Chapter 28
MISSY
Mama is here. In my home. I drop my backpack on the living room floor, wishing I, too, could flop on the carpet and forget about the past twenty-four hours.
Instead, I face Mama with bloodshot eyes and a heart that’s scalloped like a potato and garnished with a fresh sprig of What in the world is going on?
Ji and Paige shuffle through the garage door behind us. Paige, Ji, and I had planned on having a small reunion tonight with just us girls, recreating our past roomie days while I gave them the inside intel on all things Sunsets and Sabotage. That is, until I spied Mama in the crowd at the airport.
Mercifully, my two best friends spent the forty-five-minute car ride back to Pine Lakes playing DJ in the car, talking over and in between songs like they were two lively radio personalities just to cover the unbearable silence blaring from me and Mama in the backseat.
Somehow they knew that I needed to talk to my mama alone, not in the airport and not in the car.
“We’ll just be, um …” Paige waves her autographed banana leaf in the air absentmindedly.
“Making some lunch for us all.” Ji steps beside Paige, finishing her sentence.
“Yep. That’s where we’ll be.” Paige looks at her watch, likely realizing it’s ten in the morning. She rubs her ever-growing belly. “Pregnancy. Can’t get enough of that lunch. Brunch? This is brunch, right? Lunch-brunch. I guess that’s redundant. Arg, pregnancy brain. Right, okay.”
Ji links her arm with Paige’s and pulls her out of her rambling and toward the kitchen. “Those sandwiches won’t make themselves.”
They both smile at us as they slink away, leaving Mama and me alone with an added measure of awkwardness.
“They’re nice,” Mama says, fiddling with the edges of her jean jacket, the very same one I’d bedazzled for her, the same one she’d worn when she sent me to Colorado. I’m surprised to find the edges of it frayed and worn like a favorite pair of tennis shoes.
I briefly glance at the rest of Mama’s appearance, and my cheeks start to heat just as they did when I saw her at the airport.
An hour ago, I was navigating through the Pine Lakes welcome party, foolishly seeking a glimpse of Colton—after being on a small island with him for weeks, I felt like I’d lost an appendage without him by my side.
And then I saw Mama, and I’d never wanted him next to me more than I did at that moment.
I wanted something secure to hold onto when my world seemed to flip upside down.
In a fit of panic, I’d scanned the crowd for Colton, but instead of seeing him, I saw Senator Downing.
He stared at me and then at Mama with her heavy makeup and short jean skirt.
His eyes hardened, looking at Mama as if she were a feral cat darkening the doorstep of his multimillion-dollar mansion.
I’d pulled my eyes away from him, but soon enough, my gaze wandered back in his direction just in time to catch a glimpse of Colton smiling at a gorgeous tall woman, who looked like she’d come straight out of the interview portion of a pageant—shiny brown hair, pearl earrings, a tasteful business suit, and a mouthful of perfect veneers.
Her genetics said perfect Downing prodigy through and through, but the way she’d touched Colton’s biceps, letting her hand linger there, was anything but familial.
My heart compresses painfully. Seeing Colton with the beautiful brunette had been like reliving the moment he told national television that we were fake and that the feelings I thought we’d both shared were just a fabrication.
I feel as lifeless as one of the many hollow, bug-infested logs in the jungle, eaten from the inside out until all that remained was a shell waiting to be crunched underfoot.
I look at Mama, fighting the sting in my eyes, and wonder if she is that foot come to crush all that is left of me. “What is this about, Mama? Why are you here?” I ask, point-blank.
Mama folds into herself, her hazel eyes brimming with pain.
For a moment, I pity her. I feel the urge to reach out and comfort her, but then I remember that the last time I attempted to do just that, she’d told me to get off her doorstep and go back to Colorado.
And now here she is, in Pine Lakes. A place she’d never been to before, despite the fact that her only child has lived here for years. So why come here now?
I extend my arm to the couch and motion for her to take a seat, and as she does, I register that Mama likely used every last penny she owned for her plane ticket to Colorado. What was so important that she had to come all this way?
Like a flash of lightning, a thought strikes, and I go numb.
The money. I’d just won $500,000 in prize money, a commodity Mama’s always been short of.
My mood instantly sours, and I fight back a humorless laugh.
I’m just money to her now. Well, good news for me: you can’t break a heart that’s already broken.
