“I’m just about to take the steak off the grill. Why don’t you go help your mom get everything else on the table outside?”
“Will do.” I kiss his cheek and head to the kitchen to bring out the side dishes.
Once we have the garden salad, corn on the cob, asparagus, and scalloped potatoes (my dad’s favorite) on the table, we all sit and join hands.
“You want to do the honors, sweet pea?” my dad asks.
I nod. “Heavenly Father, please bless this food and our bodies. Thank you for these gifts we are about to receive from your bounty. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.”
“Amen,” my parents say in unison.
We all smile around the table, and I settle in for my usual Friday night—predictable, unexciting, and a little boring. But I chose this life. This is what I want, so I can’t complain.
3
BASTION
Ipull up in front of the address typed on the report and stare at the house. I wasn’t sure what I was going to find, but this perfect slice of Americana wasn’t it.
The home isn’t huge by any means, but it’s well cared for with a red brick path leading to the white-sided two-story with black shutters. A generous porch runs across the front of the house, and the hedges that line the walkway to the house from the sidewalk are perfectly manicured.
It’s about as far as you can get from the dilapidated apartment I escaped from when I was eleven.
My hands wrap around the steering wheel of my rental car until my knuckles turn white.
What the hell am I even doing here?
It’s a good question and one I still can’t answer. When I woke up the day after reading the report, I knew I had to come see with my own eyes that my mother is still alive. I booked a last-minute flight for some reason. Maybe it’s the disbelief that my mom isactually still alive after the way I left her. Maybe someone stole her identity after they found her dead in her own vomit. It’s not like there was anyone who would report her missing. Then there’s the final theory—maybe Mr. Smith is really shitty at his job, and he has the wrong person, who knows? There has to be a more logical explanation than the fact that my mom cleaned herself up and got her shit together but never came looking for her only child.
I don’t even know why the fuck I care. I’m thirty-seven years old, not a child anymore, and I made it on my own without her.
But the fact is, something inside me needs to know. So I continue down the street, parking on the other side of the road. Far enough down that I can see the house and its comings and goings, but not close enough to draw the attention of the residents.
I grip the steering wheel for about a half an hour before a modest sedan pulls into the driveway. Cursing the way my heart beats faster at the possibility that the car could hold my mother, I try to see who is driving, but the tinted windows don’t allow it.
When the driver’s door opens, my throat constricts that this could be the moment. A second later, a wash of relief floods through me. Yeah, either Mr. Smith got it all wrong or this is just a friend. It’s not my mother, but a woman in her early twenties with long dark hair, dressed as though she’s just come from some boring office job. The front door of the house opens, and an older woman steps out onto the porch.
A rush of air leaves my lungs, and I gasp because there’s no doubt this woman is indeed my mother. Though she’s much older than the last time I saw her, and it’s hard to tell with her healthy weight and glowing skin, it’s her.
Her hair, now gray, is cut in a bob to her shoulders, and she’s wearing a pair of beige capris and a light blue T-shirt. She’s no longer gaunt with deep, dark grooves under her eyes and no meat on her bones. It’s obvious she’s healthy and taking care of herself. Which for some reason pisses me off.
The way she smiles at the young woman making her way around her vehicle and up to the porch makes me feel as if there’s a volcano in my chest ready to erupt.
“Well, well, well, hello, Hattie,” I say to myself.
My mom brings her in for a hug and closes her eyes as though she’s savoring the moment. My hand falls to the door handle, but I stop myself from opening the car door and hurling myself at them. Instead, I swallow down the bile rising up my throat and blow out a breath.
As if the tender hug wasn’t enough, my mom pulls back and runs her palm down Hattie’s innocent face, and I break out into a cold sweat. I don’t know if it’s anger or shock, probably a little of both.
Over the years, I’d forgotten about her running her palm down my face. Probably because they were rare moments when she was lucid and looking at me with apology for being a shitty mom who couldn’t get clean. She did it a lot in the early years of her addiction, but by the end, before I ran away, those moments never came, no matter how much I wished for her to just see me and what she was putting me through.
And seeing her do the same thing to someone who isn’t even her real daughter…
My hands squeeze into fists so tight that I have no choice but to release the tension. I’m surprised my teeth don’t turn to dust with how hard I’m clenching them.
Un-fucking-believable.
She can’t even take care of her own son, but here she is, looking adoringly into this young woman’s eyes like she means the fucking world to her?
