Chapter 5 #2
Kelly glanced down at her bathrobe and then caught her reflection in the mirror her mother kept by the front door.
Fuck! She was still wearing her mask! Once a week, her mom and her had a mini spa night.
They did each other’s nails, worked on each other’s hair, and did an exfoliating mask.
It kept the costs down of going to a salon beyond standard haircuts and Kelly’s recent dying the gray out of her hair, and it was good exercise for her mom to work on her dexterity.
It had been a long time since she’d been face to face with Margery.
And after her afternoon spent with Grumpy and the words they’d shared, Kelly was able to fully acknowledge how spiteful and mean this woman was.
Loving her son was not a good enough excuse for the things she’d said and done to Kelly during those first two weeks Grumpy had been in the hospital.
Beyond that, Kelly was truly able to admit that she’d allowed Margery’s words to infest her own fears about Grumpy and Kelly’s future.
Because they would have a future. Whether this woman liked it or not.
“Well, this is what you get, Margery, when you show up unannounced on my night off,” Kelly answered.
She walked up to Grumpy and kissed him gently on the lips.
His expression said he approved of her response to his mother’s snipe.
“Give me a minute to get dressed and washed up. Kitchen’s through that door. ”
He nodded once. “Take your time.”
Kelly lowered her voice even more. “Keep an eye on my mom?”
At another bob of his head, Kelly hurried off to get herself somewhat presentable.
Honestly, the last thing she wanted was to put a bra and pants back on.
Since her hair mask was due to come out soon anyway, Kelly jumped in the shower quickly to scrub off her face mask, too.
Then she threw on a pair of black pajama pants with white flowers.
They were loose enough and semi-styled enough that they could pass as regular pants.
Margery was not important enough in her book to make Kelly put a bra back on at this time of night, so she slipped on a camisole with a kimono-style wrap to cover her shoulders.
There was still a “he works for Keys” man downstairs that Kelly had no intention of flashing her nipples at.
Her mom had a bowl of soup in front of everyone by the time Kelly made it back down to the kitchen.
Margery looked into the dish like there might be rat poison dissolving in the broth.
Kelly took the open seat near Grumpy. Grimm, she noticed, also had a plate of tayglekh, little doughy pastries, and a glass of milk in front of him.
No doubt, her mom thought the broad, muscular man was too skinny.
“Ess,” Ruth declared when everyone just sat there looking at her. From the bits of green mask still dotting her mom’s face, she’d likely cleaned herself off in the kitchen sink. At least she was wearing a nightgown under her robe.
Grumpy and Grimm started eating, but Margery continued to sit across the table from Kelly and her son glaring daggers. A small, spiteful side of Kelly decided she approved of Margery’s misery and picked up her spoon, too.
Grumpy struggled to open his mouth enough without spilling or splashing the soup, and he didn’t seem willing to slurp it.
Kelly pulled an idea from one of her favorite childhood movies, dropped her spoon, and picked up the bowl to sip from the side.
Grumpy’s hand squeezed her thigh under the table before he followed suit.
“What did you do this afternoon after I left?” Kelly inquired, not liking the silence even though it seemed to be annoying Margery.
“Slept mostly,” Grumpy answered shortly. “Only one of my feet got massaged, so I felt lopsided walking around.”
Kelly nearly choked into her soup. Her mom, of course, openly laughed. “Seriously? Now, you get a sense of humor?”
Though he didn’t smile down at her, he did nudge her with his shoulder.
Kelly shook her head and went back to her soup, mentally declaring speaking too dangerous in present company.
Grimm ate the entire plate of pastries, two glasses of milk, and three bowls of soup. Kelly had no idea if the man usually ate that much or if he was just starving this particular day.
Margery never touched her spoon or bowl. Kelly’s mom was getting him more tayglekh when Margery’s hand slammed down on the kitchen table. While Kelly jumped, Grumpy and Grimm did not. Both, however, looked murderously at Margery, like she’d just set off a firecracker in a library.
“I demand to know just what is going on!” Margery declared loudly.
“You toss me out of your house after everything I have done for you, have this despicable man drag me to an airport three hours away, force him to keep me at the gate like a common criminal, and then have him bring me back here after hours of traffic, and you’ve barely spoken to me!
You speak to this,” she waved her hand up and down at Kelly, “harlot more than you have me when I have been the one taking care of you for months.”
