“I was getting pissed that I hadn’t heard from you in so long and I realized I’d forgotten to give you my new number.”
We both knew I wouldn’t have called her even if I’d had the number. But I could feign interest in her screwed-up existence for five minutes. “So what’s up?”
“Me’n’ Billy Ray moved again.”
Meaning: They faced eviction by skipping town in the middle of the night. “Where’d you end up?”
“Billy Ray’s cousin promised him a job in Saint Augustine. That didn’t pan out ’cause his cousin is a drunk. He got a lead on a job in Boca, so that’s where we are now.”
Last time I talked to her—eight or nine months ago—they were in Houston. I thought maybe she’d found a place to settle, but I should’ve known better. In the thirteen years since I’d left home, she’d flitted from man to man. Billy Ray had lasted the longest, at two years.
“It’s expensive to live in Florida. Things have been really tight.”
Was she seriously hitting me up for money? “Moving as often as you guys do costs a ton of money. Have you been able to find a job?”
“Billy Ray don’t want me workin’—you know that. He says it’s his job to take care of me. I told him I could get hired at Hooters—god knows I’ve still got the kind of rack that’d earn me some big tips, and I’m still hot, for a forty-six-year-old broad.”
My mother had been stunningly gorgeous in her younger years and refused to acknowledge that time hadn’t been kind. In her head, and when she looked in the mirror, she saw what she wanted to. But that had always been the case with her. “Billy Ray wouldn’t have a problem with your boobs being the focus of all that attention?”
“Nah. I know he’d be proud that his woman could still flaunt it.” She paused and sighed heavily. “But it’s hard. All this moving and him starting at the bottom every place he gets a job. And we’ve been living where there’s such godforsaken humidity that I’ve actually missed the snow and the cold.”
Please. No. This couldn’t possibly be a hint she wanted to return to Minnesota.
Then she leveled the boom. “So since I don’t got a job, Billy Ray couldn’t really complain if I packed up my car and went home to visit my baby girl. You have a couch your old mom could crash on, don’t you?”
“Actually, no, I don’t. The woman I’m renting from was very explicit about overnight guests—regardless if it’s a boyfriend or a relative.”
A harsh laugh exploded in my ear. “You just couldn’t wait to say that, could you? Tell me that I’m not welcome to stay with you. Are you afraid that your bigwig friends at the bigwig job you bragged about will think less of you since your poor backwards mama ain’t ed-ju-cated?”
Here we go. “First of all, you didn’t ask to sleep at my desk. You asked to crash at my place, which is not the same thing. Secondly, trouble follows you. I don’t need you making trouble for me at the first decent place I’ve lived since you were married to Rick. And trust me, I’ve rented some real shitholes over the years and you sure didn’t ask to stay with me then.”
Silence.
For a fraction of a second I felt guilty. But then she opened her mouth. “So you’re turning your back on me, you bratty little bitch?”
Aw. I love you too.
“You’re gonna throw Rick in my face at every turn? It’s been thirteen years. You need to get over it.”
“You need to understand I’ll never get over it. You can’t change the past and I won’t ever forget it.” My chest was heaving and I patted my back pockets for my pack of cigarettes, even though I’d quit smoking four years ago. That’s what one five-minute phone call with her did.
“How many times have I said I was sorry?” She practically wailed.
“That’s the thing. You’ve never said it. You’ve said everything from you’re not perfect to you had regrets, but not once have you said you were sorry for upending my life. Not once.”
“You’re just another person who doesn’t listen to me, Lennox. I’ve said it before.” She sniffled. “You just didn’t hear me.”
Maybe she thought she’d said it in one of her drugged-up or drunk states, but I wouldn’t forget something like that. Especially since she’d been more prone to shouting at me.
“That’s why I left Rick. Because he didn’t listen to me either. He didn’t see me. I was just part of the furniture. Adam made me feel beautiful and worthy.”