Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 153

Chapter 148: Mother and Son Reunion

Nick’s POV

She took out her phone. It was the small one, the personal one, not the house phone that she used whenever she was working here. She looked at me steadily. “Are you ready?”

I thought about being ready.

I thought about all the things I’d been carrying since the hospital. The day Mom had come and I’d said the things I’d said to her, the things I’d heard adults say and hadn’t understood yet that they were weapons, hadn’t understood yet that words were weapons until I’d used them and watched her face and known immediately that I’d used them wrong but hadn’t known how to stop using them.

I’d been carrying that day for a long time.

“Yes,” I said.

Mrs. Peterson dialed.

I heard it connecting. The sound of a phone call starting, the beeping first that started it, and then the ringing.

One.

I held the card.

Two.

I looked at Gerald the Boot on the ceiling.

Three.

And then

“Hello?”

Her voice.

Across all the distance between where I was and where she was, which was a lot of distance, which was Chicago to Seattle and also all the months since the hospital and all the things I’d said and all the things I’d meant and all the things I’d been trying to figure out how to say-

Her voice.

My chest did the big thing again.

“Mom?” I said.

Silence then a gasp as she spoke

“Nick.” Her voice was different. It cracked on the one syllable of my name, went soft in the middle of it. “Hi, baby.”

I hadn’t been called baby in a long time.

“I made you a card,” I said. “Three weeks ago. I didn’t know where to send it.”

“You made me a card,” she said, and her voice did the soft thing in the middle again.

“It’s blue,” I said. “Dark blue. I drew us on the front. You’re wearing the green sweater.”

“I love that sweater,” she said quietly.

“I know.” I looked at the card in my hand. “I wrote something inside. Can I read it to you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Please.”

I opened the card.

I looked at the three sentences that I’d written, the ones that were the truest things I had.

“I didn’t mean it,” I read. “I love you. Nick.”

The silence this time was long, she didn’t say anything for a long time and I didn’t say anything either because i knew that when asking someone for forgiveness you don’t rush the person who is processing The apology no matter how long it takes.

I waited for her to do the processing all on her own.

“Nick,” she said finally, and her voice was very careful now, like she was carrying something fragile and needed both hands to avoid it sli. I know you didn’t mean it. I’ve known that.”