Her Brother, Her Mate

“Can we help you with anything?” I asked them. Mary was smiling warmly down at Rosie, not listening to me. Jared is the one who responds.

“My son? Do you know where we can find him?” His tone is surprisingly friendly and almost hesitant like he is worried about our reaction to them being here.

Casey sighs, pushes his chair out from the table loudly, and grabs Rosie from her high chair, earning him a scowl from Luna Mary.

“I’m going to go change her diaper,” he tells me, though I know her diaper is clean. We know what happened between Mary and her daughter and don’t want to give Carli another reason to feel upset. He carries her from the room, making her giggle by pretending to eat the smashed food in her hands. Mary’s eyes followed him longingly the whole way out the door, but to my surprise, she didn’t protest him taking her.

“Alpha Jared, your son and Carli are out on a date. Maybe try calling him or texting him later?” I answered him, since no one has yet.

He nods and grips his mate’s shoulder firmly. The look she throws him is almost hostile, like she’s turning her anger out towards him for once instead of her daughter. I can tell by the look in their eyes that they are mind linking to one another. We all sit awkwardly, watching them in their stare-off.

“You guys have a good rest of your night. Thanks for your help,” Alpha Jared tells us, walking off with his mate in tow.

“That was weird,” Laura says, breaking the awkward tension.

“I’m going to go find your brother and the little angel and tell him that they’re gone,” Vincent whispered in my ear, kissing my cheek.

That was weird. I almost expected them to abduct Rosie or something, and I’m sure Casey did too, that’s why he took her out of the room like he did. I wonder what that was all about?

Jared POV

“You are unbelievable,” Mary huffs at me, stomping out to her car parked in the designated alpha spot like she still has the right. Parker never says anything, but I know it’s bad manners to continue letting her abuse her alpha rights now that I’m no longer officially alpha.

She saw Elena parking there a few times and ever since she has been adamant that she should have the same rights as Elena for being Carli’s real mother. No matter what I say, I can’t convince her otherwise. Elena only parks there when she borrows the kid’s car to drive our granddaughter around, but that just angers Mary more, knowing Elena has the right to take Rosie as she pleases, but she can’t.

“I told you, you can’t keep coming here making demands, Mary. You’re going to push them too far and lose her for good. Just you coming here like this is going to put me in a bad situation with them. You probably just jeopardized me being able to come here.”

“I just want to see my granddaughter, Jared. Is that too much to ask?”

I stared at her, not knowing what to say without starting this fight all over again. I know we don’t have the right to demand anything more from Parker and Carli. All things considered, I think they’re being fairly generous. Mary, though, is still holding onto her stubborn pride. It hurts that, because of our past mistakes, we lost the privilege to be real grandparents to our only grandchild, but it’s our own fault. I didn’t even know the real name of Rosie’s mother until she was practically an adult.

“We’ve been over this. We also went over how you needed to apologize to Carli before trying to show back up here. I promised Parker, Mary. I promised him Carli wouldn’t have to see you around here if I came to help him. I’m trying to get back in their good graces but you might have just ruined that. If she has another episode from hearing you stopped by, Parker will banish both of us from coming back here all at. Do you want that?”

“Another episode?” Mary turns around, staring up at me questionably, “What episode?”

I sigh, forgetting I didn’t tell her about what happened to Carli after we left that night a week ago. “Carli has been fighting depression. Us showing up and….well, what you said to her set her off.”

Mary’s face dropped, worry crossing her features. “Depression? She’s depressed? How?…”

I ran my hand down my face. This is why I didn’t want to tell her. “She didn’t really have a happy upbringing. She wants to be the best mom she can be for her daughter since she didn’t….” I cleared my throat, uncomfortable with telling Mary this.

I know she has a lot of guilt for how she treated Carli from the time she was born, but growing up in human foster care as a wolf left her with a stubborn personality and an iron will. It’s ironic that her daughter ended up with those same qualities, just channeled towards different things.

“When you accused her of being a bad mom, it sent her spiraling. Parker chewed me out for it, Mary. Just like I would do anything to keep you safe and healthy, he’s doing that for his mate.”© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

“ I didn’t know,” she whispered in a weak voice. This is the Mary only I get to see. The broken, fragile girl who still thinks she has to fight for a place to belong in the world. This is why I spent over 2 decades doing everything in my power to try and make her happy. I realized all I was doing was enabling her, causing her more harm than good.

Rosie put a lot of things in perspective for us, for me especially. I know Mary cares for her daughter, but she sees the walls Carli has built around herself as something she has to tear down herself as her mother. She doesn’t realize she is just contributing to those walls being reinforced, built even higher than before.

“I know you think she’s super strong and the only way to get to her is through force, but Carli is a lot more delicate than you think,” I told her gently.

Mary just nodded, sighing in defeat.

I engulfed her in a tight hug, comforting her as best I could. I know it hurts her to know she is the reason her daughter is having such a hard time right now, but babying her does no good. I learned that the hard way.

“Go home. I’ll stay and talk to Parker when he gets back. I’ll let him know you want a chance to apologize to Carli. I’ll send you pictures of Rosie too if I can.”

“I love that baby girl, Jared. I don’t want to lose her like I lost my daughter. I just don’t know what to do.”

“For now you need to go home. Maybe sit down and write out everything you want to say when you see Carli so what happened last time doesn’t happen again. I know you get defensive and say whatever comes to mind at the moment, but you need to work on getting your thoughts sorted before you see her again. Don’t insult her back if you feel insulted. Think about exactly what you want to convey to your daughter, write it down, and we can work on the rest one step at a time.”

“Okay,” she wraps her arms around my waist and looks up at me expectantly. I leaned down and gently placed a k**s on her soft lips.

“I love you,” I told her.

“I love you too.”