Chapter Twenty-Three
A week with her mother felt like a year.
The never-ending dance of side stepping her insecurities and risking an argument should be easier as an adult.
It wasn’t.
Someone once said that when family is visiting, it’s kinda like fish. Any more than three days and they started to stink.
This rule applied to Karen.
Her pleasant side started deteriorating the night Luna took her to get cigarettes. The more comfortable Karen became, the worse it was.
Noise from the roofers in the morning was “disturbing.” And Karen didn’t approve of how they sat around the patio when it was time for them to take their lunch. “They think they own the place,” she bitched.
Luna attempted to stay up with her mother a couple of times but eventually gave up, leaving the den with her mother watching TV. With the volume so loud that even with the thick walls of the old home, Luna could hear it in her bedroom.
Karen would stay up late, and try and sleep in, ergo the complaints about the construction crew.
Then there was the constant push and pull of the cigarette drama.
Luna thought the smell in the kitchen from the cigarettes was from her mother tossing the butts in the kitchen trash. Then at dinner one night, Luna, Miley, and Karen were sitting at the kitchen table, and when the meal ended, like clockwork, her mother needed to smoke.
She walked to the back door, opened it, and lit the cancer stick up, letting it dangle from her fingertips just outside the open door.
As Miley and Luna cleared the table, Karen attempted to carry a conversation from the mudroom.
“I wouldn’t call that smoking outside, Mom,” Luna chided.
“I’m blowing the smoke outside the house.”
“Where the wind blows it right back in.”
Clearly aggravated, Karen closed the back door with a hateful sigh.
“She doesn’t get it,” Miley whispered.
“She does. She just doesn’t care.”
When she returned to the kitchen, she ran the cigarette butt under the faucet and tossed it into the trash.
“I’m going to find an ashtray with sand in it so you can leave all of that outside.”
“Does this bother you, too?” she asked as she closed the door to where the garbage lived.
“It’s starting to smell,” Luna told her.
Karen opened the cabinet back up and yanked the trash can from inside. “I’ll take the trash out, then.”
That wasn’t the solution, but Luna wasn’t going to argue any more about it. She’d find an ashtray, set her mother up away from the back door so the smoke couldn’t blow back in, and insist that she use it.
Karen once again stormed out of the house, this time with a half-full garbage bag in her fist.
“I’m sorry you have to put up with her,” Luna said to Miley when they were alone again.
“Don’t be. I know your mom. She feels alienated. That’s obvious.”
On the return trip to the kitchen, Miley smoothed things over. “I’m going to have another glass of wine. Karen, can I get you something?”
Miley was speaking her mother’s language.
“Absolutely.”
On the street, just above Luna’s driveway, sat a roll-off container that was filled with discarded roofing material.
In all of the conversations Nate had with Luna over the past week, very little was said about the new roof that was being put on her house.
He pulled in behind Miley’s car and saw two more cars and a motorcycle parked in and around the carport.
Apparently, he was the last to arrive.
Luna greeted him before he had a chance to knock on the door. “Were you watching for me?” he asked, teasing.
“The alarm on the driveway makes it impossible for anyone with a car to sneak in.”
Nate had a side dish in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other.
He leaned down and kissed her. “Hello.”
“Hi.” She took the wine and stared him in the eye. “This is your last chance to back out.”
“I’ve been looking forward to this all week,” he said. And he had. The more he learned about Karen, the more he needed a face to match the stories.
Luna opened the back door and led him into the house.
Everyone was gathered in the kitchen around the island.
Miley crossed to him and relieved him of the dish in his hand. “Hey.”
Ash had his back to Nate.
Harper stood beside her brother.
The conversations quieted when Luna cleared her throat in an attention-grabbing way.
Ash turned, giving Nate a first glance at Luna’s mother.
“Hello, Nate.” Ash stepped forward and shook his hand. “I’m glad you could make it.”
Nate smiled at Luna. “You couldn’t keep me away.”
Ash pointed two fingers in his direction. “Remember you said that.”
“Oh, stop it.” Harper stepped closer and offered Nate a hug. “Hello.”
“Good to see you again,” Nate told her.
“This is my husband, Jerry,” Harper introduced the man standing to the side.
Jerry, the guy that couldn’t keep a job.
The thought escaped Nate’s conscious faster than he could slam it back in.
Another handshake and appropriate greeting from Jerry.
“And this is our mom, Karen,” Luna made the introduction.
Karen looked him up and down with a smile that reminded Nate vaguely of Luna’s. Mother and daughter had the same nose and color eyes.
