Mommys boy, p.1
Mommy's Boy, page 1
MOMMY’S BOY
FIONA HOLLOWAY
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Have you read?
A Note From The Publisher
Copyright © 2025 Black Swan Digital
The right of Black Swan Digital to be identified as the Author of the Work
has been asserted by her in accordance Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2025
Concept created by Black Swan Digital. Developed by Mark Coleman.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission
in writing of the author or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
PROLOGUE
I wake to the sound of the wind howling through the cracks in the old lodge, and rattling the windows like skeletal fingers scratching at the glass. The pines outside groan, bending and swaying, trying to whisper their secrets and warnings to me. Only, I don’t want to know what they’re saying.
The room is dark except for a silver square of moonlight that cuts across the floorboards, spilling up the side of my bed. I clutch my rag doll tighter, pressing its matted yarn hair against my cheek. The stuffing has gone flat in its belly where I’ve squeezed it, but I can still feel the shape of its button eye where it digs into my palm. I tell myself not to listen. If I squeeze the doll tight enough, and bury my face deep enough in the quilt, maybe I won’t be able to hear her. But I always hear her.
Mama’s voice slices through the house, thin and sharp, like the scream of a wounded bird. It rises up from the lower floor, echoing against the wood-paneled walls of Drummond Lodge. She isn’t calling for me, though. She never calls for me. But I know her ragged, desperate voice. She’s calling for him.
I slide lower in the bed until the covers nearly swallow me. My lips form a single word, though the sound barely escapes.
“Mama?”
The house answers my half-uttered call with silence. Then the silence is broken by another sound. Heavy boots on hollow, rugless floors. Each step shakes the old floorboards like the beating of a giant heart. I know that rhythm better than the lullabies Mama used to sing. It’s slower and heavier, and it always means the same thing. He’s coming.
The boots stop outside my door. I squeeze my doll so hard my fingers ache. SLAM. It’s the sound of another door. Not mine. Somewhere further down the hall. The slam makes the walls shudder, and dust falls like ashes from the ceiling beams. I strain, but I hear nothing. No more boots. No more of Mama’s voice. Only the wind clawing at the house, and a wolf howling far off in the forest.
I force myself to peek above the blanket, just for a second. My breath immediately fogs in the icy air. The moonlight shifts on the wall, carving scary shapes that crawl and stretch across the room. My eyes burn, but I don’t blink. I’m waiting for the inevitable. Which, inevitably, happens.
A creak, followed by the groan of the door easing open, so slowly it sounds like the house itself is in pain. The light from the hallway spills in, pale and cold and a tall, broad shape fills it. A shadow stretched long and crooked.
He doesn’t move at first. He just stands there, blocking out the light, like a dark tower in my doorway. My throat locks up, and I dive under the quilt, pulling it over my head until all I can see is the scratchy weave of the fabric and the faint outline of my doll’s face.
The boards groan again. He’s inside now. I count. That’s what I do when I’m scared. One, two, three… each number a tiny prayer. His footsteps cross the floor, slow, deliberate, coming ever closer. He carries the smell of smoke and iron, hard and bitter, just like him. The footsteps stop right beside the bed. I don’t move. I don’t even breathe. I press my eyes tightly shut, hoping that if I stay still enough, I’ll just disappear. Or he will.
A long moment passes, then the footsteps retreat and the door clicks shut. But I don’t dare come out yet. Even after the door closes with a solid clunk, and the wind swallows everything again. I keep my eyes closed, and pray for sleep.
But the house is restless tonight. It doesn’t let me sleep. I hear Mama again. Only this time it isn’t just her voice, it’s her body. The thud of her feet pounding against the stairs, the frantic slam of a door below. She’s running again. She’s always running. But she never makes it far.
I creep from the bed, doll clutched to my chest, and tiptoe to the window. The glass is cold enough to shock my fingertips as I press against it. The moon is fat and white, draped in thin clouds, and the trees below sway like an army of shadows. Mama bursts out into the snow, her nightgown flapping around her painfully thin body. The wind whips her dark hair into her face, but I can still see her eyes, wide and wild. Her breath trails behind her in frantic clouds.
And then I see him follow her out into the night. His tall, terrible shadow stretches across the white ground, longer than any man should cast. He doesn’t hurry because doesn’t have to. He knows she won’t get away.
“Mama,” I whisper against the glass, but she can’t hear me, and even if she could, she wouldn’t listen.
She stumbles, her bare feet sinking into the drifts. She falls once, twice, clawing at the snow like it’s quicksand. He reaches her easily. One long stride followed by another, and his hand, black against the white snow, snaps around her wrist and yanks her back.
She screams then. Not words, just the raw, animal sound of a broken woman. The trees catch her scream and throw it back, echoing until it feels like the whole forest is screaming with her. He drags her across the snow, with her legs kicking, and her fingers tearing at the ground. The moonlight glints off the frost clinging to her gown, turning it silver. She looks like a ghost already.
