Slowly, Jay’s mother got down to the linoleum floor. She winced a little and there was a popping sound as her kneecaps rolled against the hard surface.
“I’m sorry, baby.” She spoke grudgingly.
“For what?” Nicholas prompted. “Be specific.”
“I’m sorry I failed you as a mother. You were such a difficult child and I—” Nicholas gave her a sharp look and she broke off. “I wasn’t a good mom to you. It was wrong of me to buy into your brother’s twisted schemes to get my house and my money back.”
“Stop calling him my brother,” said Jay. “He’s my husband and the house belongs to us.”
That gave her mother pause—Jay could read every thought flashing across her face: fear, disgust, and something that looked a lot like jealousy. “You scheming littlebitch.”
Jake muttered, “Shit.”
“God. You’re both suchfreaks.”
“And you’re a bad person!” She fought off the familiar prickling of shame spreading its fingers along her spine. “You spent so much time trying to make me feel as if I would never be good enough that I actually started to believe it.”
“Justine, spare me your persecution complex for once in your miserable little life. I know it’s all the rage now to hate your mother, but you’re not exactly an innocent here.”
“Bullshit,” Nicholas said.
“I tried to make you independent. Itriedto make you grow up into a young woman. But you weren’t likeme. You couldn’t take things on the chin. Everything hurt your feelings, like the child you are.Everythingmade you cry.” She drew herself up from the floor dramatically. “I’m sorry I hurt you by trying to toughen you up, but it seems like you landed on your feet anyway.”
“That’s your apology?” Her voice sounded a little too high. She didn’t care. “Saying that it was all my fault, and adding a mea culpa?Youhave been holding the bar over my head my whole life and criticizing me for not being able to reach it. But I don’t think you ever really wanted me to. I think it made you feel a whole lot better when I couldn’t. That’s why you threw me to the wolves! You wanted to see me get torn apart!”
“That’s not true!”
“Then why wouldn’t you let me feel pretty? Why wouldn’t you let me feelgood?” Jay shook her head wildly. “Why wouldn’t you believe me over your husband when he would sit there and talk about my how beautiful my fucking wrists were at the dinner table like it was his right to comment on my body? Why did you throw me atNick?”
“I just can’t believe you can say things like that to me with a straight face after marrying your own brother—I’m sorry,stepbrother—and sending him here to intimidate me like a little mob boss. You never came tomeabout your stepfather, Jay, and I remember how you dressed. You can force me to apologize all you want but it doesn’t change the fact that youlikedthe attention.”
Jay said nothing but a gasping breath left her lungs.
“It seems like you still do.” Her mother looked at her for a long moment, apparently satisfied. Turning to Nicholas, she said, “Just give me the ten thousand so we can drop this ugliness. I’m tired of this.”
Nicholas looked over her head at Jay. Even now, choking on all of her past trauma as if it were a bone stuck in her throat, she recognized the look—stern and expectant. The look he gave her whenever she defied him, like he was waiting to see if she would push him harder.
(you want it like that from Daddy?)
“Justine,” her mother said, snapping her fingers.
Still looking at Nick, Jay said, “No.”
“Excuse me?” her mother said.
“I saidno.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I don’t think my wife liked your apology.” Nicholas sounded like he was trying not to laugh. Enjoying himself, actually—but for once she didn’t fault him for it. Not when hearing him saymy wifefelt like being stroked by a staticky brush. “Get out of my apartment and take your boy-toy with you.”
“You promised me money!”
“Yeah, but your apology was shit.” Nicholas tilted his head and gave her the empty stare her mother had mentioned on thephone. “You have three options now. You can leave on foot, in a cop car, or on a stretcher.”
Jake tried to slink past Nicholas, to the safety of the bedroom, but he reached out and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. The fabric bunched beneath his Adam’s apple, making him gasp and choke.
“Where is she keeping the negatives?”
