“That’s a lot.”
“And you charge a lot. We’ll both walk away happy.”
He laughed. “Give me forty-eight hours.”
“Done.”
I hung up and started the car. Vivica’s trial was coming. My mother was sitting in that cell moving pieces around a board she thought she still controlled. But she didn’t know her best player was dead, her backup plan was bruised and beaten, and her oldest son was about to put an end to her once and for all.
She taught me how to play chess. She just forgot I learned from her.
32
Serenity
I hadn’t seen my mother in months, and the first thing she did when they brought her out was check her reflection in the plexiglass before she sat down.
“Oh, my baby. Look at you. You’re okay. You’re really okay.” She was touching my face, my hair, scanning me for damage. “I have been worried sick about you. Nobody would tell me anything. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t think straight. My baby girl was out there and I couldn’t do anything to help her.”
I let her talk.
“But you’re here now and that’s all that matters. And listen, I have good news. Gerald says the case is falling apart. No body, no cause of death, all circumstantial. He’s filing a motion to dismiss and he thinks the judge is sympathetic. I could be out of here within months, Serenity. Months.” She was squeezing my hands tighter now, leaning forward, eyes bright with a fire that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with her. “And when I get out, I already have a plan. I’m going to open a consulting firm first. Crisis management, political strategy, media relations. Build the brand back up. Then onceI’ve reestablished my reputation, I’m running for city council. Starting small, working my way back. Because this city needs me, Serenity. It needs strong leadership and nobody has been able to fill the void since I left. You’ve seen what’s happened. The crime rate is up, the schools are worse, the infrastructure is crumbling. I was the best thing that ever happened to DC and they know it. They just need to be reminded.”
She was on a roll now. Talking about policy ideas and donor relationships and which media outlets she’d give her first interview to. Planning her comeback from a prison visitation table like she was at a campaign brunch. And I sat there watching her mouth move and something clicked inside my head that should’ve clicked years ago.
This woman did not see me. She never had. I was sitting across from her fresh out of a motel room in Berryville where a man she hired had tied me to a bed and forced cocaine up my nose and raped me for days, and she was talking about running for city council. She hadn’t asked me what happened. Hadn’t asked me if I was hurt. Hadn’t asked me if I was safe. She’d performed the concerned mother bit for about thirty seconds and then pivoted straight to herself because that’s all Vivica Banks had ever been interested in. Herself.
“Are you done?” I asked.
She stopped mid-sentence. Blinked. “What?”
“I asked if you were done. Because you’ve been talking for ten minutes and you haven’t asked me a single real question. Not one. You don’t know what happened to me. You don’t know where I’ve been. You don’t know what Mega did to me because of you. But you know your lawyer’s strategy and your five-year career plan so I guess we’ve got our priorities straight.”
“Serenity, I was getting to that. I just wanted to share the good news first because I thought it would make you happy to know your mother might be coming home.”
“You are so full of yourself.” The words came out calm and clear and I meant every syllable. “You have destroyed this family. Your sons hate you. Your ex-husband is terrified of you. Your daughter was kidnapped and drugged by a man you hired and you’re sitting here talking about running for city council. Do you hear yourself? Do you ever actually hear what comes out of your mouth?”
“Everything I’ve done has been for this family.”
“No. Everything you’ve done has been for you. The family just happened to be standing nearby.”
Vivica straightened in her chair. The tears dried up fast. The concerned mother mask slid off and what was underneath was the woman I’d always known was there but had spent my whole life pretending wasn’t. Cold, calculating, and incapable of seeing another human being as anything other than a chess piece.
“You’re my favorite, Serenity. You know that. You’ve always been my favorite. I mean, look at you. We look just alike. Same face, same cheekbones, same fire. You are my reflection and I have always protected you because of that.”
I stared at her. My favorite because we look alike. Not because she loved me. Not because she knew me. Not because she cared about my heart or my mind or my dreams or my pain. Because I looked like her. Because I was a mirror she could admire herself in. Because I was proof that Vivica Banks had good genes.
“You sold me off to a man who beat me and got me hooked on drugs,” I said. “You paid him to use me for information. And he did exactly what you asked. He used me until there was nothing left to use.”
“I told him not to hurt you. I specifically told him to take care of you and simply gather information. He went rogue. That was not my instruction and I will kill him when I get out of here. I swear to you, Serenity, he will pay for what he did.”
“It’s too late. You can’t kill him.”
Something flickered across her face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s handled. The way you like things handled. Quietly and permanently.”
She opened her mouth and closed it. For the first time in my life, I watched Vivica Banks search for words and not find them.
