"My meeting ran late," I take her hands in mine, removing her frigid fingers from my face. It's easier to lie to her than try to get her to take even a crumb of accountability. My eyes land on her husband, "Good to see you, Seth."
"Seth?" Mom laughs. "Come on, honey. That's your stepfather, just call him dad."
I won't be doing that.
I sink into my chair across from them, watching with barely concealed disgust as my mom runs her arms over his shoulders, herfingers drifting into his shirt as if we aren't all sitting in a very public place.
I'm not a drinker during the day, and certainly not when I'm going to be driving, but watching my mom fondle a man I hardly know nearly makes me wish I were.
She dives into it without preamble. "We're so sorry you didn't get an invite to the wedding, honey, I just know how busy you are. I didn't think you'd want to step away from your super important big girl job to celebrate on a Thursday afternoon." The words themselves may not be an insult, but her sickly sweet tone as she calls my career abig girl jobmakes my skin heat. She doesn't take what I do seriously. She doesn't take anything seriously, if we're being honest.
Not jobs.
Not marriages.
Not even motherhood.
I smile, taking a sip of my water and waiting for the server to come give me something,anythingelse to focus on. "It's okay, mom. I understand. I'm just happy you're happy."
And I am.
I just wish her happiness would last.
Janet has always been fickle, at best.
Ruled by her emotions to the detriment of herself and everyone around her.
The first time any man dares to so much as ask of her what she expects of them, her happiness with them fades. And fast.
Seth seems nice enough. But her lovey-dovey act, the one where she sticks her tongue in his throat even when I'm in the middle of speaking to them, it'll end the moment he questions a single one of her whims.
It doesn't help that this one is probably closer to my age than hers. In the end, it'll only make the fallout worse.
But it's her life, and I only have to tiptoe into it once every few months to check in these days. That's the arrangement that seems to work best for both of us.
"Oh, my god!" she suddenly exclaims in the middle of me trying to give our server my order for lunch. "Did you see? That guy woke up?"
I finish ordering and thank them as they walk away. "What guy?"
"The coma guy!"
"I have no idea who you're talking about," I shrug.
She slaps Seth's arm a couple times, "Come on, honey, remember the guy? What do they call him?"
"Bás Dorcha," Seth answers. "He was wanted on suspicion of something like two dozen murders before they found him beat to shit, left for dead. He's been in a coma since September but someone at the hospital leaked that he woke up."
"Oh. Yeah, I guess I heard something about that months ago," I shrug. "Why do they call him Boss... Dorka?"
Seth repeats, "Bás Dorcha. It's an Irish term for bat. Means dark death. They started calling him that because of the way he leaves his victims. And the way he abducts his targets in the dead of night before dropping them somewhere else to display. No one sees him coming or going."
I laugh, "If no one sees him, how does anyone have stories about him?"
They're speaking about this guy as if he's some apparition that can sneak into homes and commit murders without witnesses or evidence. But whoever he is, he's just a man.
Seth shrugs, "I don't know, but someone said he managed to kill their friend and string him up without making a single sound. The friend went into the bathroom and didn't come out. When they went to check on him, he had already bled out into the shower. No sign of the killer. Only his signature. Then this guy shows up with a fucking bat tattoo wrapped around his throat? It isn't hard to put two and two together."
"So, really, it could have been anyone," I raise a brow. "A man dying in a hospital bed would be an easy target to pin the murders on."
