Unfortunately, it wasn't even the last straw. If you thought those things were, like, uncool, Alyx taught me the other night that Constantijin’s European exes could be a lot worse. She had DM’d me a tweet of this super famous movie actress in Germany. When I ran it through a random web translator, this was what I got: Inexpensive she-dog nabbed the horse that I rode so well.
So, you see, I totally had reason to be wary about any unknown woman I got to meet these days.
“You will like her, this woman. She has very good taste. In fact, she was the one who decorated my pad.”
A now-familiar green-eyed monster reared its head at the tone of admiration in Constantijin’s words. Even though I thought his pad was beautifully decorated as well, I heard myself saying noncommittally, “We'll see. I mean, we’re from different generations.”
“Are you saying I’m old?” Constantijin mock growled.
“No. I’m saying your interior designer is probably someone you did date and she’s old. Like, cougar-old---”
“Yanna?” a cultured voice floated up to me.
Shock had me choking because I accidentally swallowed half of my donut. Scrambling to my feet, I had this insane urge to bow, curtsy, and salute all at the same time. Even though I now knew about her difficult past, none of it changed the way I saw her.
As Alyx would be inclined to say, this woman “got balls”.
Constantijin was still talking. “Let me speak with my mother, Yanna. I just want her to know that you think she is, what did you say---”
I ended the call. Nobody surely was interested in what Constantijin had to say.
Marge pulled me close for a brief, warm hug and kissed my cheek before releasing me. “You look more and more beautiful every time I see you, dear,” she said as she took a seat across me.
“You, too, Mrs. Kastein.” It was true. She was dressed in this lovely pale pink sheath and matching pumps. A choker of pearls around her neck was her only accessory, and it made her look like a spunkier middle-aged version of Audrey Hepburn.
There was a moment of silence between us before she spoke again. “Thank you for defending me that night, Yanna.”
The words had me completely flustered. “It was nothing, Mrs. Kastein---”
“Marge, please, and of course it’s not nothing, Yanna. Only a few people would have cared to defend me that way.”
I grimaced. “That way meaning turning into a war freak, right?”
She laughed. “I prefer war freaks to wimps.” She called for a waiter then, ordering for coffee and a slice of cake. Looking back at me, she said softly, “You know, I had wanted to call you the very next day, but Constantijin asked me to wait.”
“He did?” Constantijin’s action confused me yet again, but then that wasn’t really new, was it?
His mother sighed. “If you haven’t noticed by now, my son is not the type to take a lot of risks when it comes to his feelings. I suppose he thought he had to do more things to…win you over to his side before we unloaded more of the family baggage on you.”
Thinking very carefully of what I wanted to say and what was safe to reveal, I finally murmured, “No matter what others say, I’ll always think you’re a wonderful woman and a great mother.”
“And my son?”
Biting back a sigh because I was hoping she wouldn’t ask that, I mumbled, “He’s great, too.”
“And…” When I didn’t answer, Marge said in an even tone, “You love him, don’t you?”
Oh, shit.
“Mrs. Kastein, I mean, Marge, I don’t---”
“Yanna, I can see it in your face.”
Oh, oh shit.
“Please don’t tell him that,” I heard myself whispering. It felt humiliating to do so, but I had to. Life with Constantijin was the sweetest it could be, and I just wasn’t ready to have it end so soon. “He’s not---”
“He’s not ready to hear it, I know,” she interrupted with a sad smile. “Yanna, I am a proud woman myself so believe me when I tell you that what I’m about to say does not come easy for me. But I want what is best for my son and I think you are that.”
Her order came just then, and she reached for her cup with slightly trembling fingers. “I was a whore back then, Yanna. But what Constantijin can’t ever bear to admit to himself was that time I was also heavily addicted to drugs. It was the reason I couldn’t get a job to raise him properly. Whoring was an easy way and it would still have been my life if Erik hadn’t found me. His father was---is---an angel. He could have had any woman in the world and yet he chose me. He fell in love with me.”
Her fingers tightened around her cup as she took a sip, as if preparing herself for another painful revelation. My chest hurt as I waited, my heart aching for what Constantijin and his entire family had to go through.
“For a while, I couldn’t make myself love Erik---I felt I was too unworthy and I did everything to make him leave me. I had sex with his friend, his driver, I went to bed with anyone close to Erik who was willing to betray him.”
Inhaling deeply, Marge said with a tear-clogged voice, “But he didn’t leave me. He kept on loving me until I was too tired not to love him back. I thought it would be okay then, but I didn’t realize that the one who would pay for my mistakes was my son.”
I couldn’t stop crying when she said those words. Even if she didn’t say anything else after that, I already knew, could easily imagine what followed, and her words proved my fears true.
“He was twelve when he first learned about my past. He got into so many fights after that but he never blamed me. When he was seventeen, he started going out with the daughter of one of our neighbors. She was perfect on paper – pretty, smart, witty, the right pedigree. And then he caught her ha**ng s*x with another boy – someone whom he considered his own friend.”
A painful shudder racked Marge’s body. “It was like the past all over again. And…and I know my son, Yanna. He was so gentle back then, so loving. And I think he would have forgiven her, he had a heart like his father. But that girl wasn’t me. She didn’t love my son the way I loved Erik. She hated being caught in the wrong so she lashed out. She said he should forgive her the way his father had forgiven me for f**king everyone in his life.”
Marge’s eyes met mine, pleading for something I was afraid to give a name to. “Yanna, I know my son is not perfect. I know you know that he doesn’t seem to want to love you, but it’s not that. It was never that. He’s just afraid he’d be like his father if he falls in love again.”