Page 92 of Undeniable
“I miss you,” Kaylee cried to Mom. “But you seem happy.”
I couldn’t recall any time that I’d seen my mother without the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Being confined in a small cell isn’t fun, but I’ve accepted my penance.” Mom sat across from Kaylee and me. “The last twenty-seven days, I’ve been forced to think and decompress. Things will be different when I get out. That’s for certain.”
Any other time she’d said she would change, she never had. However, I actually believed her today.
“I spoke to Mr. Furlong this morning,” I said. “He mentioned that it’s possible you could only serve six months of your sentence with good behavior.”
Mom rested her forearms on the table, clasping her hands together. “Actually, five. They’re counting the time I’ve already been in here toward my sentence. Enough about me. Tell me about you two. How’s living with the Armstrongs?” She regarded Kaylee.
“It’s really nice.” Kaylee was trying not to be overly excited for fear that Mom would be hurt.
“I’m so appreciative of the Armstrongs,” Mom said. “And I love your outfit.”
My sister wore a cropped knitted sweater over a pretty flowered summer dress. Her hair was pulled into a side ponytail, and she had a very light dusting of blush on her cheeks. Mrs. Armstrong wanted Kaylee to look her best for our mother.
Mom’s eyes snapped to me, narrowing with that familiar maternal radar. “You’re pale. What’s wrong?” The question carried the weight of years of reading my moods.
Heat crawled up my neck. Surely, she didn’t sense the secret growing inside me. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, meeting her probing stare head-on, searching for what to say without lying, but I had nothing.
“The last time you looked like this was when you thought your dad didn’t pay your tuition. Did he forget again?”
“Mazzie has a boyfriend,” Kaylee announced innocently.
I braced for impact.
“Boyfriend?” Mom’s eyebrows shot up, surprise lifting her voice an octave.
My sister was beaming and bouncing in her enthusiasm. “Lucas is handsome and super nice. He’s a football player. He might go into the NFL.”
Mom’s shoulders sagged as her expression crumpled to something that looked like dread. “A football player?” Mom’s voice dropped to a whisper, but her disappointment rang through the visitors’ room like an annoying school bell.
That familiar surge of defensiveness rose in my chest. Of course she’d jump to conclusions like she always had. The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was sitting across from her in jail while she judged my life choices.
“Is he like that Josh character?” she asked, disgust ringing through her questions loud and clear.
“Josh? You hardly met him.”
She leaned forward. “I pegged him the first time I did, didn’t I?”
He was one guy that my mom and I agreed was a jerk through and through.
“Too bad you didn’t read the men you dated,” I mumbled under my breath, pinning her to her chair.
“There’s that sass,” she said. “Tell me about this football player.”
“There’s nothing to tell, except he’s far from like Josh.” My fingers curled into fists under the table.
“She loves him,” Kaylee bragged—or tattled.
As if my mother had been punched in the face, her head jerked backward. “Love? You’ve never been in love with a boy.” She studied me too long and too hard.
The baby growing inside me suddenly felt impossibly heavy. And at that moment, it carried more than just physical weight. It held every fear she’d ever planted in me, now growing roots.
I swallowed down the bile rising in my throat. “There’s a first time for everything.”
She sat back, her gaze penetrating like she knew. “Then why do you look like you’re not happy or…?”
