Page 93 of A Heart So Haunted
“Mom?” I didn’t step aside. “What are you doing here?”
“Was that Ivan Kenneth here earlier? Are you seeing him again?” How had she known about him?
She pushed me aside, all red hair and leathered skin. She’d sat out in the sun or gone to the tanning bed weekly since I was old enough to remember. She told Aunt Cadence once that the freckles would connect eventually, whether she got skin cancer or not.
I almost stepped in front of her to keep her from coming in, but as soon as I turned to look in the living room, I noticed the spot where Hadrian had stood was empty.
“No, I’m not. Why would you think that?” If I told her he was a realtor, she’d find a way to flag him back down. She’d always liked him. Only for his family, though.
I let her circle the foyer with her sunglasses on. She pushed them atop her head to squint at the skylight. The smell of cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and peppermint candies trailed after her. “Ran into ’im at that gas station up the street. Got to talking for a bit, and I hope you know, youshouldbe. He’s got money. You know what men with money do.”
“Cheat on you and pick the other woman?”
Her head snapped down, her mouse-colored eyes narrowing. “Is that a snide remark?”
I kept my face placid. “Why are you here, Mom?” I ran through a mental list. Besides my ignoring her—not unusual—and the text about Vince and Penny, there was no need for her to visit.
“What, I can’t come visit my daughter?”
She never had before.
“I don’t know. There was a funeral a while ago. Maybe you should have come. I was there.” I gathered her comment aside and tucked it away for later.
Something was definitely going on.
She was too busy looking around—peeking in the office, the living room, up the stairs, to catch the tone in my voice. Instead, she made her way to the living room, dropped her overfilled purse on the couch. Her wrists, I noticed, were slender. More so than last time.
“Whew. I’m starving. What do you have in here? Why’s it so dark? You keep the lights off to save money?” She flipped three on while making a beeline to the fridge.
My feet were rooted to the floor. She rifled through the fridge, the cabinets, then the corner pantry. Finally, she withdrew a box of crackers and sliced cheese from the fridge. She tore the crackers open with ferocity.
My marrow curdled. All that food, and I knew exactly what she’d do with it. She’d leave crackers strewn over the counter, the floor, never clean them. And then, in a day or two, the ants would come in, if I didn’t come after her to clean it up.
The pressure from earlier migrated from my shoulders and morphed into an ugly, tangled creature that wrapped around my stomach. My hands clenched at my sides. I wanted to tear everything from her hands, tell her it’s mine, she can’thaveit, she can’t do this in myhouse—
“Kitchen looks nice.” I couldn’t help but notice the dark circles under her eyes, which were bloodshot and smartly offset by the dark charcoal lining them. I bet if I tried to run my hands through theback of her hair, there’d be knots, disguised as artful teasing. She’d always said knots like that were normal. As I grew older, I found out that a lot of things came with matted hair. Sometimes it was depression. Neglect.
I’d cried when I’d realized the second one.
Her nose upturned. “Better than the last time I saw it.” She must have been talking about the chickens I’d donated.
“Yeah,” I said, dead. “No roosters.”
It felt almost like an out-of-body experience, watching her eat in Harthwait’s kitchen.
She didn’t feel like a person. She was the ghost of an idea that returned once in a while to remind me that a void was still there. That I wasn’t wanted, that I wasn’t good enough for her then, so why would I be now?
Oh, right.Money.
She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, then brushed the crumbs straight onto the floor. “Smells odd. Like sulfur.” She motioned to the open breakfast nook windows, which I knew I’d shut this morning. “God, Lanny. You’re letting all the AC out.” With a handful of crackers and cheese, she shoved them shut and turned each of their latches.
I could feel it: my body dying while I watched her.
I couldn’t ask her to leave. I couldn’t ask her to stay. I couldn’t do—anything.
“You drove here today.” I needed information out of her, but digging too obviously only made her defensive. I needed for her to talk aboutherproblems. The rest would spill along with it.
“That’s right I did,” she said. She pointed a cracker at me. “Three hours. Can you believe it? Didn’t stop once.”
