“Look,” my mom said, turning her anger on Paisley. “I don’t know who you are or how long you think my brother will be interested in you, but this is none of your concern.”
“There’s not a person at this table who doesn’t have a right to be concerned about Macey,” Melissa said softly. I’d almost forgotten she was even there. So did everyone else, by the startled looks on their faces. I expected Melissa to stop talking, to apologize maybe, because that’s just the kind of soft-spoken person she was, but she didn’t. Not even close.
“Excuse me?” Mom asked, and Melissa chuckled a bit, shaking her head. She put down her cup of soda and zoned in on my mother.
“You heard me,” she said. “There’s not a person at this table or in this house that doesn’t have a right to care about Macey. We all love her, and she’s a part of our lives. All of us. And if you can’t see that, I feel sorry for you.”
My mom’s nostrils flared, and I worried that she might just come across the table and bitch-slap Melissa. Not like Jayce’s mom couldn’t hold her own, but it worried me just the same.
“Macey,” Melissa said, her eyes focusing back on me. “I won’t say anything that I don’t believe you will agree with, but is your mother someone you believe is actually helping you right now, or—”
“How dare you,” my mother hissed, rising from her seat at the table. “This girl is my daughter, and I intend to stay and support her whether you like it or not.”
“Mom,” I said softly, reaching for her hand. My fingers brushed hers, but she jerked away from me, spitting mad now.
“Not now, Macey,” she snapped, turning her undivided attention on Melissa. “I have every right to be here. She is my daughter, not yours, and she needs my support.”
“Mom,” I said again, more forcefully this time. “I think Melissa is right. I think this visit has been more stress than relief.”
A heavy silence settled over the table, and my mother wheeled on me. “What are you saying?” she demanded. “Am I not good enough to be your mother now? Am I not good enough to support you?”
“Look.” Melissa stood up from her seat at the table and took a small step towards my mother, who took a hesitant step back. Why, I don’t know, but Melissa was one of the only people I’d come across who wasn’t intimidated by my mother’s attitude. “Macey is fighting this thing with all the support she could possibly need,” she continued, her soft, kind eyes landing on me reassuringly. “But I think you being here is putting added stress on my patient.”
“Oh,” Mom said, sarcasm dripping from her tone. “So, she’s your patient now?”
“She always has been.”
“Really. You could have fooled me.”
“Mom, stop.”
My mother turned to look at me then, and the expression on her face was one I wish I could have avoided seeing for the rest of my life...no matter how long or short that might have been.
“Of course,” she said softly. “Of course you move here, away from home, far away from your father and me, and you find a new family. A new home. A new life. And we no longer matter to you, do we?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, fighting the urge to yell, to scream, to make my mother feel like she’d made me feel the last few years.
“Mom,” I said quietly. “After Melanie died, you became different. You were...angrywith me. I kind of felt like you blamed me for the accident, and it was difficult to live with.”
“Right,” my mother said, her eyes narrowing in my direction. “It was difficult for you, Macey. Never mind how I felt, right? Or your father?”
“I know you were hurting.” At this point, my voice cracked, and I had to make a valiant attempt not to break down and sob in front of everybody. Jayce’s hand tightened on mine encouragingly, and that’s exactly what I needed to continue. “But I was hurting too, Mom. I still am. The accident wasn’t my fault, and you know that, but you didn’t really care, did you? You had to blame someone, even if it was your own daughter.”
For a moment, my mother said nothing to this, nothing at all. But then when she spoke again, her tone brimmed with an iciness I could have lived without hearing.
“You were driving,” she said quietly. “You were driving, and now Melanie is dead.”
I opened my mouth. So did Jayce. Pain rattled through my body, a pain so intense and so overwhelming that I thought the pain alone might cripple me before I could defend myself. But then someone else spoke before anyone else could, and his voice boomed across the table, across the room, across the apartment.
“Leave,” Hansen said, and his eyes narrowed into tiny, dangerous slits that I’d never been on the other end of. “I love you, Theresa, we both do. But I’m only going to ask you this once. For Macey. Go home. Go home and do whatever it is you do. Macey has family here. She has support. And you’re not helping.”
“How dare you,” Mom hissed, and for a moment I could have sworn that sparks of fire lit up her eyes. “First this bitch nurse and now my own brother. God, tell me what I did to deserve this.”
“Please go,” I said softly, reaching over to rest my hand on my mothers. I half expected her to slap me away, but she didn’t. Not this time. “I’ll call you when I can, Mom, but I don’t think it’s a good idea that you’re here. Okay?”
“Oh, Macey,” Mom said, shaking her head slowly. “You’re making a mistake. I should have known that letting you move across the country with Erik would ruin you. I should have fought it, should have kept you home.”
“Moving here was the best thing that happened to me,” I said, and my mom looked away from me, at the wall, as though she could no longer face me.
