The Good Mum

“Yes, I did ask them. Discreetly of course. And now you look much better. You look cared for.”

Ashley had washed it for him. “Cleaned it up,” she’d said. He could turn ninety, and he would never forget the feel of her fingers brushing his scalp. It had been one of the most sensual experiences of his life, and yet they’d both been fully clothed. Her breast near his face. The rustle of her skirt as she’d turned. The soft knock of her heels on the wooden floor. The pads of her fingers as she’d brushed a soap bubble from his brow.

“Aidan?”

Again he snapped to. Hadn’t realized he’d been daydreaming. “It’s strange to be in Boston,” he admitted.

“Home,” Gram amended.

Was it? Outside the windows near the street, Boston whizzed by. The buildings were familiar; the shops and restaurants in the same places with some facades and names changed. Always, though, the throngs of students—college kids—at the crosswalks.

“How do you feel?” she asked again.

He closed his eyes, ran his palms over his newly smooth hair.

“Honestly, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.” He’d spent his childhood here, had gone to college and done his residency here. Now he’d been gone for a year, and it felt like a foreign country.

Gram rummaged inside her tote and pulled out a stack of mail secured with a rubber band. “Your mail. I suppose now that you’re back, I’ll no longer need to handle it for you.”

She’d done the job well for him. Periodically, he’d received an email from her assistant, detailing bills paid on his behalf, invitations answered and declined. “Thank you,” he said.

She waved her hand. “You may stay at my townhouse tonight, if you’d like. I had the guest suite made up for you.”

“I still have my condo.” The words came out gruffly.

There was a pause. She was being circumspect, his formidable grandmother, who had a big heart and who loved him with all of it. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, you do, Aidan.”

His condo was filled with Fleur’s presence, of course. With her things and her memories. He’d toyed with the idea of turning his back on it, selling it as is. Hiring someone to empty it and never going inside again.

“You’re welcome to stay with me tonight,” Gram said again. “In the morning I’m stopping by St. Bartholomew’s School for a meeting of the board. It would be nice if you came along.”

He looked at her sharply. Of course, he’d suspected back at the hair salon that there might be some angle with St. Bartholomew’s somewhere. With his grandmother, nothing was coincidental.

“Why did you really bring me to that hair salon today?” he asked. “Tell me the truth, Gram.”

She smiled at him. “To bring you back into civilization with me. Even if she didn’t cut it, Ashley did a nice job.”

Gram was lying. Feeling sad, he took his napkin off his lap and placed it on the table. “How do you know Ashley? Be honest.”

“I’ve spoken to her only once before.”

“In what capacity?”

Gram folded her hands over her purse and looked him squarely in the eye. “Her son, Brandon, is the best fundraiser for the Sunshine Club we’ve ever had.”

Aidan swallowed his shock. The answer was cold and businesslike, even for her.

Yet the Sunshine Club was his grandmother’s pet project—her fundraising arm for children’s cancer research. The Sunshine Club was Gram’s baby. She’d started it decades ago after her youngest child—an uncle Aidan had never known—had died of childhood leukemia. Gram often said that if Luke had been born today, with all the advances in medicine, then he would have lived.

Few people outside the family even knew of Luke, or of Gram’s continuing grief. She kept it that way on purpose. Gram had a soft heart, though she preferred to show the world the sharp, hardened exterior she’d developed through her business and charitable pursuits.

“Did you meet Brandon through the Sunshine Club, as well?” he asked. “I understand he’s also a leukemia survivor.”

“Initially, yes.” Gram paused. “My staff supervises him and handles all communication between his mother and the organization. Prior to Brandon, we’d used baseball stars—from the Captains—as our television fundraisers. But quite by accident, Brandon stepped in. And he proved to be much more effective than any of them were.”

“How so?”

She smiled at him. “Brandon is very good on television. He’s a natural showman.”

Aidan thought of the studious-looking kid in the St. Bartholomew’s blazer. Brandon had looked like an average twelve-year-old to Aidan. He shook his head. “I don’t know that I would have gone on television and asked people for money at that age,” he murmured.

When Ashley had first mentioned Brandon wanting to be a pediatric oncologist, Aidan hadn’t really believed her. To his cynical mind, it had seemed like more of a parent’s dream than a kid’s dream.

“You would have done it for the chance to be a ball boy for the Captains,” Gram said matter-of-factly.

Aidan sat up straighter. “Ashley’s son is a ball boy for the New England Captains?”

“Oh, yes.” His grandmother nodded. “It was the price I paid for keeping him happy.”

Aidan completely understood the “happy” part—he would have killed for the opportunity to be a Captains ball boy at Brandon’s age. Any kid of Aidan’s acquaintance would have.

Rubbing his tired head, Aidan sat back. “So why all the subterfuge? Why didn’t you just introduce Ashley and me? Simple and easy. Say, ‘Aidan, meet Ashley. Maybe you’d like to give her some advice on her son’s school’?”

Gram snorted. “You don’t know yourself as well as you think you do, do you?” Then she pulled back. “It’s...a delicate situation,” she said carefully. “I had to proceed with caution. I do need your help, Aidan. You’re the only person I know who can help—the best person—and yet I needed to know that you could work with Ashley on your own terms. If I’d been too early, pushing you to meet her, to sit with her, to talk about her son—do you think you would have lasted five minutes?”

No. Of course he wouldn’t have. And he hated to be manipulated.

Yet here he was again, put in that situation by people close to him.

Even Gram. And it hurt.

She leaned over the table and put her hand on his “I know how hard it was for you at St. Bartholomew’s. It wasn’t a happy place for you, and I did the best I could to give you support there.”

Yes, she had. His enrollment had been his parents’ insistence.

He raised his head. He had to ask the question, because he had to know. “Did you pull strings to get Brandon admitted to St. Bartholomew?”

She sighed. “Yes. Though it pained me to do it.” She blotted her lips with her napkin, and put it down on her plate. “His aunt was looking at schools in New Hampshire for him, appealing for scholarships. I couldn’t risk losing him at the Sunshine Club.”

“St. Bartholomew’s is academically rigorous,” he said quietly. “Can Brandon handle that?”

She gave him a sad, serious look. “Come with me tomorrow, and we’ll find out.”

With a sinking heart, Aidan did a quick calculation. The kid would be in his first week of his first year at St. Bartholomew’s. Preliminary academic testing results would be coming back soon. Maybe Gram had some inside information.

“Is there a chance Brandon will be asked to leave?” he asked his grandmother.

“My influence is limited.” She held up her hands. “I can recommend a student for admission, but I can’t keep a failing student enrolled.” She shook her head. “You know how it is there.”