“Don’t touch him,” Ophelia barked, pushing the limb back toward its owner.
Her mother’s brows furrowed as she tutted disdainfully. “What has gotten into you?”
Her mother reached into her purse to pull out a wet wipe and clean off the traces of her daughter’s contaminating touch.
I came out ofyourbody, she thought for the thousandth time.
Her mother had always recoiled from her as a child. She was not to touch her with her sticky fingers, not to breathe on her food, not to speak so close that she might inadvertently spit on her. Don’t touch her things. Don’t go into her room. If she had a nightmare, she’d been forced to weep at the foot of her mother’s locked door in the dark until she deigned to see to her. God forbid that Ophelia soil her mother’s pristine bed.
It was as though she’d been born contaminated, and she’d spent the rest of her life trying fruitlessly to become clean enough for her mother’s relentless standards.
“Nothing’s gotten into me,” Ophelia said, ignoring the way Sam grinned and arched his brow at the turn of phrase. “He’s expensive.”
Her mother gave her a droll look. “I was hardly about to break him. Really, you don’t have to be so stingy.”
She stepped around Ophelia, wandering into the kitchen to throw away her soiled wipe.
“Why are you here?” Ophelia asked tightly, glancing at Sam.
His expression was inscrutable, but she had a sense that he didn’t like being touched by other people. She stepped closer to him.
Her mother emerged, scowling prettily. She flipped her long hair over her shoulder, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, since you can’t be bothered to answer my texts, I’m here to find out what your father said.”
Her heart sank. In all the chaos, she’d forgotten about her mother’s request. “Oh… He, um…” She fiddled with the hem of her shirt, searching for a more polite way of wording what her father had told her. “He said he can’t do it.”
Her mother loosed an angry huff, scowl deepening. “Well, did you tell him I’d take him to court if he wouldn’t cooperate?”
“Yes, and he said he’d find a way out of the alimony entirely. I think he means it, Mom. His lawyers are big time.”
She scoffed, waving the warning away. “The court will be sympathetic to my circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” Ophelia finally blurted out the thing she’d thought hundreds of times but never had the nerve to say out loud. “You’re not a young, single mother anymore. You’re someone’s rich ex-wife who doesn’t want to downsize. Do you really think that’s going to go your way? You could wind up so much worse off.”
Sam stepped up behind her, pressing a hand between her shoulder blades, a reassuring weight.
“How dare you talk to me like that?” Her mother wagged a finger at her, face contorting in fury. “You sound just like him, you know that?”
That was a needle that her mother had loved to drive under her skin when she was being uncooperative. She was just like her father: her heartless, cold, abandoning father. Her father, the monster, and Ophelia, his mirror image.
God, how that had made her hate herself.
“Well, maybe it’s because he’s making sense!” She fired back, curling her hands into fists. “Being too lazy to work is no reason to take someone to court.”
Her mother reeled as though she’d slapped her.
“I’m sorry,” Ophelia rushed to say, cupping her hands over her mouth. “I didn’t mean that. But Mom, you’re not being rational about this. What will you do if Dad wins the case, and you lose what you’re already getting to live on? You’ll have no choice except to get a job anyway, and it won’t be like trying to supplement what you’re already getting. It’ll be full-time hours, and you’ll have to find somewhere that will hire someone with no degree and no trade skills who hasn’t worked a day in their life. It’s brutal out there. I can’t even imagine where you’d begin.”
She was ranting, she knew—just like she knew none of it was getting through to her mother. Her eyes had gone glassy with unshed tears, and she had that distant look she got when she’d checked out of a conversation.
“I’m sorry.” She stepped closer, wringing her hands together. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I just don’t want to see you on the street because you were punching above your weight.”
“You would let me, wouldn’t you? You’d let your own mother end up on the street. You think you’re too good for me now.”
Ophelia’s mouth worked silently.
Say something, she thought desperately, but she couldn’t find the words.
Would I?
