the yard according to the different seasons. Played with his sisters, teased them. He’d have got up to all sorts of shenanigans with his buddies in his teens and maybe even copped a feel or two right there on the porch.
“He’s hard on himself,” Val’s voice came from behind her.
Poppy twisted around to see her closing the front door. “Turner?” she asked, returning to her admiring of the street. “He expects a lot from himself.”
“And not much from others.”
She exhaled a laugh. “And the worst from me.”
“He’s under a lot of pressure.”
Poppy glanced at Val as she came to join her sitting on the stairs. “I think your son is an incredible man,” she said. “I wouldn’t have a bad word to say about him to anyone.”
“He says you didn’t grow up like this… that where you come from is different.” Although Poppy turned her smile down, Val spotted it. “Don’t be angry at him.”
“You know, I’m starting to think that’s impossible,” she said, bringing her feet up a stair so she could fold her arms on her knees and drop her temple to them, looking up at Val as she did. “I can’t stay mad at him; it’s impossible for me to stay mad at him.”
“It was the same with Ed,” Val said, wearing a sympathetic smile. “They just get under your skin… They’re too goddamn pure hearted for our own good.”
“He has this blind spot,” Poppy murmured, gazing at nothing. “He has blinders on. Once he’s told himself something has to be one way… that’s the way it has to be. I tried to respect that… I’ve been trying to respect it.”
“Maybe his way isn’t the way it has to be.”
Shaking her head, Poppy pulled her arms tighter around her knees. “It’s so deeply embedded in there…”
Wondering if maybe his slip ups had been deliberate, Poppy couldn’t decide if his subconscious wanted to push her away or if it was testing her. He couldn’t really have meant what he said about her and Ritchie. Sure, maybe he thought there had been a lot of alcohol involved, but… If he could believe she was the type to fall into bed with just anyone, or his best friend, on the same night she’d told him he would never hurt her…
“He needs something that isn’t us,” Val said like she was confessing a profound truth. So solemn was her plea that it took Poppy out of her thoughts. “He needs something that isn’t this obligation. Something that he chooses, not something that’s thrust upon him.”
“He loves—”
“I know he loves us,” Val said, her frustration palpable. “He became the head of this family the second his father took his last breath. He grew up too fast, too young, and has spent every second since then doing everything in his power for his sisters. It’s as though he feels the need to do both Al and Ed’s jobs for them. I try to tell him to slow down, to see that his life is passing him by, but he…” She sighed. “I want the best for my children. All of them. As individuals. I don’t want one of them sacrificing their happiness for the sake of the others.”
“He has rules.”
“I know his rules,” Val said. “Everyone knows how he tries to keep that high brick wall between his work and his family. There’s a reason for that. He invested everything in the Venture, as did his father and grandfather… He’s torn between wanting to make Ed and Al proud by finishing their work, and the guilt he feels over doing it alone. It was never supposed to be just him. It was supposed to be the three of them. Always the three of them… But they died and he lived…”
“And he thinks he profited from that,” Poppy said, raising her head. “Oh my God.”
Val was right. Of course she was right, she was his mom, but Poppy hadn’t looked at it that way.
“Preston and Ritchie invested in Naughtie’s,” Val said. “It wouldn’t have got off the ground without them. Turner was given the chance to go in with them, but he put up that wall again.”
“Because if he mixes his personal relationships and business again he thinks, what? He’s a hex or something?”
Val shrugged. “He envisioned a future for himself that didn’t come to fruition… I think… he’s afraid to envision another future… in case he loses that too… He’s always been good at dealing with the problem right in front of him.