wasn’t enough to cut her off financially. If he’d had his way, we would have pretended she never existed.”
She shook her head bitterly. “He never let me forget that it was my fault we hadn’t had more children. Hadn’t had sons. After she got married, he didn’t want me to so much as mention her name in front of him.”
My eyes narrowed. It was plausible, what Eleanor was saying. But it attributed a victimhood to her that I wasn’t sure I was ready to concede. She was still accountable for her actions, wasn’t she? And as far as I was concerned, the vast majority of those had been harmful.
“Your grandfather controlled almost everything about my life,” Eleanor continued, almost as though she were talking to herself. “But he allowed me a small allowance. I rationed it, and invested a portion of it each week. In an account he knew nothing about. I don’t know what I thought I was going to do with it. I could hardly have left him—there was nowhere I could have gone that would have been a true escape.”
She looked up at me, her eyes fierce. “But when your mother got sick, I had the money to help, and I told him I was going to do it whether he liked it or not. He was furious. It wasn’t until he realized he could demand a relationship with his grandsons in exchange for the money that he agreed.”
“Grandson,” I corrected her, still not willing to let her off the hook. “You only wanted to see Deacon.”
“You and Emory were still so young,” Eleanor said. “I hoped that over time, maybe you two might join him, but—well. Things changed.”
“You’re sure you didn’t just want to see Deacon because you thought he was straight at first?” I asked acerbically. “Because he fit your perfect grandson box?”
Eleanor snorted. There was no denying it this time, delicate though the sound was. “Connor, you and Emory were children. I don’t think either one of you was truly interested in anyone at that age. But Deacon—”
“I know what you did. Getting him to end things with that guy he liked in high school. Don’t try to deny you had a hand in that.”
“Of course I had a hand in it. I was trying to keep him safe. Trying to keep your grandfather from disowning him like he had your mother. I didn’t want to lose him when we’d only just reconnected.”
She glared up at me. “I wasn’t perfect, I admit. But I never wished for things to turn out the way they did. And I am doing my best to undo the damage that your grandfather and I have caused.”
“Right. Because giving Deacon a wedding card suddenly makes you a PFLAG chapter president.”
“What on earth is a PFLAG?” Eleanor asked, and I groaned. Of course she didn’t know what that meant. Of fucking course.
“Forget it,” I said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“There are many things you don’t understand,” Eleanor said, giving me a look that was sad and knowing and put my back up. “But I have been trying to make amends. And if you think there’s more I could be doing, then please. Enlighten me.”
I rolled my eyes. “Jesus. How do you manage it?”
“Manage what?”
“To make an apology sound like a dressing down.”
“I don’t believe I was apologizing,” Eleanor replied. “And I’d thank you not to take the Lord’s name in vain. Regardless of your personal opinions, you can still follow basic conversational courtesies.”
“Alright. Jeez. Happy?”
Eleanor sighed. “You are so much like your mother.”
“I wish you’d stop saying that. What do you know about what she was like? You hardly talked to her when I was a kid.”
“Then perhaps I should say you’re too much like me. Though I doubt that will please you any more.”
I barked a laugh, and she gave me an appraising look.
“The more that I think about it,” she said, again sounding more like she was talking to herself than to me, “the more I realize that might be our problem. We’re too alike.”
“Excuse me, our problem does not exist. The problem has nothing to do with me. It’s about—”
“We’re both stubborn,” Eleanor said, as though I hadn’t even been talking. “Both too convinced, perhaps, of the rightness of our own actions.” She sighed. “And we’ve both been hurt.”
I blinked. Hurt? She couldn’t be referring to Julian, could she? Jesus, did everyone know that we’d gotten back together?
“But now I really must be going,” Eleanor said, smoothly interrupting my