After The End: Book 1

29. Mum

Louis POV

My mum and I had always been close. I told her almost everything. She and I had a weekly phone call on Fridays and if it wasn't for my careful eye on the clock, we'd talk for hours. We used to call more than once a week, but as things escalated with Harry, I realized that there was a lot she didn't want to know.

Still, I'd called her the day after the event with Harry. I'd left out major details like the fact that I'd wandered through the chaos while high on cocaine. I'd left out the fact that there'd ever been a gun involved. All my mum knew was that Harry had been mixed up with some bad people, our home had been broken into and Harry had almost died. She was a good mum. She didn't ask for details or ask questions that she wouldn't want the answers to, but she'd absolutely listened to my half coherent rantings about it all. She had comforted me.

When I had asked her if I could bring Harry to dinner, she'd been suspicious. She had reminded me that my sisters were still just children and that Harry had given them all reason to be wary of his presence. I reminded her that Harry was clean and had been clean truthfully since around Christmas but consistently since his birthday a month prior.

"He's good mum," I'd said with some finality. "He misses you."

And so she'd agreed and Harry had thrown himself into the backseat of my car looking positively as nervous as I'd ever seen him.

Lux had dressed him up like her own personal Ken doll. He wore slacks and a button up that actually fit him. She'd combed his hair and made him shave before sending him off with me and Naomi to face his fate.

Naomi seemed less nervous at the prospect of telling my mum. I wasn't as nervous as I'd been for her family either. Harry had assured me with a little too much dark humor that after the way she found out about his child, this would be super easy. I shuddered at the thought. Still, Harry sat quietly in the back seat twiddling his fingers absentmindedly and I knew that his mind was reeling over what she might think of him after all these years of his chaos.

When we arrived in Doncaster, we found he had fallen asleep in the back seat. Naomi woke him up by throwing her sweatshirt at him. She was starting to look pregnant. Just slightly, but I noticed as she climbed out of her seat, followed by Harry rubbing his eyes. The more we talked about it and the more we told people the more it felt real.

The three of us walked up the driveway to my mums white painted house. I hadn't been there in a long time. I'd brought Harry for Christmas Eve three years prior, but he'd been drunk and she'd come up with a reason for us to leave a bit sooner than planned. We had come by for a handful of brief stop ins after that but Harry started to putter out and I got nervous about bringing him to her house and around my sisters. Since then, she'd visited briefly at our house until the incident between Eleanor and Harry. Me and her met without him after that, so that I could see my siblings. As things had intensified in the past year I had a hard time getting away from home, knowing Harry was there making his messes.

At the door, Harry noticeably hovered behind me and Naomi. I didn't pay him much attention. This wasn't about him and I was mainly letting him tag along because I felt mean saying no. His relationship with my mum was his business and I couldn't navigate it for him especially when I had my own circumstances in need of motherly support.

My mums smile that appeared as the door opened squished any lasting anxieties I thought I'd have. She greeted me with a tight hug and then opened her arms to Naomi and waited for her to approve. Naomi nodded and embraced her too all the while my mum called her beautiful and expressed how great it was to meet her. Her eyes landed on Harry behind me. I didn't glance back at him, but I imagined he was probably freaking out a little, hoping to go unnoticed. My mum smiled warmly at him, but didn't offer a hug as she ushered us into the already prepared dining room.