I rested a hand over the button when she tried to increase her bet to ten cents. “You’re not a gambler.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” she said, nudging my hand away. “There’s nothing wrong with taking risks. Look at you! You took a risk leaving Steven, and look how well that turned out.” I studied her face as she slapped the button again, spending her credits with a numb, hollow-eyed expression that reminded me too much of the people who wandered the sidewalks here in the early hours of the morning, hands deep in their pockets as if they were clinging to whatever unspent hope still remained inside them. “You give and give, year after year,” she said. I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or to herself. “Before you know it, you’ve put years of your life into something, and then you wake up one morning and look in the mirror and you’ve got gray hair and wrinkles, and you’ve spent your best years pouring yourself into someone who doesn’t give back. You were smart leaving Steven when you did. You were better off cutting your losses and moving on while you’re still young enough to find someone who appreciates you.”
I sat at the empty slot machine beside her and put a hand on hershoulder, feeling the shudder in the breath she was trying to calm. “Mom, what’s going on? Is something wrong between you and Dad?” My parents had argued plenty over the years, but it had always just been part of their dynamic—the way they set boundaries with each other and expressed their frustrations, the same way Steven and I had. That thought made me a little sick to my stomach.
“Nothing is wrong. Nothing iseverwrong. In his mind, everything is perfect. And why shouldn’t it be? He wants something for dinner, I make it. He wants to spend the weekend doing something, we do it. He wants to go somewhere, we go where he wants to go. He has a kidney stone, I sit in the hospital with him and listen to him moan and groan about it. But who listens to me?” she asked, smacking the button without pausing. “I thought if I left, it might fix something. That he might worry about where I was or what I was doing and beg me to come home. Heaven forbid he might miss me and realize how nice it is to have someone there with you, asking how your day was. It’s been three days since I left, and he hasn’t called once.”
“Wait,” I said, shaking my head, trying to rewind the conversation. “You didn’t tell Dad where you were going?”
“I told him I was leaving.”
“With me, right? You told him you were going away with Vero and me. Just for a few days.”
She sniffed. “Not exactly.” I pressed my hands to my eyes, having second thoughts about skipping that drink at the bar. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for him, Finlay. His clothes were all washed and put away before I left. There were leftovers in the refrigerator and a meat loaf in the freezer. That’s more than anyone’s ever done for me. If he doesn’t like it, he can cook for himself. I don’t care anymore.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. She bit down on her quivering lip. “You can’t stay here forever, Ma. What do you plan to do when it’s time for all of us to go home?”
“I’ll go to your house and live with you and the children.”
“Mom—”
“You lived with me for eighteen years.”
“What about Georgia?”
“She doesn’t have a guest room.”
“Vero’s living in mine.”
“I’ll sleep in your office,” she said, reaching into her fanny pack for another twenty-dollar bill.
“What are you doing?” I asked as she fed it to the machine.
“I’m starting over.”
“You’ve lost forty dollars in this one already.”
“Which is why I have to keep playing it. That woman to my left has been eyeing it for the last half hour. If I leave now, she’ll take my seat and she’ll probably win.”
“I don’t think that’s how this works.”
“Of course that’s how this works. That’s how life works. Your father has probably forgotten all about me. He’s probably signed up for one of those online dating sites and found a younger woman who’s willing to put up with him. That’s probably why he hasn’t called.”
I heaved a sigh. I had not seen finding a marriage counselor for my parents on my New Year/New Me bingo card. For that matter, I had not anticipated finding a dead loan shark in a bathtub either. “Come on,” I said, ignoring her protests as I pressed the button to cash out her credits. I sent a quick text to Sam, took my mother’s hand, and led her out of the casino.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“We’re going for a drink.”
Eighties music blasted from the hotel bar, but the Sunday-night crowd was sparse compared to the throngs of drunken club-hoppers we’d seen bursting from the place when Vero and I had returned last night. Only a handful of tables were occupied. A young woman in a white minidress and cheap chiffon veil sat at the bar, sipping a beer with a man in an even cheaper-looking tux. An Elvis impersonator sat alone at the opposite end, swaying a little as he tried to coax the bartender into giving him another round.
I settled my mother into a stool in the middle, ordering a glass of Chardonnay for her and a vodka tonic for myself.
On second thought, what the hell.
I called out to the waiter to change my order. My mother beamed as the bartender set two straws in the giant frozen fishbowl of margarita he placed between us, along with two shots of tequila for each of us.
I held a shot glass out to her. “What are we drinking to?”
