Borrowed Second Chances

Chapter 1

Up to her elbows in lemon-scented suds in the kitchen sink and over her head in hopeful desperation, Vic let out a long sigh.

The house was blessedly quiet. Finally. Wait—no.

Had that optimistic thought hit too soon?

Please, no. Please . . . She froze, listening hard, the gold-rimmed dinner plate she’d been about to wash suspended midair.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled as the noise sounded again. The creak of old floorboards, then an all too familiar slap-shuffle of rubber-soled slippers.

Vic bit her lip, plunged the plate into the sink, and waited. Unfortunately—and unsurprisingly—she didn’t have to wait long.

Her mother—Audra as Vic referred to her in her head as “Mom” seemed too soft and warm for their relationship, despite its biological accuracy—appeared in the doorway.

A suspicious frown pinched Audra’s pale, too-thin face, and she was slightly greasy-looking, though Vic had helped her have a shower just that morning.

“There you are.” Audra’s sunken brown eyes held malice, and the sharpness of her voice belied the petal-pink fleece cardigan-style sweatshirt and matching pants she wore. There was nothing soft in Audra, even when she was sick or ill or whatever she was.

“Yep, here I am,” Vic agreed, fighting for a light tone and turning back toward the sink.

“What are you doing?” As if it wasn’t obvious. Or as if Vic had been out all day living it up, instead of acting as unpaid maid and nurse and being nagged about everything under the sun.

Vic placed the now very clean plate on the drying rack and reminded herself that Audra no doubt felt like crap, exhausted by even the slightest exertion.

Even dressing herself could wind her. Feeling so awful would make anyone cranky.

She exhaled slowly. “I thought I’d tidy up while I had a minute.

I thought you were going to enjoy a little nap. ”

“I thought, I thought,” Audra mimicked, eyes gleaming. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Like what?” Vic was genuinely confused.

“For me to ‘enjoy a little nap.’ Permanently. That’s exactly what you’d like.”

So that old carrot would be this afternoon’s script: that Vic wished her dead, or wouldn’t care if she died, or quite possibly, if Audra got more wound up than usual, Vic was actively trying to put her in the grave.

Other scripts ran opposite: Vic was selfishly trying to extend Audra’s life for her own gain (how?) or, another favorite, that Audra wasn’t sick at all.

That Vic (Victoria to Audra) got a “self-righteous thrill out of looking like a martyr” and was making Audra sick so she could take care of her and brag about it to all her friends.

There were so many issues with that last one that Vic hadn’t even bothered to defend herself the first time Audra presented it.

She’d merely shaken her head. She didn’t have friends.

Plus, who on earth would be impressed by someone locking herself into her childhood home with her toxic mother?

If anything, it was the kind of pathetic thing a person would be tempted to hide from other people, especially friends.

Audra’s rants should’ve been ludicrous to the point of comical.

And maybe if described to an outsider, they would sound funny because they were so preposterous.

For Vic, however, who was hammered with them daily, they were the absolute opposite of humorous.

They were exhausting. And they rubbed on every sore, unhealed bit of her unhappy childhood, too.

As if cued by Vic’s last thought, Audra spoke again—but not before giving the small tidy stack of dishes waiting their turn in the sink a disgusted stink-eye. “I don’t know why you don’t use the dishwasher. I didn’t raise you to be useless.”

Useless. Audra’s favorite insult—although what triggered it changed constantly.

Just the day before, Audra had complained about Vic using the dishwasher, calling her lazy and going on at length about how with just the two of them in the house, it was a waste of water, plus meant the dishes spent time “rotting in their own filth” until the machine was full enough to run.

There was no winning with Audra. None, not ever—

Vic was fifty-three, but she might as well have been seven, nine, eleven . . . pick a childhood age. An all-too-familiar, horrible, trapped, futile feeling welled up in her.

Audra was her mother, and she was sick and needed care, and there was nothing Vic could do to escape her.

Yes, she’d willingly moved back to take care of Audra—but she was also single again and would be permanently, if she had even the smallest brain in her head—which, if you listened to Audra, was the case.

She had no other place to go at the moment, and even if she did, she couldn’t in good conscience abandon Audra, not knowing what was wrong with her, no matter what she was like.

At least when she’d been a kid, she could hang onto the hope that one day she could grow up and move out.

Vic wrung out the dishcloth and carefully arranged it over the faucet so it would dry and not get that nasty, dank rag smell.

Then she drained the sink, rinsed it, and dried her hands on the ivy-print hand towel.

It had never ceased to weird her out. How everything in her childhood home had always looked just so, but been so—

“What are you doing? Why did you drain the sink? The dishes aren’t done!

And speaking of messes, why haven’t you managed to get a plumber in to fix the guest bathroom?

It’s not rocket science. Find a guy. Call him.

Do I have to do everything myself? This whole damn place is falling apart. It’s a pigsty.”

Vic didn’t bother to repeat how she had reached out to several plumbers several times and left several messages, but no one had gotten back to her.

And yes, the house was showing wear and tear and needed some maintenance and repair, but it wasn’t a pigsty.

She wasn’t a general contractor, unfortunately, but she also wasn’t a slob. She kept the house immaculate.

Vic avoided eye contact with Audra, needing to hide the traitorous tears threatening to spill because they’d only earn her more scorn. “I just remembered . . . an appointment. I have an appointment in town. I’ll finish these up later.”

“You don’t have an appointment,” Audra scoffed. “Even your own son can’t be bothered to keep in touch with you. You don’t have anything—”

The “your own son” comment was an especially low blow, but Vic was used to Audra using Michael as just another pain-and-guilt button. She had been ever since Vic got pregnant with him her last year of high school—and he was thirty-five now.

Vic pushed past Audra and fled to the boot room, leaving Audra to her speech, knowing she was just getting started.

And sure enough, as she grabbed her Gucci Brera Crossbody Bag and slipped into her favorite Louis Vuitton ankle boots, the Bordeaux Red Legacy stilettos, the one good thing—the only good thing—that came out of her relationship with Brent, Audra commenced opening comments on yet another one of her favorite tirades: how all Vic did was traipse uptown and shop all day for useless trinkets and doodads.

A vision of herself and what she usually did in shops these days flashed in Vic’s mind.

Thick, itchy shame crawled over her and filled her with self-loathing.

If Audra knew what she got up to, she’d really have something to crow about—and it would reinforce one of Vic’s deepest fears.

That her mother had a scathingly low opinion of her because she deserved it.