‘JJ.’
‘Get out.’
‘JJ.’ Rocco tries to step in.
‘Get. Out.’ JJ’s eyes never left her mother’s.
‘Don’t go.’ Rocco says to Gyll.
‘I will.’ JJ makes to step back into the waiting elevator.
‘JJ come on.’
‘Come on? Just in case you don’t know, I am mad at you that you would let her into my house without even having the courtesy to tell me?’
‘She’s your mother.’
‘So?’
‘Am I supposed to send her away when she has sat waiting for five hours just to see you.’
‘I don’t care if she waited a whole life time. I never want to see her.’
‘She has grandchildren-’
‘She also had children she abandoned. She’s no saint.’
‘Still-’
‘Get out or I will leave.’ JJ turns to her mother.
‘JJ-’
‘That’s okay Rocco, I’ll go.’ Gyll wipes the tears falling down her cheeks. ‘My sweet Jiji I am so-’
‘Don’t ever call me that. I don’t want to hear it. I never want to hear it from you. We speak once a quarter so this,’ she motions between the two of them, ‘never has to happen. You never come to my home, or near my children, ever. Get out.’
Rocco has never seen her so angry before. She is literally shaking watching her mother walk past her, he even saw her flinch on close contact when she reached out to touch her.
‘I am so sorry. I am so sorry.’ Gyll steps into the waiting elevator and hits the ground button, tears streaming down her eyes.
‘How dare you?’ JJ rounds on Rocco.
‘How dare I?’
‘Yes. How dare you allow her in here.’
‘She’s your mother, she waited five hours just to see you.’
‘I’ve waited nearly my whole life for her Rocco she is showing up thirty years too fucking late.’
‘She clearly wants to make amends.’
‘I will not allow that woman in my house or near my children.’
‘Good thing they’re my children too.’
‘You don’t want to push me on this.’ There is a warning in her tone.
‘What is that supposed to mean.’ Rocco is not backing down from this either.
‘It means she does not come near my children ever. I don’t care if she’s waited five hours or fifty years, she’s not fit to call herself a mother or a grandmother because all she does is leave, all she fucking does is leave behind a trail of broken promises. I will not have her do that to my children so yes Rocco how fucking dare you.’ JJ turns on her heels and walks to the sanctuary he’d built for her before the tears can drown her. Towards the back of their apartment past the butler’s pantry was a green house for her flowers, Rocco surprised her with this on their first year together when they decided to move in and do this thing together. He had it built to her speck complete with an office and library. The skylight roof meant she would pretend to be in another world when this world was too much for her especially when she thought of her mother, the mother who never was to her. All she’d craved in those days was a hug, to be held by her mother so that she would know she was loved, that was all little Jiji craved.