Page 25 of A Heart So Haunted
It felt like a sign that I’d picked that same green for the kitchen.
“I’ve been busy,” I told Mom. My steps were sharp up the porch. I didn’t bother looking at any of the windows—scared of what I would find looking back at me, even in daylight. I told myself I was watching my step so I didn’t drop Aunt Cadence.
“Maybe if you organized your schedule like I’ve told you to do, we wouldn’t run into problems like this.”
My nostrils flared. Yes, because my mother was the queen of planning.
I used my elbow to wedge the screen door open, careful to hold Aunt Cadence close and firm. Once inside, I gingerly set her down on the foyer table, which was already crowded with a few sample paint cans and Sayer’s satchel. I shifted the phone from my shoulder into my hand.
“You know, if you were down here helping go through Aunt Cadence’s things, maybe I wouldn’t be so forgetful,” I snapped. “You didn’t even come to the funeral.”
“The tone isn’t necessary,” she quipped. “And that’s mighty high coming from someone who stole all my sister’s things out from under me.”
I stood ramrod straight. My jaw buzzed with adrenaline.
She hated this place. She hated the wide-planked floors, the memories embedded in the wallpapered bathrooms, the empty rooms that begged for guests. She wouldn’t have wanted any of it if she had been willed it.
“I didn’t steal anything from you, Mom.” Defeat edged my words. Then, the longer the silence stretched between us, guilt rubbed around my legs like a forgotten cat, ready for dinner.
Mom hadn’t had a choice in getting the house. Aunt Cadence had willed it all to me—not her. If I were in her shoes, wouldn’t that make me mad, too?
I pinched the bridge of my nose, thinking. But the money.
What would she do with it? There was no telling.
Upstairs, the hum of the portable speaker lowered to a murmur. Sayer’s long strides followed, then he peeked around the corner, paint and dust all over his jeans. The skylight, far above on the third floor, made his thinning hair look even thinner.
His brow quirked, mouth pinched. A silent question.
I only gave a tight head shake, then I turned my back to him so he couldn’t read my lips.
“You should be here,” I said, voice narrow. “You know that.”
“I will not step foot in that place,” she retorted. “Do you know what I went through in that house?
I pinched the bridge of my nose again. I didn’t want to diminish what my father had done, because we all knew he didn’t make the best decisions, but neither had she. But this had never been her house. I knew she only badgered me about the house because she didn’t get it, but the thought of arguing with her over what was and wasn’t true drained my energy just thinking about it.
“Do you not remember what I told you about that man?” she said. “He gaslit me, he abused me—”
“Mom—”
I could practically feel the fire blowing from her lips when she said, “You, little girl, will not tell me what to do. Do you know all I sacrificed for you? All I made sure you had? You had a roof over your head and food in your stomach and you had agreat mother. I know you like to idolize Cadence because she was thefun oneto be around, but that house won’t be a home any more than the one I gave you was.”
My chest blossomed into flames. Every joint in my body locked.
I never expected Harthwait to be a home. That’s why I was selling it. I didn’t need a home, I didn’tneedanyone, including her. It all needed to go.
All of it.
I opened my mouth. Stopped. Closed it.
I wanted to say it. But I couldn’t bring myself to remind her of the years I’d waited for her to come home after work, only to have to eat boxed, stale cereal with water and get myself ready for school the next day because she’d gotten strung out in someone’s living room. Couldn’t bring myself to remind her of the times Mrs. Tomes had taken me aside and asked if everything was okay at home because I’d worn the same clothes to school for three days that week.
I couldn’t repeat her hissed threat when I’d found her in the bathroom the night before the divorce anniversary:If you tell anyone where I’ve been, I’ll tell them you’re a liar, Landry May. Do you want to know where liars go?
I shook my head. But could I blame her? Truly?
I knew how she’d treated me was wrong. But she was my mother.
