Always Fraser by A. Steel (electronic reader .txt) 📕

to be done. He’s back at home now and Elly has been taking him to his appointments and looking after him as best she can so Anne can still work. It was hard for her to get time off at such short notice.

Hopefully, I can get in and out of here quickly then be back with Elly in time for dinner. I wouldn’t admit this out loud, but I’ve missed her today. It's amazing how fast things are moving with us now that her family finally knows what's going on. I can see our whole life playing out in front of us, and for once, I’m not scared of what the future holds. I want it all with her. Marriage, kids, the perfect house with the white picket fence, just like the family she grew up in. My chance for a real family.

I pull up at our house and have to park on the curb. I wonder who owns that red sedan parked in the driveway. Maybe Blake has got himself some pussy after all. Good for him.

As I walk in the front door, I can hear Blake talking to a female. He sounds serious but that’s standard Blake. He would be like that with a date as well, I imagine. But as I look to see where the voices are coming from, I see him sitting at the dining table, and my eyes widen in fear when I see who he is with. My mum! I can feel the colour draining from my face. I'm not ready for a face-to-face confrontation with her. I thought hanging up on her the other week was clue enough that I didn’t want to see her. What the fuck is she doing here?

Chapter Eighteen

Fraser

“Why are you in my house?” I know I’m being rude, but what the fuck is she doing here? I’m not giving her money just because she turned up at my house. Is she fucking kidding?

“I’m here to see you, my boy. It's been way too long. Come and give your old mum a hug.”

Blake stands up. “I’ll give you some space to chat.” He walks down the hall to his room, and I’m silently begging him, with my eyes, not to leave me alone with her. I’m not sure what to do. I want to run back out the front door, but I know, now that she's here, I’m going to have to deal with her.

“Come on, son, come sit with me. I’m sorry I haven’t been around much. We have lots to talk about and catch up on.”

I don’t move from where I’m standing in the doorway. I don’t want to go anywhere near her. She's not my mum, she's some stranger. Her face is the same, but she's aged a lot! Her hair now grey and her eyes sunken, she looks thin and tired, but I can tell she's the same woman I knew. She's here for one thing and one thing only. This is all an act to manipulate me so she can get what she wants. My bet, that money she was after on the phone call.

“I know you’re not here to see me. You couldn’t care less about me and catching up on lost time. So, I’ll ask again, why are you here?”

She smiles sweetly. “Son, of course I care about you. Come sit with me and tell me what's going on in your life. Your friend tells me you're doing really well with your business.”

I have no words. The anger is radiating off me. How dare she sit here and pretend to be my long-lost family that actually cares about each other and wants to be involved in each other's lives. I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my body, she makes me so fucking mad.

“Is your girlfriend's father all right? Your friend said he had a fall and is sick. I've come around a few times this week and you haven’t been here. Come, tell me about your girl. It's nice you have found yourself a girlfriend.”

“Elly’s none of your business. Stop asking me questions, trying to pretend you care, when I know you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have left me when I was 14. What kind of a mother just walks out on her own kid?”

She stands up from the table and walks over to me. She goes to touch my arm, but I pull away. “I can see I’m not going to get anywhere with you today. It’s obviously been a long day for you, but I’m your mother and I want to be part of your life now. I’ll come back tomorrow when you're not so tired.”

“No, don’t, I don’t want anything to do with you. You destroyed Dad and me when you left, and you never looked back. It was all about you. It’s always all about you. You abandoned us. I don’t even know what would have happened to us if it wasn’t for the Walkers. They took us in and helped Dad get back on his feet. They’re my family, not you. A woman that walks away and doesn't look back on her child, her family, can't call herself my mother and expect to be a part of my life in any way.”

“I had my reasons, Fraser. Now that you're older I thought I might be able to talk to you so you can understand my side.”

“I will never understand your side. It doesn't matter what you have to say. You didn't just leave Dad, you left me, and I didn’t hear a thing from you until last month.”

She looks angry now and that's the face I remember, my mum drunk with a fight to pick, normally with my dad. He never earned enough money, or didn’t do enough around the house, or it was his fault she had to look elsewhere for companionship because he worked too much.

“You know you will never really be a part of that picture-perfect family. They