on her arm. But her hair was slicked back into a bun. It made her look older. More serious.
“Can I come in?” she asked, her hands interlaced behind her.
He glanced around and caught the eye of one of the other residents—another visiting professor from the English Literature department—unlocking her front door. She waved, and Ronan nodded in return. He could hardly stand out here and argue with his mother for everyone to hear. This might be his home for the moment, but it was still connected to his workplace.
“I’ve got someone coming over shortly,” he said, stepping back and holding the door for Merrin. “So you can’t stay long.”
“I only need a moment.” She stepped into his apartment, and her gaze swept across the room.
It wasn’t quite as barren now, since Audrey had added a few personal touches. She’d brought some flowers over a few days ago, commandeering a mason jar that had previously contained some fancy granola to use as a vase. She’d also brought over a strange rock thing from her aunt’s store and an extra blanket that she’d been gifted by her friend. The pops of color made the place feel more like a home and less like a temporary parking spot.
“You haven’t returned my calls,” Merrin said.
“Doesn’t feel great, does it?” The words shot out before Ronan had a chance to compose himself. It frustrated him, because getting angry at his mother was pointless. He’d tried so many times to connect, and now it felt like when he’d finally given up hope, she decided it was time to try and rebuild their relationship.
What about what he wanted?
What do you want?
That question used to be easy to answer—academic domination. A book that students would study in the future. A career that people would remember.
But now? Those things only felt like part of the equation. The long hours he’d spent over the course of his twenties and half of his thirties, working and working and working…the empty walls and solitary nights and the “next step” always hovering in front of him, had started to feel like a weight holding him back instead of a path leading him forward.
The nights he spent with Audrey, discussing ideas and sharing food and joining their bodies…that felt like something real.
Merrin regarded him with raw hurt simmering in her eyes. “That was unkind.”
“The truth hurts.” He couldn’t find it in himself to pretend. Decades of baggage and resentment were not so easily shrugged off.
“This isn’t how I raised you, Ro.”
“That’s because you didn’t raise me.” Dammit he was angry. He’d had a long day grading his students’ assignments, and his brain wasn’t as agile as it normally was, which meant his emotions bubbled even closer to the surface than normal. “You can’t turn up on my doorstep, complaining that I haven’t returned your calls, when you never showed me the same courtesy.”
“I’ve made mistakes,” she admitted, shaking her head. “I know I wasn’t the best mother. But I’m still a human being, Ronan. I deserve respect.”
She would never understand what she’d done to him. His mother was self-centered. She was the sun in her own universe, the heroine of the only story she knew how to tell.
He raked a hand through his hair. “Why did you come here?”
“I’m not well.”
The words sucked the life out of the room. She wasn’t saying “not well” like she had a cold or the flu or something that popping a few Tylenol might fix. It was more saying sick like…
“I have Alzheimer’s,” Merrin clarified.
Fuck.
“That’s serious.” Ronan didn’t know what to think—his mind spun and spun and didn’t gain traction. It was like he couldn’t catch a single thought, and they all whizzed around his head, bumping into one another. “Really serious.”
“Yes.” Merrin nodded. “I’ve always been forgetful and in my own world, so I was able to explain the symptoms away for a while. But then I started randomly forgetting people’s names and my birth date. I got the diagnosis the day you came home. That’s why I missed your dinner.”
“Oh.”
She bobbed her head. “I, uh…I wasn’t sure how to tell everyone, and so I stayed home.”
Her fingers tucked a stray strand of wiry gray-tinged hair behind her ears, and Ronan was socked in the chest with a memory—being a little boy, her sitting on his bed and reading to him. She used to trace the outside of his ear to help him fall asleep, repeatedly tucking his unruly hair away over and over and over until