Amy Vastine - The Hardest Fight

“Say hello to your family for me,” he said as he walked by. The Everharts were some of the nicest people Dylan had ever met. The first time Lucy had invited him to spend Thanksgiving at their house, he had wanted to be adopted by them. Her dad was so down-to-earth and her mom made everyone feel at home under her roof. Dylan had prayed for her every day when they found out Maureen had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Even though Lucy had been so brave, she had broken down more than once in his arms over the possibility of losing her mom. He had been so grateful she had survived. When Lucy left him, he had mourned not only the loss of her but of the whole Everhart family.

Lucy didn’t respond to his request. She probably wouldn’t do as he asked. She didn’t care about him or his feelings. She never had.

* * *

BACK AT THE OFFICE, Dylan did everything he could to avoid his mother. Open Arms hadn’t signed on the dotted line and Elizabeth was less than pleased. That meant the same would go for his mother.

Clarissa Stevens-Hunt was one of Chicago’s top corporate lawyers. Stevens and Ellis had been the city’s most prestigious law firm since Dylan’s great-grandfather founded it back in 1924 with his partner, Roger Ellis. Great-grandpa Stevens passed it on to his son, who passed it on to his daughter, who couldn’t wait to bring her son into the fold.

Since the day Dylan was born, it was his destiny to work at Stevens and Ellis whether that was what he wanted or not. Clarissa had never allowed Dylan to consider any other possibilities. The only thing he was supposed to worry about was meeting her high expectations. He’d spent the past seven years trying to prove to everyone, especially his mother, that he deserved his position at the firm and wasn’t just there because of his heritage.

He stared at the stack of case files on his desk. This was Dylan’s reality—a lifetime of business law, white-collar criminal defense and sometimes a little real estate. There had been a time when he thought he might actually do something worthwhile, maybe convince his mother to let him dabble in some environmental law so he could advise corporate clients on sustainability issues and green standards. He had to get in her good graces before he dared to approach her about it. Securing this deal for Prime was about the only thing that could do that.

Clarissa Stevens-Hunt was the exact opposite of someone like Maureen Everhart. Warm and fuzzy were not character traits anyone would use to describe his mother. Dylan rarely saw her while he was growing up. She worked day and night, weekends and holidays. The woman had a smartphone before anyone else in the world knew what a smartphone was. Her phone was the last thing she checked before she went to bed and the first thing she looked at when she woke up. She’d missed family events, birthdays, vacations, even Dylan’s high school graduation. Her job was always the most important thing in her life, and that was how Dylan was supposed to think, too.

Only, Dylan had vowed he’d never put work above the people in his life. He was going to come home for dinner every night, ask his kids about their day, maybe even coach little league baseball. Dylan didn’t have a family of his own; but today, he needed to get out of work by five if he was going to make it to his neighbor Jeremy’s basketball game by six. Missing the game was not an option.

Jeremy was eight years old. His father had never been a part of his life and his mother’s addiction had led her to relinquish her parental rights. His maternal grandparents had taken him in and raised him as their own since the boy was three. Eugene and Gwen lived below Dylan and had sought his legal advice when they were trying to take custody of Jeremy. A year later, Gwen had been diagnosed with ALS and was told she had only three years to live. She survived for two.

It was during those two years that Dylan had bonded with Jeremy. They each filled an empty spot in the other’s life. Dylan had dreamed of having a family with Lucy. When she left him, that dream went with her. Being there for Jeremy while Eugene had been taking care of his wife had meant fewer hours at work and disappointing his mother, but it had been the most worthwhile period of Dylan’s life.

“If anyone calls, I’m unavailable until tomorrow,” Dylan told his assistant. He’d be up all night finishing some briefs, but seeing Jeremy play would be worth it.

“And if your mother calls?”

“My mother will call my cell if she wants to reach me, so you won’t have to worry about that.” He would have to worry about that, but Bridgette would be off the hook.

“How did your Prime meeting go?” Bridgette asked as Dylan shut down his computer.

Other than seeing the love of his life looking better than ever, it had gone the way he thought it would. Part of him had hoped Lucy would be a disheveled mess. The other part knew she would have thrived without him. She had definitely blossomed into a strong and independent woman.

“They didn’t sign. No one wants to accept a loss, but they’re smart women, they’ll take the money and start over somewhere else, I’m sure.”

Bridgette smiled. Her hair was a different shade of red than it had been the day before. She must have gotten it colored, but since she hadn’t mentioned a hair appointment yesterday, Dylan knew not to say anything. She was one of those women who told people she had never seen a gray hair on her head.

“Well, if anyone could tell what they were thinking, it’s you,” she said, picking up his coffee cup from earlier this morning. She was always taking care of little things like that for him. “Have a good night and don’t forget that tomorrow your eight-thirty got moved to seven-thirty and your eleven is now three-thirty.”

He couldn’t thank her enough for the reminder. Bridgette was excellent at her job. It often made him wonder if she had been assigned to him because his mother thought he needed someone like Bridgette or if he had worked hard enough to deserve her. Some people in the firm thought he was treated differently because he was the boss’s son, but Dylan had never considered that a good thing. Being treated differently didn’t always mean being treated better .

Dylan managed to make it out of the building and all the way home without crossing paths with his mother. By six o’clock, he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, sitting next to Eugene in the bleachers of Whitman Elementary’s gymnasium.

Eugene leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. He was in his sixties and one of the gentlest souls to walk the earth. The man had been to hell and back, between losing his daughter to a world of drugs and his wife to disease, but somehow he’d maintained his positive spirit. He was a true inspiration and Dylan’s only real friend over the age of eight.

Eugene gave Jeremy a thumbs-up when the little boy scanned the crowd for his two biggest fans. With his hands cupped around his mouth, Dylan cheered loud enough for the entire gymnasium to hear. “Let’s go, Big J!”

“He’s nervous even though I told him all he had to do was have fun out there,” Eugene said.

“He’ll have fun once they get started.”

Jeremy was a bit of an anxious kid. He could be shy around new people, but once he got to know somebody, his true personality would shine through. The other kids on his team were joking around during warm-ups while Jeremy and another boy passed the ball back and forth.

A man in a suit and tie entered the gym, eliciting the biggest smile from Jeremy’s new friend. The guy climbed the bleachers and joined a woman holding a baby girl a couple of rows down from where Dylan and Eugene were sitting. He kissed the woman and promptly stole the infant away from her, planting more kisses on the chubby baby’s cheeks. Dylan felt a tinge of jealousy at the sight of the happy family. As much as he wanted that life, the possibility of ever getting it seemed slim to none. There weren’t many opportunities to date when he worked eighty hours a week, and no one he had dated held a candle to the woman he had wanted to be the mother of his children.