After we’ve explained what’s happened with the lightning strike and the pier and theNarwhalto the lighthouse keeper, harbor patrol, and coast guard—can this get any worse?—and when wefinally,finallymake it onboard the Karrases’ tugboat, Lucky’s father is shouting instructions to Lucky about circling the island to go get theNarwhal, and Mom hugs me.
She hugs me way too hard for way too long, telling me that we scared her half to death, and joking that I’m never leaving the house again. She holds me by the shoulders and looks at me a little strangely. Then she reaches for my hair, trying to fuss it back into place.
“Stop,” I complain, pushing her hand away.
Her eyes go wide, and she inhales sharply. And that’s when I realize: She knows.
She knows what Lucky and I have done.
“Oh, good God,” she says. “You’ve got to be joking. Your best friend?”
“Mom, please,” I hiss, using my body as a shield to block her as I lean over the railing and look into the dark water below.
She snorts and mumbles near my ear, “Hope it was worth it.”
I don’t respond. Of all the times for her to want to communicate openly with me, she choosesthismoment? Invisible wall button … where are you? Pressing button now.Press-press.
But she doesn’t get the hint and instead uses it as an excuse to scoot up closer to me on the tugboat’s railing, shoulder to shoulder, before tossing a glance behind us to ensure no one’s listening. “I hope you were safe. Please, Josie. Tell me you were safe.”
Ugh. “We were.”
Her shoulders relax. “Okay, but I also hope it was worth throwing your life away.”
“I didn’t throw my life away. Please don’t be dramatic.”
“Sex can ruin your life, you know.”
“That’s … super healthy, Mom.” Especially for someone who does it on the regular. I mean, come on. Is she trying to ruin her own life with sex? That makes no sense.
“I’m just saying, it’s not something you should just do with the first warm body that comes along. It’s a big step. I hope it was worth it,” she repeats.
Seriously? Now she wants to mother me? Oh, the irony.Oh,the snarky comebacks I want to hurl back at her. But all I say is, “It was.”
“Always seems that way in the moment,” she murmurs, glancing toward the other side of the tugboat. “Trust me. Been there.”
“What do you want from me?” I say. “I mean, do you think we should have waited until we were married or something?”
She doesn’t answer, but the lines of her body are rigid. She’s upset. And I don’t understand. Lucky isn’t a “warm body.” He’s my friend. Why is she trying to spoil this for me? It’s almost like she’s jealous that I had a moment of joy with him.
But that can’t be right.
Maybe it’s what I’ve suspected before about her sex life: that it’s a casino machine that she feeds money into but it never pays out. Something that she does to try to make herself happy, or to distract her from the fact that her life isn’t everything she planned. I’m notsure if her plans went wrong when she got pregnant with me in college or when she had the fight with Grandma five years ago.
Or maybe the fight with Grandma was when she had another realization that everything in her life was messed up.
Whatever it is, I don’t want to argue with her. Because I look at her now, with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, and I’m just sad.
I’m sad that she’s been so unhappy, she’s spent the last few years resenting her own mother, dragging her burden of a daughter with her, moving up and down the coast from cars to motels to cheap apartments. And I’m sad that she can’t commit to a job or a person, or even a stupid pet.
Maybe it’s best that I just shut her out completely going forward, because whatever happens next year with my grandmother and Nepal, I’ve got to get away from her.
If I’m the reason her life didn’t go as planned—
The reason she keeps playing casino games and losing.
The reason she has big blow-out fights with Grandma.
If I’m the reason she’s not happy …
