“You didn’t even like my song, so I probably won’t win. That should reassure you.”
She squeezes her eyes shut for a millisecond, but then reopens them and sets them on me. Before her lips even move, I predict what she’s going to say.
She says it anyway. “No.”
My heart twists and twists. “Please?” I whisper.
“No.”
I set my mug down so brutally coffee splashes over the rim. “That’s not fair.You’renot fair. I do everything you ask me to. I even go to yoga with you every week, and you won’t even let me do one thing for myself!”
“Because you have so much more to lose than to gain!”
“Wow…” Tears sting my eyes. “You don’t even think I have a chance to win.”
“I didn’t say that, Angie.”
“But you’re thinking it.” I start up the stairs, my bad knee smarting from the rapid movements. “Dad would understand. I wish he were alive! I wish you’d been the one in that car instead of him!”
Something clatters in the kitchen.
I went too far, but I’m too proud and angry and shocked to head back down, so I fling my bedroom door shut, jump into bed, and curl up to mourn my crushed dream.
I wait for Mom to come upstairs. I’m certain she will. She’s one of those people who have to fight until there’s no more fight to be had. Until the anger has defused, and the parties have reconciled. She would’ve made a good lawyer.
I sob, and it angers the pounding in my head.
Soon, it’s been an hour, and she still hasn’t come upstairs.
I haven’t heard the front door so I know she hasn’t left the house. I pad over to the window just to make sure her car’s still in the driveway. It is.
She’s waiting me out.
Or maybe she’s so appalled by what I shouted at her that she never wants to talk to me again.
My mother’s all the family I have… all the family I need.
I can’t lose her.
I open my door. It creaks, and then the floorboards groan under my footsteps.
Mom’s lying on the couch, reading a book with a smashed pink flower on the cover. It pretty much sums up how I feel—crushed. I approach her slowly.
She doesn’t lower the book.
Doesn’t even glance at me.
Lips trembling, I whisper, “I didn’t mean it, Mom. I didn’t mean it.”
She sets the novel down beside her on the couch, and then she sighs and opens her arms, and I tumble into them.
Tears drip down my cheeks and soak into the ruffles of her camisole. I didn’t earn the right to sob—I’mthe insensitive one—and yet I just can’t seem to contain my emotions.
Mom smooths my hair back.
“You didn’t come upstairs. Why didn’t you come upstairs?” I croak, resting my cheek against her chest.
Her labored heartbeats drum against my ear. “I thought it was about time you learn to put out the fires you light, baby. Most people aren’t bulls. They won’t charge into you. They’ll hold grudges, and it’ll fester. And that’s the absolute worst. Your daddy used to do that.” Her voice has dropped to a whisper. “He held so many grudges it killed him before he even died.”
