“Lily, baby.” Micah came over and lifted Nari up. “Why don’t you go and get Mommy some water, so she can take her medicine?”
“Okay!” She shot off and out the door, racing to obey.
“So,” I spoke up when I found my voice. “I know you guys will want me to go to the hospital for the MRI, but I really feel fine—”
“What the fuck do we care if you get the MRI?”
I blinked.What did he say?
Rhodes scoffed, lips curling. “Damn, you always did put on a good fucking show. Making up some shit about losing your memory just so you and everyone in the room can hear us say that you own us, and have done for seven years.”
“Was that your favorite part of the performance?” Alex asked, snapping my eyes to him. The expression on his face actually made me scoot backagainst the headboard. “’Cause I was fighting to keep down my breakfast when she was playing and tickling Nari like she hasn’t been leaving every room our daughter enters since she was fucking born.”
“Wha...? What—?”
“Save it, Sue,” Alex snapped. “When we all woke up this morning and your bed was empty, we actually let ourselves hope that you fucked off and weren’t coming back.”
The three of them turned away, heading out the door.
“We should’ve known that was too good to be true.”
They left, leaving me sitting there with my jaw literally hanging. At that second it finally hit me that Sue had three husbands, but I had her phone... and it didn’t ring once the entire night.
They didn’t call asking where she was.
They didn’t text to see if she was okay.
They didn’t sayI love youorI’m so glad you’re safewhen I walked through the door.
Micah, Rhodes, and Alex truly were my soulmates.
Because they hated Sue just as much as me.
I CREPT OUT OF SUE’Sroom the next morning, tiptoeing through my own house like I didn’t belong there. I certainly didn’t feel welcome since Micah, Rhodes, and Alex didn’t come back after walking out the day before. They really didn’t give a shit about my recovery.
Not even Nari came back with the water, I had a feeling that was because one of the guys intervened, and redirected her to another activity that had nothing to do with her terrible “mother.”
I did leave the room a few times to get food, water, and twice, to check on Omma. Both times I poked my head in my mother’s room, she was sleeping and her live-in hospice nurse asked me to poke my head right back out and let her rest.
The presence of Reynard Agassi, the nurse, wasn’t too much of a surprise. Sue did tell me Omma was ill and didn’t have long, and since Sue wasin no way the nurturing type, of course, she’d hire someone to look after her.
What did surprise me was the notable lack of any other staff. If Sue didn’t nurse, she for damn sure didn’t cook, clean, garden, or mow, so where were the housekeepers, cooks, and groundspeople that we grew up depending on?
I passed through the dimly lit hall, straining to see thanks to the many burnt-out bulbs. Not that I needed more light shone on the dingy walls, dusty furniture, and dirty carpets. Every room I wandered into the day before was in desperate need of a good dust-sweep-mop combo, and the kitchen didn’t have anything in it other than a few dusty old cans in the pantry, and a mountain of takeout containers in the trash.
Did Omma and Sue fire all the staff?
My mother didn’t like to be seen in any way other than her best, so it was possible she dismissed the staff when she fell ill.
It was also possible that they all straight up quit and left when Sue bought Omma out of the house.
Sue wasn’t kind or respectful to the staff when we were kids. I very much doubt that changed when she became their boss.
Stepping out onto the landing, I gazed down on the bottom floor—listening to voices filtering out of the dining room.
“—gotta hurry, baby girl, or you’ll be late for school.”
“Daddy, I did all my homework,” Nari proudly announced. “It was so easy.”
