Bad Mommy(76)

“Darius was the only one who spoke to me. I was so alone … George was … well, you know how he is. He wasn’t there for me.”

“I spoke to you,” I said. “I was there for you.”

I felt pity for her. So desperate to be something she wasn’t. Her eyes were wide, watery. I imagined she was backtracking, thinking of a new tactic. I looked at her then, I mean I really looked at her. Not in the way I’d wanted to see her before, finding only the good. The way she evaluated, glanced, said things to garner a reaction. If you were a kind person, she’d be a kind person. If you believed in saving the environment, she’d be into it, too. We’d once been out with her and George when I’d been telling them about the various strange illnesses I’d had in the past few years. She’d sympathized with me and then told her own stories about getting the swine flu and how awful that had been. I’d believed her until George’s face had screwed up and he’d said, “When did you have the swine flu?”

“You remember … it was after the cruise. I was in bed for weeks…”

George had shaken his head. “No, no, I don’t remember. I think I’d remember something like that.”

Darius had laughed all the way home. “Do you think she realizes that she’s lying? Or is it truth in her head?”

I looked at her now, as she was trying to play the pity card. It had always been her strongest play, hadn’t it? Sick, fragile, depressed, alone—whatever worked.

“George was abusive,” she said. “I didn’t want to tell anyone I was afraid of him.” I pictured George—sheepish, polite, downtrodden—George. I imagined he wasn’t very good at being aggressive, but who knows? Fig brought out the absolute worst in people. “He wouldn’t let me tell you what I’d done. He threatened me.”

“With what?”

“Huh?”

“What did he threaten you with?” I waited for her to answer, hoped for it even. If she told me something plausible, perhaps … what?

I smiled. What was the point of this? Even if I told her what I thought of what she did, she wouldn’t hear me. Fig was like Darius in that way, they only thought of how things affected them.

“When did it start?” I asked her. The best thing I could get out of this was closure. Darius had disappeared after he left that night, changed his number.

“I don’t remember,” she rushed. “I think I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.”

“You have PTSD?” I asked. “From what?”

“Just everything that happened. I don’t remember,” she said, again. How many lies were there so far? I was losing count.

“You could have fucked some stranger. I loved him.”

“I know. I think that all the time.” She was looking at her shoes, avoiding my eyes.

“Were you in love with him?”

Her head shot up, and she laughed. “No,” she said, firmly. She was being dismissive, but that confession hurt me more than anything else she’d said.

“It would have been so much better if you’d said yes,” I said, softly. My heart was starting to ache. “So, you hurt me, hurt my child, hurt George—all for a couple fucks? It didn’t even mean anything to you.”

“I mean, I loved him, sure, like a friend,” she rushed. “We were very good friends. He was already cheating on you, Bad—Jolene. I wasn’t the only one.”

“You didn’t know that at the time. You can’t use that as justification. You can’t use anything as justification.”

“I’m not! I came here to say sorry!”

“You coming here doesn’t have anything to do with people finding out about what you did? Say, the authors whose websites you design?”

She feigned shock. “No! How could you say that?”

“I can say plenty about you, Fig. Why didn’t you come before? Darius has been gone for almost a year.”

“I told you, George was practically keeping me prisoner. I wanted to so many times. And that thing you said to him about the cologne, so not true. I’m crazy, but I’m not that crazy.”

“I loved you, Fig,” I said. “So much. You hurt the person who actually loved you. Not your prison guard, George, or my husband, who used you to get back at me. I loved you for who you were.”

“You said you’d never leave me,” she fumbled. She was fake crying again. You’d think such a good actress would be able to summon tears.

“I didn’t leave you, you left me.” It hit me in that moment. It was her—she’d been the one who sent those videos to Ryan, Miss Wink1986.