Anger burns hot inside me as I confront feelings I’ve tried to shove down for years. Having had enough of her timid act, I cut through the crap. “Just say it, Mama. You’re here for the money.”
Mama doesn’t look at me; instead, she plants her face in her palms. “I deserved that.”
“Don’t play the victim,” I snap.
Her eyes shoot in my direction. She locks her gaze onto me so tightly that I can’t look away. “No. No, Missy, I’m not here for the money.”
“Then tell me why you’re here because I’ve got plans with people who haven’t thrown me out yet, and I’d really like to spend time with them,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking.
Mama is silent, turning her attention to the spindly tan carpet threads below her cowgirl boots. Every second she avoids meeting my eyes makes my anger grow brighter until my face begins to burn.
“Tell me, Mama. Tell me. Why are you here?”
“I saw your show,” she blurts, her eyes meeting mine once more.
Despite my surprise, I feign indifference. “Okay. So?”
Mama shakes her head. “Missy, I thought I was doing the right thing all those years ago.”
I shake my head, mirroring Mama’s movement. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry. I just …” Mama stops and shoves a hand in the pocket of her fraying jean skirt.
Eventually, she pulls out a crumpled napkin with scribbled pen across it in her handwriting.
I watch the napkin shake in her trembling fingers as she reads the contents written over a soda stain.
“That night. Do you remember that night?”
I nod, knowing what night she means. The night her boyfriend came. The night when everything went dark.
Mama’s shaking intensifies. She clenches her fists, and her napkin gets wadded into a ball as she tries to contain whatever it is that’s taken hold of her. Tremors travel from her hands to her arms to her mouth.
I briefly wonder if she’s drunk. My lips press into a flat line.
It would be so like Mama to drink away her feelings, something I naively overlooked as a child.
But now, I see it for what it is: weakness.
But even as the thought hits, I instantly feel rebuked as I watch a tear travel down her cheek.
Then another. And another. The scrunched-up napkin turns into a hankie as Mama breaks down in a way that I’ve never seen before.
She may have weaknesses, but she’s always been tough as bricks.
“Mama.” I step toward her, worry and fear winding through me like determined weeds, ready to take over anything and everything in their path. “Mama?”
Her watery eyes connect with mine, and a desire to stop the pain pouring out of her tugs me down until I’m on my knees in front of her, holding her trembling hands between mine. “Mama. You’re scaring me. Please, tell me what’s wrong.”
“He threatened you, Missy.” Mama’s lips quiver. “I tried to break things off with him, and he threatened to hurt you.”
In a moment, I see his face. The boyfriend with his blue hair and hungry eyes—hurting Mama. Always hurting Mama.
“I wanted to keep you safe. I knew I couldn’t keep you around.
I thought I was doing the right thing by sending you to live with your aunt.
” Mama’s voice hitches, and her eyes find the carpet at her feet again.
“I was so disgusted with myself, I couldn’t look you in the eye to say goodbye.
All my years of bad choices had cost me the one person I’ve ever truly loved—my Missy Girl. ”
My breaths come in short waves. Mama. She—she didn’t want me to go?
One of her tears lands on my arm, and I clutch her hands tighter, begging her words to be true.
“When you left, Missy, I fell apart. I couldn’t stop the pain, and I couldn’t stop the drinking.”
My brows scrunch together. “But I came back, Mama. I came back to Tennessee just to be with you. And you turned me away again and again. Why?”
“I couldn’t bear you seeing what I’d become. I didn’t want you to see that your mother was trash. I’ve always been trash, and I am so ashamed.”
“You are not trash, Mama.”
She gives me a watery smile, but her gaze quickly darts away.
“Of course you wouldn’t think that. Because you’ve always been my sweet, caring Missy.
But the truth is, I can barely look at you because when I do, I see all my mistakes.
I see the years of your life that I missed because of my terrible decisions.
” She dabs her eyes with her napkin, but her tears just keep flowing.
“It breaks me inside every time I see you. I thought it’d be easier to ignore you, to not feel that pain, to believe that you were living a better life without me, but then I watched Sunsets and Sabotage night and day, and Missy, when I saw you on screen yelling my name in the dark like you had all those years ago, I knew I’d got it all wrong.
Sending you away didn’t just hurt me; it hurt you, too. And I’m so, so sorry for that.”