Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“Fair point,” Mom concedes. She sips her coffee, but she’s still not telling me why she’s here or what she wants.
I let the silence ride. The ball is in her court now.
“I regretted it the moment you left you know,” she says suddenly.
“You did?” I’m not ready to accept her lame attempt at an apology.
“I’ve been trying to find you ever since you left, but it was like you disappeared into thin air. I was terrified something had happened to you. I mean, you hear these stories don’t you, of young women on the streets being raped and murdered.”
“Yeah, but I was one of the lucky ones apparently. I only got to deal with shit like that at home,” I snap instinctively.
My mother has the grace to look down into her coffee cup, and for a moment I think she is ashamed of her behavior, but she takes another sip and goes on like I haven’t spoken.
“When I saw your picture in the newspaper, I thought it was a sign from God. That he was leading me back to you,” she says, still not looking at me.
“Since when did you start believing in God?”
“I don’t. God is probably the wrong word for it. I guess I thought maybe it was fate or the universe trying to reunite us or whatever. Anyway, I had something to go on and I had to work hard to track down Viktor's address. He’s a very hard man to find.”
Somehow everything my mother has said so far makes me feel even worse than if she had never come. I’m hurt. “Yeah,” I lash out bitterly. “He likes to try and keep the riff raff out.”
I wait for the cutting comment. Something questioning why Viktor has shacked up with me if he has issues with riff raff. Instead, my mom surprises me. She gives me a sad looking smile.
“I deserved that one, but I didn’t come here to fight with you, Amelia.”
“Why did you come?”
She still hasn’t really explained why she’s here and I wish she would just spit it out. Get the disappointment over and done with.
“I came to say I’m sorry,” she says, finally looking me in the eye.
28
AMELIA
“For what, Mom? Taking Dan’s side over mine? Accusing me of trying to seduce him? Making out that my almost being raped was my own fault?”
“All of that. And mostly for being stupid enough to fall for Dan’s charms and bring him into our lives in the first place,” she says.
Now we’re getting somewhere. It sounds like Dan has ditched her and now she’s got no one else so she wants me again.
“I know what you’re thinking, Amelia and it’s not like that.”
She likely does know what I’m thinking. We had this conversation after husband number three left. She pushed me aside in favor of him consistently throughout their relationship, but when he cheated on her and discarded her for someone else, she wanted her daughter back. I made no secret of the fact I knew the game she was playing back then.
“What is it like then?” I ask, curious as to what she would say to redeem herself.
“The day you walked out on us, I did a lot of thinking. And I saw, too late, that you were right about Dan. He’s nothing but a scumbag, a piece of shit. I mean, you did wear some pretty revealing shit and you know it, but that’s no excuse for what Dan did to you. And it’s not an acceptable excuse for what he did to me. I mean if he can’t control himself around my own daughter, what’s he like when he’s in a bar or something?”
“Honestly, Mom, I don’t think you need to worry on that score. I can’t imagine he could find another woman stupid enough to want to have sex with him,” I say.
I know it’s a low blow and my mom winces, but it’s true. Dan is no one’s catch.
“Well anyway, like I said, I realized Dan wasn’t the man I thought he was. And I told him it was over between us. I packed up my things and I left him. Cynthia on the next block to us had a spare trailer and I’m renting that from her.”
“So, you left Dan and still stayed in the trailer park?”
“Well yeah. It’s not like I could afford anything else. We don’t all have sugar daddies,” she smiles to take the sting out that masterpiece of an insult.
I glare at her.
She gives a long-suffering sigh. “Look, Amelia, I’m doing my best with what I’ve got ok? But my trailer isn’t like Dan’s. It’s clean and tidy and the curtains actually fit the windows.”
It was a little joke we shared when we first moved into Dan’s trailer, and I can’t help but smile at that and my mom smiles too.