Kelly blanched at the implication.
“I put up with a lot of shit from you, Mother, but if you ever call Kelly a name like that again in my presence, it will be the last time you and I speak.” Grumpy’s tone brooked no argument.
Margery looked like her son had just slapped her across her withered face. “Jesse!”
Kelly gently touched Grumpy’s hand, hoping to calm him.
She knew the skin grafts and burns were not as severe on his left hand as they were on his right.
“Aside from her poor choice of words,” Kelly said pointedly, “she’s got valid questions.
I highly doubt you brought her all the way back from the airport for my mom’s chicken soup. ”
“Feh,” her mom scoffed. “Alter makhsheyfe didn’t even eat it! A shtekn in tokhes, that one.”
Kelly groaned. The last thing she needed was a mother war in her kitchen. Hopefully Margery had no idea Ruth had just called her an old witch with a stick up her ass.
Grumpy didn’t even blink at the insult, staring down his mother.
Margery stared back.
Grumpy did not flinch or relent.
Margery squirmed a little.
The battle of wills continued so long that Kelly feared moving and breaking Grumpy’s concentration.
Then Margery threw her hands up in the air. “What did you want me to say, Jesse? Lie to the poor girl?”
“How about not telling her anything because it wasn’t your place to say?”
Margery leaned forward on the table. “She has a right to know what she’s getting into in starting a relationship with you.”
“Don’t play the protector card, Mom. It’s beneath you. Why would you tell Kelly about Tanya’s and Nadine’s accusations when you know I did nothing wrong?”
Grimm raised a hand. “What accusations? Do I need to kick your ass?”
“They accused him of cheating on them,” Kelly quickly explained. “But he didn’t—because he’s a good man who would never do something like that.”
Grimm nodded once. “Good. I might have felt a little bad if I had to rough him up,” he gestured to Grumpy’s scars and compression wraps, “but I would have done it if he forced himself on those women.”
Kelly supposed that was something. Grimm had honor, which was nice to know in this day and age. When Margery said nothing in her defense, Kelly interjected, “She told me about your father, said you were just like him.”
Grumpy frowned, his eyes narrowing. It made his left eye start to weep. Kelly carefully wiped the moisture away with the pad of her thumb. “You have always compared me to him, claim I look just like him. But since I’ve never seen or met the man, I wouldn’t know.”
“You’re better off without him,” Margery snapped. “He would have never loved you. Not like I love you.”
“And yet you would tell Kelly things you know are lies about my past? That’s not love, Mom. That’s manipulation.”
Margery held her ground, sitting tall as she turned her face away from her son.
When Grumpy spoke next, it was low, dark. Held an edge that would have scared Kelly if she didn’t trust him so much. “You and Nadine were close. She listened to you, she trusted you. If you told her something like what you told Kelly, she would have listened to you.”
The accusation was clear, the line drawn in the sand.
“You had your hip surgery right after Tanya and I got married. I was stationed in Texas, and you only came down twice. Otherwise, I traveled up to you alone. Tell me, Mom, what did you tell her? Because I know damn well that it wasn’t me in those pictures.”
It took Kelly a second to remember what pictures Grumpy was referring to, the proof his ex-wife had used to divorce him.
Again, Margery said nothing. But there was an underlying explanation in the tightness of her expression that made Kelly believe that she knew something about those pictures.
“Who was the woman at the hospital?” Kelly asked her. “You told me that she and Grumpy were involved, that he was sleeping with her before the explosion. Everyone here knows that was a lie. Who was she?”
Margery threw her chin up in the air. “How should I know? Some trollop shows up to my son’s hospital room and she expects me to just let her in?”
Kelly thought back to that moment, and shook her head. “You’re lying. You recognized her. The way the two of you were together, there was a familiarity there. You know exactly who she was.”
Margery turned her narrowed eyes on Kelly. “You sure grew a backbone the moment I was out of the way. How long did it take you before you came knocking on my son’s door after I left?”
Kelly gave her a cruel smile. “You mean after he kicked you out? He messaged me the second you were out the door. I believe his words were ‘ding dong, the witch is dead’.”
“Jesse!” Margery scolded.
Guilt filled Kelly at unintentionally throwing Grumpy under the bus, but he squeezed her hand, reassuring her.