Page 94 of A Heart So Haunted
She could make a three-hour drive today, but she couldn’t have driven three hours for her sister’s funeral?
“I didn’t text you because I was with Ivan.” My hands fisted.
She nodded, more to herself. “That. That right there. Don’t get me wrong—great looking kid, right—but you didn’t answer my calls!Why didn’t you tell me, Lanny? Vince! Of all people. Single. Can you believe it? Why didn’t you say anything?” She stuffed the crackers back in the box, didn’t fold it shut, only stuffed it back on a shelf in a cabinet it didn’t come from. Then she reached back in the fridge and pulled out a jar of pickles and Emma’s leftover fettuccine. I watched with stifled horror as she opened the container, didn’t microwave it, and stuck the pickle in as if the fettuccine were a dipping sauce.
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“God, more lies. Your father loves you. Of course you knew.” She took a large bite. Juice dribbled over her chin, down her T-shirt. Stains already marred the pink cotton. “Lanny, that man knows what he did wrong. Tell him. I need you to tell him that I was right, all those years. A cheater.”
“He knows, Mom.” Even if he didn’t know, Dad didn’t care what anyone thought. There was a reason he was able to go about his affairs while Penny turned a blind eye.
“Well, then why isn’t he here?” She motioned to the house. “If he knew, he’d be apologizing already. It’s been years.”
“Why would he need to behere?” Besides the fact that he hadn’t called me in months.
“Because! I need a place to live.” She took another bite of the pickle. “He can’t disrupt everyone’s lives and then expect to get away with it, right?”
Bingo.It was like I saw the edge of a waterfall and the little life raft I knelt on had no paddle.
“I thought I could stay with you for a bit. Of course, I knew you wouldn’t mind. Then I can talk to your father once you get ahold of him and bring him here. So we can have a family discussion. Is that what the kids call it these days?” She took a single piece of fettuccine between two fingers and slurped it up. “We’ve always had this unrequited love thing going on, your father and I. I figured it was time he came around. I alwaysknewhe’d finally leave that wench and come back to me.”
I balked a little. “You just saidPennyleft—”
“The point is, they’re done.” She rubbed her sauce covered fingers together. “And now he knows he made a mistake.”
Mom thought this was her chance to get Vince back? As if he’d finally, after over twenty years, saw the err in his ways?
I wasn’t quite sure she understood the definition of unrequited love.
“Besides.” She waved her hands at the ceiling. “You’ve got all this money now. You can afford to have me for a bit.”
A sharp, residual pain started at my middle back. Twisted left, then right.
I swallowed a scream.
“We’re still renovating the rooms,” I said. “Emma and I are going to be switching—”
“She is here, isn’t she? Oh, honey.” Mom wiped her purple stiletto nails on her frayed short-shorts and hustled over to me. “See, what did I tell you? Nothing but a mooch. She’s just here because she thinks your father loves you more. I told you.” She poked me in the shoulder.
I shook my head, bypassing what she said. “I’m paying for you to get a hotel room, okay? That way we can get on with the renovations—”
“What? No!” she exclaimed. Squeezed my shoulders.
I took her wrists, pulled her hands off me, and took a step back.
“Mom. This is work to me. I can’t do it with extra people in the house.”
“I can help. I’ve worked before.” Her nose crinkled. “It can’t be that hard.”
I took a breath. “No.”
A dash of anger ignited in her eyes. “Lanny, I can’t believe you. After all I did for you growing up. When those kids teased you so bad you didn’t go to school. I helped you through all of it. Now you won’t help me? Your own mother?”
Oh, get up, it can’t be that bad, she’d snipped,just show the boy your tits and go on your way. That’s all he wants anyway. His parents have money, Lanny, come on. They can pay for things that I can’t.
I held my breath, thoughts tumbling like I’d stuck my head in the dryer.
She wasn’t here to help me. There had to be another reason.
