybe he has a right to hate the Baileys, but if he does, he should also consider who was the central source of all that loss.

"Anyway," she says, brushing that last statement into the past, "if there's anything I can do, just let me know. I'd love to give back to the community, too, in particular since I'm new here. I haven't made any friends yet, and I'm stuck here with your father doing who knows what."

"Sure, Mom," I say, and I can't help the next question. "Are you happy you moved here?"

I think I mean to ask whether she's happy with my father, but that's not the question that comes out. Maybe I'm too afraid to hear the answer. I may be in my mid-thirties, but that doesn't mean I want to see my parents break up.

But the more I think about it…the more I wonder whether they'd be happier that way.

Because I'm not the only one who changed that day. My mom did, too, and it's hard to imagine that these two who got married so damn young are still the same people they were forty years ago.

"To be determined," she says.

We all go through changes in our lives, and I suspect my parents have grown in opposite directions over the years. They were teenagers when they met. It's hard to imagine they grew together in every way over the four decades they've been together.

But on the other hand…I can't help but wonder whether Jolene and I did grow together even though we were apart. I think we share a lot of the same values, but we've been so busy fucking in the time we have together that we haven't spent much time talking about what we want out of the future—and whether that future will be shared together or not.

I think it's too big a question to answer right now, but the more time I spend with her, the more I see a future that includes her.

But I can't see both her and my father in the same picture, so at some point, I'll have to make a choice.

"What will be the determining factor?" I ask.

"Seeing my boys on the field together at games."

"You need a life separate from your boys, Mom," I chide.

"I know. I'll find my place. I guess I just got used to hanging with the goats on the farm, and life's a little more fast-paced here."

"Why don't you go back to New York, then?"

She clears her throat. "Your father put the farm up for sale."

"He what?" I choke. Grayson and I paid off the farm so my mom could have it forever. Spencer pays the staff. And my father just…put up the farm without telling us?

"You heard me correctly." She's quiet a beat. "Anyway, I better go, honey. Let me know if there are any charity events for an old lady like me."

"You're hardly old, Mom."

She practically snorts at me. "Even if one of you surprised me with grandchildren at this point, I'm not sure I could keep up."

"Oh stop it," I tease, but I'm only saying it because I'm deflecting what I already know is the next question.

"So when will that happen, by the way?"

Predictable…as is my answer. "Not anytime soon."

She sighs with exaggerated disappointment, and we say our goodbyes.

Still, that call gave me an awful lot to think about, and maybe the topic at the forefront of my mind is whether my parents are destined to stay together forever or if there's an end in sight…and what that will mean for their four adult children.

Maybe nothing.

But maybe they'll force us to choose sides when I'm already caught in the middle of a situation where I'll need to choose sides.

I don't want them to separate. I don't want them to go through the hardship that certainly comes with divorce.

Still, I can't help but think that if they do, it might just make my own decisions that much easier.