Chapter 9 #4
“I’m in,” Rita said. “I’ll make a quick run home. It will be nice when the café and fast-food drive-in opens back up again.”
“You go on ahead,” Roger said. “I’ll lock up and hang the sign.”
Rita went out the back door, and moments later, Roger followed. If Mariah was back, then she was desperate, which meant trouble for him again.
He drove home first to make himself a sandwich and check on Briar, but his heart sank when he saw Mariah’s car parked in the street out front.
“Dang it,” he muttered, as he pulled up behind her and got out. The front door was unlocked out of necessity, and when he entered the foyer, he saw her sitting on the recliner in an obvious fit of pique, and kept on walking to the kitchen without speaking.
Briar was in the utility room with a plumber, giving him detailed instructions on what wasn’t working, when she realized her dad had come home. “Ah…Dad’s here. I need to check on him. Anyway…we don’t want an upgrade. We just want what’s here repaired.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the plumber said, and reached for a handsaw as Briar went into the kitchen.
Roger looked up as Briar approached. “Any issues today?”
“Only one. I believe she’s sitting in the living room,” Briar said. “Did you eat lunch?”
“Not yet. We were swamped. Rita and I are on a one-hour break.”
“I made sandwiches. They’re in the Tupperware container in the fridge. I’ll be outside if you need me. I got a text that the roofer is coming with samples. Do you have a preference on color?” she asked.
“I like the gray that we had before. Can they patch, or…”
Briar shook her head. “No patching. The existing shingles are too far gone. I was up on the roof with the inspector. They’re cracked and broken, and would soon be leaking too.”
Roger paused, trying not to let the shock he was feeling enter his voice. “You were on the roof.”
She shrugged. “You were busy. I needed to see it for myself to trust him.”
He sighed. “Then a new roof, it is.” He got a ham-and-cheese sandwich out of the container, grabbed a bottle of Mountain Dew, and started to eat standing up at the island. He’d taken his first bite when Mariah walked in.
“Weren’t you even going to speak?” she asked.
He glared but continued eating.
Briar rolled her eyes and walked out. She didn’t care what they did.
As soon as Briar was gone, Mariah moved closer, leaning against Roger as she shifted into her usual state of despair when things weren’t going her way.
“She hates me. You hate me. My parents sent me packing. I have nothing to live for.”
Roger wiped his mouth and hands, then turned to face her. “Briar has every right to what she thinks and feels about you. What are you actually doing here?”
“I was worried,” she said.
He took a few steps sideways to remove their physical contact. “So, give me the short version of how your worry clock works. Is your worry clock on a time-release schedule? Our worry time was three days ago. Your right to worry has already expired.”
Mariah frowned. “You don’t know what I was going through.”
“Then spit it out and get it said. Everybody here is busy, and I have to get back to work,” Roger said.
Since sympathy wasn’t being handed out today, she shifted to confrontation. “Well, I’m home now, and last time I looked, this was still my house too.”
“Never said it wasn’t, but you’re the one who abandoned it and us. It was a logical assumption to believe you’d made your own choice when you spent a whole damn week ignoring my calls and texts. Who am I to deny you the right to choose?” he said.
“I did not abandon. I simply went to visit my parents,” she said.
Roger rolled his eyes. “Mariah, that may be what you’re telling yourself today, but we both know that you left after another one of your royal complaints that went nowhere.
You didn’t even bother to let your daughter know you were leaving…
something you’ve become quite good at, but whatever.
So…you’re here, and you can see the situation we are all in now.
I don’t know what your expectations were after I told you our house was hit by a tornado, and then you took three days to come back and check on it and us.
But there’s no comfort to be had here at the moment.
For the record, I came home in the black of night with a tree in our kitchen.
The floor was covered in glass. Pieces of the roof were missing, and everything was water-soaked, while our daughter was sleeping on the floor beside Tate’s hospital bed.
I slept with an opossum in the kitchen my first night back.
I sleep on the sofa now, and the windows and walls will stay boarded up until new doors and windows arrive to be installed.
You have lost the right to complain. You have lost the right to give orders.
I don’t give a damn what you think about how this house is being remodeled.
You’re the one who left us. You want to come back?
Fine. But consider this another version of parole, because you spent your last chance to be in charge here.
You get the floor or the recliner, and you leave my daughter the hell alone.
As a contractor on this job, she’s rocking it. ”
“She’s my daughter too,” Mariah said.
Roger arched an eyebrow. “Not anymore, lady. In her mind, you are a danger to her safety. You nearly killed her by your actions, just like you did to Lilith Bandy. Stay out of her way.”
The accusations made Mariah angry. So angry that she played her last card before she thought. “Then maybe I should just file for divorce.”
Roger shrugged. “Whatever, but you can’t use Rocky Morris for your lawyer, because he’s already mine. After the locked basement episode, I had divorce papers drawn up and ready to file. At the moment, they are pending, but if that’s what you want, allow me to do the honors.”
Shock hit hard, followed by a moment of sheer panic. “Missouri is a no-fault state. I will get the house and a car and alimony,” she said.
“A judge divides what’s what. Not you. You would, of a certainty, get a set monthly payment.
Out of that payment, if you also get the house, you would be living alone, responsible for all the bills, all of the ensuing repairs, the insurance for your car and the house, and I seriously doubt that you will be accepted in your social circle here again.
A whole lot of people already know you locked Briar out of the basement and nearly got her killed.
Those same people also know that Tate Bandy saved her life and got hurt in the process.
He has become something of a town hero, and after that piece they aired about him and Briar last night on TV, I predict he’s going to become famous.
You will not be the big frog in a little pond here again.
You can’t tell enough lies to make that go away. ”
Her eyes widened. Tears rolled.
“That doesn’t work anymore,” Roger said, then glanced at his watch. “Lunch break’s over. Duty calls.”
He walked out, leaving Mariah behind. She followed him out and saw him talking to Briar, and then to one of the tradesmen, before going back to his car and driving away.
She didn’t want to face Briar. She didn’t want to sleep on the floor for weeks and weeks until the house was repaired.
All of her pretty clothes were gone, and she couldn’t show her face in Star Ridge again without people knowing what she’d done, so she sat down on the front porch step, took a deep breath, and called her mother.
The phone rang twice and then Carrie picked up.
“Hello?”
“Oh, Mama…can I please come home?”
Carrie Springer sighed. “I gather your visit home solved nothing?”
Mariah’s voice broke. “There’s nothing left of my marriage to fix. Roger has already drawn up divorce papers. The house is a wreck. All of my belongings were destroyed. I have only the clothes in my suitcase. My daughter hates me. Do you and Daddy hate me too?”
“No, dear, we don’t hate you. Of course you can come home. But the party is over. Ray and I are too old for your nonsense. You will be a blessing in our old age. You can take care of us.”
Mariah blinked. Her heart sank. Karma was a bitch.
“Thank you, Mother. I’ll start home today.
” Then she hung up and went looking for Briar.
She saw her going over shingle samples with a sales rep, so she waited, watching how animated Briar was, and the ready laugh she had while talking to the man.
She kept making notes on her clipboard, then slipped the man’s business card beneath the clip and shook his hand.
A shiver ran up the back of Mariah’s spine. The realization that while she’d been drinking and lying her way through life, her daughter had grown up without her. She barely recognized the woman in the driveway.