“I mean, I made it.” She rests her fists on her hips and looks back at Tommy. They don’t say anything, but he nods and gets into his truck and drives off.
I want to hear why. All the time I spent out here, she never joined me. She was jaded, opinionated, practically a vampire anyway, or a witch. I thought pretty hard about how that could’ve been true when I was in my late teens. But for some reason, right now, despite being in my mid-thirties, I just want to talk to my mom, want to understand her. I’ve spent too long thinking I might not get a chance to again. For all the complex molecules I’ve studied and theories I applied throughout, the equation between my mother and me has always been the most complicated.
“Lu,” I breathe out, frustrated at how this entire relationship with her seems to constantly feel like I’m wading through mud.
“Don’t ‘Lu’ me, like I’m an errant child, Wynona. Fine, you need to hate someone, at least call me Mom and then go on hating me,” she says, like that was something I declared. It twists my stomach.
I jerk back. “I don’t hate you, Lu.”
She scoffs. “Lu,” she mumbles, shaking her head.
I started calling her by her first name when I decided I wanted to study organic chemistry. She told me I’d never find what I really wanted if I kept doing what I was doing. I resented her for that comment, but it seems she may have been right.
I stare at her dark hair, the angular cut of it, and how it somehow makes her seem tougher, harsher. I had colored it the same shade, chopped it too when I was relocated. I didn’t even realize I had done it. I wanted to be like the toughest person I had ever met at a time in my life when I had been so severely broken.
She waves at the air in front of her. “You know what? Let's not do this right now. Birdie’s got a bunch of garden club bitches showing up later, and I need to get my ass outta there before they do.”
“Mom,” I say more intently. “I don’t hate you.”
“You sure about that? Wynona, you leaned into all those rumors about our family—about me. Didn’t once think about sticking around or standing by. You wanted distance. I embarrassed you, and I’m allowed to be upset about that.”
She’s right. I didn’t like people saying things about my family, but I didn’t stand up for them. I chose to step aside instead. And I never realized how much that hurt her until right now.
I have my chance to fix things here, and I keep pushing her away.
“You know what I really want? A whiskey neat and to kick my legs up on the sticky bar and listen to my mom bad-mouth whatever asshole mansplained how she should run her business.”
She looks over at me, surprised or maybe pleased with what I’m saying.
I laugh, thinking about how often this happened. “Or a really juicy story about how she talked the latest bachelorette into canceling her own wedding.”
She smiles, looking down and toying with the hem of her shirt. I glance around the space, taking inventory of the barrels that need to be turned and the cases of old glass bottles that need to be washed out and sanitized.
“I’m sorry that you had to find out at all, but especially in the way that you did,” she finally says. I didn’t want you girls to see the darkness of it.” She shakes her head. “Maybe if you knew what we did or who we were sooner, it would’ve made sense that wewantedpeople talking. That all those rumors you hated so much were a good thing.”
I furrow my brow, not having thought of it that way at all.
“When people say crazy things about others around this town, it’s always easier to pass off as a rumor and not suspicious behavior.
“I never wanted you to hate me.” Her eyes brim and spill over with tears. “I never wanted you to look at me like you are right now. Like I’m some kind of monster for the things me and your grandmother have done.”
I close my eyes and shake my head slowly. That wasn’t what I thought. I haven’t allowed myself to really settle on how I feel about the things they’ve been doing. The shock of my family being capable of murder hit me square in the face, but I’m not disgusted or ashamed. Hearing her talk about it, knowing at their core, who my mother and grandmother are, I understand it. I’d had a front-row seat to death and torture. There hasn’t been a single moment when I thought the person who killed the monster who had hurt me deserved anything more than my complete and utter adoration.
When I finally focus on her again, trying to stay out of my head and in this moment with her, she takes a step closer. I notice her hands fidgeting and looking more nervous than I ever remember seeing her. “When you disappeared, or left, or whatever it is that happened to you that you refuse to tell me—” she starts to say, but I cut her off.
I can’t avoid this any longer, not now. Not after what I know and listening to her open up like this with me.
“I didn’t leave willingly,” I rush out. “And as much as I wanted to, as much as I disappointed you, I didn’t just leave.” I look up at the vaulted beams above, trying to take a deep breath. I’ve always felt safe here—the distillery was a safe space for me, even as a kid. I’ve only held back because I didn’t think she could handle it, Birdie either. But they’re stronger than I’ve ever given them credit for.
Lifting the side of my shirt and holding it up high, I display the scar that runs the length of my torso.
“He started with a fillet knife. It was so sharp, it almost didn’t hurt. Then he switched to a serrated. It felt like teeth gnawingat me each time he dragged it back and forth. He told me if I screamed, if I shared with him what it felt like to be so smart, then he would stop.” I shake my head as tears cloud my eyes. “I didn’t scream. I didn’t tell him what it felt like knowing I was smarter than him, but that he outplayed me.” I swallow down the truths that linger, the pieces that she doesn’t need to know. “I passed out three times before he got so frustrated that he left and came back with someone else who he...” I suck in a breath, trying to keep myself from picturing it all over again. Reliving it in therapy had been enough. “The infection it caused probably should’ve killed me, but after that, he was very adamant about keeping me alive.”
Her hands cover her mouth, and her tears keep falling even when I let go of my shirt. I didn’t show her to upset her. I wanted her to see that I didn’t choose any part of leaving. “Who?” she asks, the question muffled behind her hands.
“There are all different kinds of men,” I say, finally allowing what she and Birdie shared to settle. “But only a monster is capable of the things I witnessed.”
“Who, Wyn?” she says, more loudly now. “I will kill?—”
