Chapter 27
Ophelia nearly tripped over her feet as she scrambled to reach the door. Sam was still kneeling by the couch, scowling after her. She could guess what had been on his mind before they’d been interrupted.
The doorbell rang again and again, the space between each ring becoming shorter and shorter. She didn’t need to check the peephole; only one person rang her doorbell like that.
She jerked the door open impatiently, having half a mind to slap her mother’s hand away from the bell.
Her mother was dressed all in white, with a pair of designer sunglasses pushed up on the crown of her head. She swept by Ophelia without a word of greeting, having no concern for the decorum of waiting for an invitation.
“There you are,” she said, breezing into the living room. “Took you long enough.”
Ophelia shut the door with her back, crossing her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here, Mom?”
Her mother’s gaze fell on Sam, who was rising to his feet by the couch.
“Hmm. You’re dressing it up now?” She stepped closer to Sam, inspecting him like he was nothing more than an expensive piece of art. “Seems silly, though I have to admit it suits him.”
When she reached out a manicured hand to press against his abs, Ophelia crossed the room and grabbed her wrist before she’d even decided to move. Her mother stared at her in shock. Ophelia had never put her hands on her before, no matter what boundaries she crossed.
“Don’t touch him,” Ophelia barked, pushing the limb back toward its owner.
Her mother’s brows furrowed as she tutted disdainfully. “What has gotten into you?”
Her mother reached into her purse to pull out a wet wipe and clean off the traces of her daughter’s contaminating touch.
I came out of your body, she thought for the thousandth time.
Her mother had always recoiled from her as a child.
She was not to touch her with her sticky fingers, not to breathe on her food, not to speak so close that she might inadvertently spit on her.
Don’t touch her things. Don’t go into her room.
If she had a nightmare, she’d been forced to weep at the foot of her mother’s locked door in the dark until she deigned to see to her.
God forbid that Ophelia soil her mother’s pristine bed.
It was as though she’d been born contaminated, and she’d spent the rest of her life trying fruitlessly to become clean enough for her mother’s relentless standards.
“Nothing’s gotten into me,” Ophelia said, ignoring the way Sam grinned and arched his brow at the turn of phrase. “He’s expensive.”
Her mother gave her a droll look. “I was hardly about to break him. Really, you don’t have to be so stingy.”
She stepped around Ophelia, wandering into the kitchen to throw away her soiled wipe.
“Why are you here?” Ophelia asked tightly, glancing at Sam.
His expression was inscrutable, but she had a sense that he didn’t like being touched by other people. She stepped closer to him.
Her mother emerged, scowling prettily. She flipped her long hair over her shoulder, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, since you can’t be bothered to answer my texts, I’m here to find out what your father said.”
Her heart sank. In all the chaos, she’d forgotten about her mother’s request. “Oh… He, um…” She fiddled with the hem of her shirt, searching for a more polite way of wording what her father had told her. “He said he can’t do it.”
Her mother loosed an angry huff, scowl deepening. “Well, did you tell him I’d take him to court if he wouldn’t cooperate?”
“Yes, and he said he’d find a way out of the alimony entirely. I think he means it, Mom. His lawyers are big time.”
She scoffed, waving the warning away. “The court will be sympathetic to my circumstances.”
“What circumstances?” Ophelia finally blurted out the thing she’d thought hundreds of times but never had the nerve to say out loud.
“You’re not a young, single mother anymore.
You’re someone’s rich ex-wife who doesn’t want to downsize.
Do you really think that’s going to go your way? You could wind up so much worse off.”
Sam stepped up behind her, pressing a hand between her shoulder blades, a reassuring weight.
“How dare you talk to me like that?” Her mother wagged a finger at her, face contorting in fury. “You sound just like him, you know that?”
That was a needle that her mother had loved to drive under her skin when she was being uncooperative. She was just like her father: her heartless, cold, abandoning father. Her father, the monster, and Ophelia, his mirror image.
God, how that had made her hate herself.
“Well, maybe it’s because he’s making sense!” She fired back, curling her hands into fists. “Being too lazy to work is no reason to take someone to court.”
Her mother reeled as though she’d slapped her.
“I’m sorry,” Ophelia rushed to say, cupping her hands over her mouth.
“I didn’t mean that. But Mom, you’re not being rational about this.
What will you do if Dad wins the case, and you lose what you’re already getting to live on?
You’ll have no choice except to get a job anyway, and it won’t be like trying to supplement what you’re already getting.
It’ll be full-time hours, and you’ll have to find somewhere that will hire someone with no degree and no trade skills who hasn’t worked a day in their life.
It’s brutal out there. I can’t even imagine where you’d begin. ”
She was ranting, she knew—just like she knew none of it was getting through to her mother. Her eyes had gone glassy with unshed tears, and she had that distant look she got when she’d checked out of a conversation.
“I’m sorry.” She stepped closer, wringing her hands together. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I just don’t want to see you on the street because you were punching above your weight.”
“You would let me, wouldn’t you? You’d let your own mother end up on the street. You think you’re too good for me now.”
Ophelia’s mouth worked silently.
Say something, she thought desperately, but she couldn’t find the words.
Would I?
If the alternative was living with her mother again, letting her criticize how she dressed, what she ate, and how she cleaned? What she did and didn’t do with her free time? The endless litany of criticism, the explosive temper…
I don’t know.
God, she really was as cold as her father.
A tear rolled down her mother’s cheek. She cleared her throat hard, dashing the tear away with her fingertips. “Well. I have a lot to think about,” she said woodenly. “You’ll have to excuse me now. I have a hair appointment, and I can’t be late.”
“Mom—”
The door closed in Ophelia’s face before she could object. She threaded her fingers into her hair, pulling at the roots, reeling at what she’d just done. “I’m such an asshole.”
“She needed to hear it,” Sam said from behind her.
“I could have been nicer about it.”
“No, I don’t think you could have.” He brushed her hair off her neck, massaging loose the tension in her muscles. “If you’d tried, she’d have steamrolled you some more.”
She hung her head, unable to take the absolution he was trying to offer her.
“Come,” he said, tugging at her hand. “We still have a lot of prep to do.”
“Prep?”