Petition to change Thanksgiving dinner from turkey to brisket. No one likes dry bird.
—Mable to Cody
Mable
“Mother!”
“What?” she asked innocently.
I didn’t believe that innocent “what” for a second.
“What is it, exactly, that you wanted me to do here?” I pushed.
“I wanted you to join Birdee and me for lunch,” she said demurely. “Is it too much to ask to want my two girls together?”
Yes, yes it was.
Mostly because I couldn’t fucking stand Birdee. I wouldn’t sneeze on her if she was on fire.
I certainly wouldn’t choose to have lunch with her when I wanted nothing more than to bend her over the table and smack her head against the fine china a few times just to make her cry.
My mother had said that it would just be the two of us today, but, like always, she’d lied.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if my mother forced us to spend time with each other because she genuinely wanted to mend the breach—as if it could ever be mended—or if she was just trying to rub it in.
I was betting on the latter.
My mother was never that nice of a person.
Or, more accurately, my stepmother.
She and Birdee had come into my and my father’s lives when I was barely eight.
From the moment my father had met her, he’d declared that it was love at first sight. Both for Birdee and my stepmother.
At first, I thought it was great, too.
But I’d quickly realized that Birdee would be the prodigal daughter while I was just barely second fiddle.
“I’m sorry that you went to all the trouble to invite me,” I lied. “But I will not be dining with Birdee.”
“Don’t be a fucking baby,” Birdee said from her perch on the expensive chair that barely dipped under her weight. “I think it’s time to stop acting like a child and instead focus on the rift in our family.”
“Focus on the rift in our family that you created?” I asked, getting really freakin’ angry. “The one where you slept with my boyfriend of four years, lied about it when I found out. Stole my life savings, then drove to the airport where you used my ID to get on a flight that I’d booked and paid for. Taking you to my honeymoon. And while you were at it, going to the leasing office of my apartment and terminating my lease?”
I’d gotten stood up at my own wedding. When I’d left the venue to go home, I’d found that my place had been cleaned out and the locks changed. When I’d gone to call my dad, I’d found out that my cell phone had also been turned off.
It’d been a hellacious eight months, and she was going to sit here and act like she hadn’t just ruined my life?
I’d lost my job because I couldn’t get to work. Did I forget to mention she’d also sold my car? Forging my name on the title to get some cash to hold her over while she and my ex-fiancé spent our honeymoon in Bora Bora? At least she had to buy her own ticket to Bora Bora and her lodging, since I managed to cancel a few things.
I’d lost my apartment.
All of my things—including every stitch of clothing that I’d owned.
I’d had to literally start over from scratch, and she was wanting me to “just let it go?”
I think, the fuck, not.
