Alpha Billionaire Series
Loving the One I Should Hate Chapter 23

MANDY

Two months later....

"Hey, Mom, I'm home," I announced as I walked in the kitchen door of our small rental.

It felt weird calling this place home. It wasn't home, it would never be home. Home was a mid-century split level that was sold months ago. Home was an early twentieth-century saltbox of a house on the shore of a small lake in Wisconsin. This was a two-bedroom rental that cost way more than it should.

When I didn't hear anything, I put my bags down and crossed into the small living room. Sometimes Mom would fall asleep while watching TV. She seemed so tired lately, more so than she had over the summer. "Mom?" She wasn't asleep on the couch.

I found her curled up and asleep in bed. I pulled her covers up and tucked her in like she had for me so many years ago.

I tip-toed from the room and quietly closed the door behind me. I shrugged out of my office clothes. They were starting to get too tight to be comfortable. I was going to have to admit defeat and stop trying to buy larger sizes, and just replace some maternity clothes. That or I was going to have to start wearing my comfortable yoga pants into the office.

I walked back into the kitchen and wondered what I should make for dinner. Mom's meals had gotten more and more simplified over the past few years. Her illness had slowed her down considerably, but she was determined to always have a meal on the table for my dad.

Growing it up seemed a point of pride for her to be able to cook and feed her family no matter what. She hated eating out and hated take out. While I agreed that homemade meals tasted better, and were vastly healthier, I was just too worn down to make dinner after a long day at work. I would have much rather stopped and picked up gyros to-go, but for Mom, I cooked.

She typically had a plan, and when I did the shopping, she created lists with these planned meals in mind. I had no idea what she had thought about making. I opened a half-empty jar of pickles and munched on a dill spear as I looked through the refrigerator and pantry for ideas. I fell back on an old staple that was easy to make and felt like comfort food.

I pulled a box of macaroni and cheese, a can of tuna fish, and a can of peas from the pantry. I hesitated over the can of fish, something about toxicity levels in canned fish and pregnant women. I couldn't see what else there was to eat, and I had already settled on this in my mind. I pulled out my phone and quickly looked up if it was safe to eat tuna while pregnant. I was happy to learn that it was fine in small quantities. The amount of tuna in a can wasn't even near the limits they were suggesting.

It wasn't going to be a fancy dinner. It was going to be warm and taste like my childhood. I thought about adding another vegetable as a side dish, but that seemed like too much work. I set about boiling noodles and opening cans. I pulled a block of cheddar from the fridge and pulled out the shredder.

With everything cooked, I began assembling the ingredients. I was shredding the extra cheese into the noodles when Mom came into the kitchen.

"Oh, Mandy, I fell asleep. I'm sorry I didn't get dinner started," she sounded groggy as if she were still half asleep.

"Don't worry about it. Are you feeling okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, just tired. What did you replace to make for dinner?"

"Cheaters tuna casserole," I announced.

"Cheaters?" Mom asked as she lowered herself into a chair at the kitchen table. She was moving slower these days. She seemed unsure of her movements as if her body needed reminding or assistance of how to move.

"Yeah, instead of baking noodles in cream of mushroom soup, and topping it with potato chips, I added tuna and peas to a box of macaroni and cheese," I described what I made as I served it into bowls. I handed her a fork. And filled cups with water for us both. I joined her at the table, and we both ate for a while in silence. It tasted exactly as I had imagined it would.

"Do you remember when you were little? Michael loved hot dogs cut up in his mac and cheese, and you always tried to get the noodles to line up on your fork, so the times were fat noodles," she laughed at the memory.

She was talking about Michael more and more. I didn't know if it was fear of losing the business that had made her realize that Michael's memory was important, or if it had anything to do with Dad.

I laughed. "You mean like this?" I wiggled my fork through my food, capturing noodles on the fork, and held it up.

"Exactly." Her smile disappeared as she started coughing.

The coughing fits were new. I didn't like them. She would be helpless for a few moments until they passed. I waited until she was able to catch her breath.

"Have some water," I said, handing her a cup of water. "Have you been back to your doctor yet? That cough seems to be getting worse."

"I'm sorry Mandy. It seems like I cough more when I'm tired. I don't see the doctor for another month. I haven't coughed all day, but you haven't been here to see that."

"Yeah, well, I do have to work. Okay, a month? Be sure to mention that cough to him. If you're really tired, you can go back to bed if you want. There are no rules saying you can't."

"I don't want you to think you have come home to be ignored. You're working so hard. I see that. Your father would be so proud of you."

Tears rimmed her eyes, and I couldn't help but start tearing up myself.

"I'm doing this for him. Him and Michael. I can't let their dreams die just because they are no longer with us," I said with a sigh.

"How is it going? Is that man going to be able to take everything away from us?"

"No, Mom, Grant Carpenter won't be able to take MiMa Play away from us."

He had taken everything from me, my dream future, my ability to trust, I wasn't going to let him take the company.

"If Michael was still with us none of this would have happened. He knew how to keep your father focused, and from making crazy deals. Sometimes I wondered how your father did it." "He worked very hard," I said.

"That's all he ever did. He only worked. That should have been a red flag. Why didn't I recognize that him working so hard wasn't normal? Was he struggling with the company and not telling me? I could have helped."

"Dad worked too much even when Michael was around. That's just the way he was. And you did your part, you raised us kids, and kept the family fed and clothed."

"Sometimes I think he cared more for that company than he did the rest of us."

Mom's confession came as a complete shock. I had always thought she supported the lifestyle of Dad doing all the late nights of working so she could be a stay-at-home mom when most of my friends were latch-key kids. Michael and I were incredibly lucky to have a mom at home at a time that was not prevalent.

"I don't believe that at all. Dad loved us so much, he started a company so that Michael and I could get the equipment sized to our little hands for the games we loved so much. To me he sacrificed so much to give us what we loved. Dad was a super dad for taking our dreams and making them into his. That's love. I miss them both so much." I wiped at my tears.

I no longer had dreams of my own. Grant had seen to that, taking those away from me with his betrayal. It only made sense to continue the work my father and brother had done. Without dreams of my own, I would carry on with theirs.

I picked up Mom's empty bowl and began running water in the dishes. I didn't want to cry right now.

"He loved you and your brother so much," she started.

"Then why wouldn't you even talk about Michael for the past seven years? I've missed him so much and I was never allowed to talk about him. You acted like he never existed."

"It always hurts too much. You cannot imagine the pain of losing a child."

I could imagine it, all too well. I was going to be a mother sooner than later. It was a fear that had seeped into my existence. But this wasn't the time for that conversation. The more pregnant I got, the more she seemed to ignore it.

"You're right," I said. "I'm glad you started talking about him. Just because he's not with us in person, he's not gone from our thoughts or feelings. I'm afraid Dad lost that perspective."

"Your father never gave up on anything. He was a fighter. He fought and made the best decisions he could. My illness was hard on him. But he was determined that everything would continue along the same lines. He lost so much work time having to take me back and forth to doctor visits and sitting with me in the hospital."

"He should have retired," I said. "You couldn't have gotten him to leave your side. He should have someone to run things for him."

"He should have. But without Michael to hand the company over to, he had to wait until you were ready to take over."

I wasn't ready soon enough for him. He didn't last until I was able to step into his shoes, and now I had to struggle to fill them. There was so much I still didn't know.