“Mom, this is Nate.”
Karen’s handshake came from a woman who clearly didn’t shake hands often. Soft hand, limp wrist.
“A pleasure to meet you.” Nate wanted to say that he’d heard a lot about her but was fearful she’d ask what that was.
“The pleasure is mine.” Karen looked at Luna. “He’s much more handsome than that last one.”
“Mom!” Harper scolded.
“What last one?” Ash asked.
“The husband,” Karen explained.
“That was a thousand years ago, Karen,” Miley said.
“Karen has zero filter,” Jerry pointed out.
“When you’re as old as I am, you don’t have to hold anything back.”
“What was your excuse twenty years ago?” Ash asked.
Karen pushed Ash’s arm, a playful smile on her lips. “Oh, stop.”
Nate glanced at Luna.
The smile she wore was fake, her expression neutral. He wasn’t sure what part of the introductions had bothered her, but he could see that some of the sparkle behind her eyes that was there a moment ago was gone.
Nate placed a hand on her arm.
She looked up, smiled. “What can I get you to drink?”
“What are you having?” he asked.
She pointed to a glass of white wine that sat on the counter.
“I’ll have that,” he said.
Luna left his side and Karen moved closer. “My son told me that you used to work for the FBI.”
“It sounds more glamorous than it was.” Nate delivered the statement he always did when someone mentioned the FBI in such wistful tones.
“Looks like we have to be careful around here, with my son the cop and an FBI agent standing by.”
“He’s a private investigator now, Mom,” Luna said.
“Even less glamorous,” Nate said quickly.
“Do you spy on married couples having affairs?” she asked with a gleam in her eye.
“I specialize in fraud investigations.”
“Is that how you two met?” Karen asked.
“Luna didn’t tell you?” Ash asked.
“Luna doesn’t tell me anything. I didn’t know he existed until this morning.”
“Luna . . . is standing right here.”
Nate moved closer and accepted the glass of wine she handed to him.
“And I didn’t want to invite twenty questions,” Luna said.
Nate knew exactly why his existence had been kept a secret and wasn’t the least bit offended. “Luna and I are working on a case together,” he explained.
“You must be very smart.”
Miley laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. He nearly got himself shot a couple of weeks ago.”
Nate slid his arm around Luna’s waist as the story of Ash’s call and Nate’s late-night visit was retold by Miley and Ash.
The dynamics of the Canning family were layered in nuance.
Ash was absolutely the favorite. Karen was quick to smile at her son and make snide remarks to her daughters. Jerry said very little at first but warmed up within the first hour of Nate’s arrival.
And Miley was the house referee.
She put Ash in his place. Made any questionable comment that came out of Karen’s mouth a joke or quickly moved the conversation on. Then there was Harper, who didn’t seem all that affected by any of it.
The never used formal dining room was filled with noise.
It took a prime rib dinner, all of her family, and Nate sitting beside her with one of his hands touching her every time he had a chance, to calm Luna’s anxiety.
The dinner felt almost normal.
Not her normal, but “Christmas card perfect,” normal.
For a couple of hours, they were a functioning family having typical conversations about everyday stuff.
Until Karen’s eyes started to show the number of drinks she’d consumed.
“What have you been doing with your life, Mom?” Ash asked.
“Working.”
“What kind of work?” he asked.
“Bartending. The money is better than waiting tables, even for an old broad like me.”
Her mother was really good at calling herself names and waiting for someone to say she wasn’t.
Jerry stepped up. “You’re not old.”
The expected smile passed her lips.
“When does your boss expect you back?” Harper asked.
That was the ten-thousand-dollar question Luna wanted the answer to.
Her mother tilted her glass back before launching into her answer. “There was a problem in the kitchen, something flooded. The health department closed us down until the owner actually spends some money on the place.”
There were big chunks of that story Karen was omitting. Luna knew it in her bones.
“How long will that take? The owner can’t expect their employees to wait around and not find other jobs,” Jerry said.
“You’d be surprised. Jobs aren’t that easy to find in Alabama. Especially serving alcohol. They still have dry counties, for God’s sake.”
“No offense, Mom, but that doesn’t sound like the place for you,” Ash said.
Luna shifted her eyes to her brother and waited for her mother’s response. If she’d said that, her mother would take immediate offense.
Karen shifted in her chair, lifted her chin. “From the looks of this table, I don’t think any of us belong there.”
“Fair,” Harper said.
It didn’t escape Luna’s attention that her mother didn’t answer the question. The one about when Karen was returning.