My breath fogs the glass, and I wipe it with my sleeve, but my hands are shaking too hard to see clearly. He pulls her toward the dark edge of the woods, away from the house, away from me. She twists in his grip, clawing at him, her voice shrill and desperate.
“Please,” she cries, though I can’t hear the words, only the shape of her mouth forming them.
He doesn’t answer. He never does. Behind them, another shadow stirs. A small boy is peeking out from the porch, his face pale in the moonlight, and his eyes hollow. My brother, Stuart. He doesn’t move to help her. He just stands there, watching as if his feet are nailed to the wood, and the scene before him is a television drama.
I want to scream and pound on the glass, to shatter it, to run out there and drag her back. But my body won’t obey and my voice is gone. The doll dangles uselessly from my fist as I watch him pull her into the trees. The branches close around them like a cage. Her scream rips once more through the night, and then there’s nothing but the wind and the endless groan of the forest. The snow where she fell glows faintly in the moonlight, scarred with dark streaks that look like ink spilled across white paper.
Stuart finally turns his head. His eyes find mine, up in the window and I see in them a glimmer of that same, cruel, darkness. I sink down to the floor, curling into myself, and pull the quilt over my head. I press my face against the doll until the button digs into my skin. I whisper Mama’s name over and over, but the cold night steals it away. Somewhere in the house, the door slams again. His boots thunder on the floorboards. I close my eyes and pray to vanish into the dark. Because I know what comes next.
1
The whole room feels like it was designed to remind me I don’t belong here. The chandeliers glow above me in dripping tiers, heavy with crystal that scatters the light across the polished floor. The wood panels on the walls gleam so richly they almost reflect the faces drifting by, powdered and preened in a way that I can never be. The Boston Athenaeum, with its marble busts and velvet drapery, has been a library for centuries, but tonight it feels like a king’s palace.
I’ve only ever seen it from the street, its red façade and columns as aloof and imposing as a cathedral. Now I’m standing inside, wearing a borrowed dress, and balancing a flute of champagne like a prop I don’t know the cues for. Rachel says I’m fine, and reassures me that I look like I belong there. But Rachel always says that, because Rachel has never once been poor, and she’s been raised in circles like this.
The satin of the borrowed gown clings in ways that make me feel every flaw. It’s the kind of dress that turns heads, deep green and glossy, but it isn’t mine. It doesn’t even feel like fabric I should touch without wearing gloves. When I first zipped it up in her bedroom mirror, I thought, this is how women disguise themselves. The bodice is snug enough that I keep reminding myself to breathe through my ribs. My toes, trappe d in gold heels, have gone numb.
“Money loves confidence,” Rachel whispered as we came in together. “Stand up straight, sip slowly, and pretend this is your life.”
But it isn’t my life. My life is Amelia’s school permission slips, and Sophie’s tantrums over the wrong color socks, and pasta dinners eaten standing up because the table is still covered in half-finished art projects, and the sound of the dishwasher rattling like it might give up for good. My life is the rent, due again in two weeks, and the email from my boss telling me there won’t be extra hours after all, and the quiet calculation of groceries against what’s left in my account.
Here in this room, no one has to count like I do. Their laughter is sharp and easy, and they don’t care who hears it. They drift in pairs, in their polished shoes and silk dresses, with their ostentatious jewelry catching the chandelier light. Their voices echo against the domed ceiling, overlapping in a hum that sounds like another language entirely.
I find a painting to hide beside. It’s a winter scene, with snow spread across a forest clearing, and a lodge crouched in the shadow of pines. The brushstrokes are precise and studied, like the artist wanted the air to look as cold as it feels outside tonight. A lone figure moves across the snow with a dog at his side. But something about it bothers me. The snow is neat and untouched, like poured sugar on a cake. The birds in the tree branch lift off as if rehearsed, but not one mark mars the whiteness.
I lean closer, tracing the varnish glare with my eyes, and whisper to myself before I can stop.
“Pretty, but fake.”
The words hang there, half-swallowed by the air. I squeeze my glass stem tighter, embarrassed, and take another sip. The champagne is flat on my tongue, bitter in a way I don’t quite know if I like. My instinct is to apologize, even though no one heard. At least, I think no one did.
Then there’s a stir behind me, and I feel a breath, warm against my neck. There’s someone standing closer than strangers usually stand at these things. My body stiffens, but I don’t turn. I fix my eyes on the painting as if the figure and his dog might suddenly leave tracks if I stare hard enough. My cheeks flush hot.
And then the presence is gone, as though they’ve folded back into the crowd. I let out a breath and risk a glance sideways. I catch the retreating glimpse of a black sleeve, the back of a head turning away. My heart taps quickly. I’m ridiculous, I tell myself. Talking to paintings, jumping at shadows.
“Stop glaring at the frame.”
Rachel has appeared at my elbow, sparkling in her navy dress, hair sleek and perfect. She smells faintly of jasmine and champagne. “You’ll get us banned from every gallery in Boston.”
“I wasn’t glaring,” I protest.
“You were muttering at it.” She narrows her eyes playfully. “What was the verdict?”
“It looks staged. Like a winter for people who’ve never had their socks soak through on the walk to school. Pretty, but…soulless.”
Rachel tilts her head, considering. “I like it. But then again, I like staged. Staged usually means catered.”
Her grin is sharp enough to make me laugh. It slips out before I can stop it, surprising me with how it feels to seem light, for a second, like I haven’t in weeks.
“Anyway,” Rachel goes on. “You’re doing fine. I’ve already told three donors you’re fascinating.”
“Rachel,” I warn, but she’s already twinkling.
“One thinks you’re an art critic writing under a pseudonym. One thinks you left hedge funds because they bored you. One thinks you’re my cousin visiting from France who refuses to speak English.”
I stare. “Why would you say that?”
“Because no one here listens long enough to know the difference,” she says. “And because the real you is infinitely more interesting, but sometimes it helps to borrow a little armor.”
The weight in my chest loosens a fraction. Armor, that’s all I need. I take another sip of champagne and let the bubbles prick the back of my throat.
“How are the girls?” she asks softly, the joking tone fading.
“Amelia has declared war on long division. Sophie thinks her teacher has vampire teeth.” I smile faintly. “They’re with Thomas tonight.”
Rachel’s mouth twists. “Reliable as ever?”
I shrug. “He texted he was running late. Which could mean anything from ten minutes to crossing the border and reinventing himself.”
“Don’t,” she says. “Don’t give him that much intrigue.”
I nod, but the truth presses behind my ribs. The divorce may be official on paper, but it still feels raw, like a tooth missing in my mouth that my tongue can’t leave alone. It’s been three months, and the word ex-husband doesn’t feel real, but neither does husband anymore. All I know is what’s left in the middle. The math of balancing bills and making lunches and the girls’ small sorrows.
I look back at the painting again, staring at the figure in the snow who’s still moving, and still leaving no tracks. I wonder what kind of world it is where you can walk across snow and it not be marked.
“Stop hiding back here,” Rachel says, slipping her hand briefly over mine on the champagne flute. “This is your night too.”
“I don’t think this room has a place for women like me,” I murmur.
“Correction,” she says firmly. “It needs women like you. They just don’t know it yet.”
She straightens as a couple approaches, her hostess smile blooming.
“Ellen, meet Marion and Paul Isham. They practically built this wing back up with their generosity.”
I paste on the polite expression I’ve learned. We exchange hands and pleasantries, and smiles that mean everything and nothing. Paul gestures toward the painting.
“You were studying this one,” he says. “I admire the austerity of it.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say quickly, then add before I can stop myself. “But a little staged. I always look for something imperfect. Something that proves the artist once got cold fingers, or slipped, or laughed while he was painting.”
There’s a pause. Marion’s eyes brighten. Paul only chuckles, raising his glass. “Perfection has its charm,” he says. “But I suppose a little flaw never hurts.”
The conversation drifts to donations and the quartet playing Mozart. Rachel keeps it buoyant, gliding from subject to subject, looping me in only when necessary. I nod, smile, say the right things. When they drift away again, Rachel leans close.
“You see?” she murmurs. “You don’t need my lies. You’re interesting enough all on your own.”
I shake my head, half laughing, half dazed. “I insulted the painting in front of a major donor.”
“You made them remember you,” she corrects. “There’s a difference.”
She moves on, catching someone else’s attention with the effortless poise I’ll never have. I linger in front of the winter scene, half hidden again in its shadow. And then I feel that prickling awareness at the back of my neck again. The sensation of eyes on me. Still, I don’t turn. I don’t want to give them the satisfaction. Instead, I study the brushstrokes harder, whispering the same words to myself under my breath like a prayer.
“Pretty, but fake.”
It starts with my own words coming back to me, carried on a voice that sounds like a cello being tuned in a cold room.
“Pretty, but fake,” he says behind me, as if tasting the phrase. “That seems to be the requirement for most people here.”
I hold my position, not wanting to do the startled-bird jump I’ve done my whole life when a deeper voice enters a quiet space. I place my fingertips lightly on the gilt of the frame, just enough to steady, not enough to smudge, and give myself the single beat it takes to decide who I am going to be when I face him. Then I pivot.
He’s far closer than I expected, which is probably why I felt the warmth of his breath earlier. The gala’s low gold light skims over him in planes, lighting on his cheekbone, brow, the clean angle of a jaw freshly shaved into obedience. He is in a black jacket that fits the way most jackets don’t fit, the bow tie somehow both careless and perfectly correct. He has dark hair, and eyes the color of old green glass.
