Carlene continued pacing furiously. “One minute your father was laughing and taunting me. The next minute he was storming across the patio, telling me to stop my foolishness. He grabbed my arm. I tried to shake him off, but he wouldn’t let go. And then…and then…I dropped you!”
“No!” Lexi screamed, a sound of anguished denial wrenched from the depths of her soul. “No. No.No!”
Carlene crumpled to the floor, her body convulsed with the deep, racking howls of a wounded animal.
Reeling, choking with sobs, Lexi descended upon her, thinking she might actually kill her. She grabbed Carlene’s frail shoulders and shook her violently as she shouted into her face, “How could you?How could you?”
“It was an accident!” Carlene wailed, tears pouring down her cheeks. “I never meant for you to fall!”
“You could havekilledme!”
“I know.I know!It’s nothing but the grace of God that kept you alive that night!”
“What happened?” Lexi demanded hoarsely.“Tell me what happened!”
Trembling uncontrollably, Carlene squeezed her eyes shut. “One of our neighbors had heard all the commotion. He lived on the ground floor of our building. When he heard you screaming, he stepped out onto his patio and looked up. That’s when he saw you dangling in the air. He jumped over his railing and started shouting up at me. When I dropped you—oh, Jesus!—he was there to catch you. By the grace of God, you only came away with a few cuts and bruises!”
“And a paralyzing fear of heights!” Lexi cried shrilly.
“You can survive that! Youcouldn’thave survived a fall from ten stories!”
Lexi stared at her mother for an agonized moment, then released her so abruptly that Carlene sagged against the wall.
She shoved to her feet and backed away on rubbery legs, staggered by the enormity of Carlene’s horrifying revelations. Were it not for the intervention of a complete stranger, Lexi would be dead. Dead at the hands of her own mother. It was inconceivable.
“I could have gone to jail,” Carlene said in a low, haunted voice. “But the neighbor took pity on me and decided not to call the police. Your father promised to change his ways, so I let him stay. But a leopard can’t change its spots. He hung around long enough to knock me up two more times before he gave up on the marriage and walked out on us. He moved in with one of his mistresses before she got fed up with him and put his sorry ass out. His drinking eventually got worse, and he fell on hard times. One day he came crawling back to me, begging for money. When I refused to give him any, he threatened to tell you about that night. He said if you ever found out what I’d done, you’d hate me for the rest of your life. So I gave him what he wanted.”
“And that’s how it started,” Lexi said flatly.
Carlene’s head snapped up, her features twisted with sudden fury. “I shouldn’t have let him blackmail me all those years! I should have let him tell you the truth. What difference would it have made? You grew up to hate me anyway!”
“I don’t hate you!” Lexi cried, tears scalding her eyes.
“Well,Ihateyou!”
Stunned, Lexi recoiled as if she’d been leveled with a two-by-four.
“Every time I look at you,” Carlene spat viciously, “I’m reminded of what happened that night. I’m reminded of the way I allowed your father to push me over the edge, to make me do such an unspeakable thing to my own child. Every time I look at you, I’m reminded of how much I failed you. I can’t take any pride or joy in your accomplishments, because I know you achieved themwithoutany help from me!”
Lexi gaped at her, torn between compassion and incredulity. “How can you say you didn’t help me? Youraisedme—”
“That’s right! And I did the best I could! But sometimes, God help me, I wish you hadn’t survived that fall. Because if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t have to be constantly reminded of everything I haveeverdone wrong as a mother. Your father never looked at me the same after that night. He was disgusted with me for dropping you from the balcony. He called me deranged, said I was an unfit mother. He told me the whores he slept with could raise you better thanIever could!” She glared accusingly at Lexi. “If only you’d stayed asleep that night. If only you hadn’t rattled my nerves so much with all your goddamn wailing! Maybe,just maybe,your daddy and I could have worked out our problems. But because of what happened that night—because ofyou—he left us! So yeah, I hate you!Hate you!”
Every cruel word lashed at Lexi, battering at her fractured psyche until she finally snapped with an outraged roar, “You know what, Ma? If that’s the way you really feel, you don’t have to worry about me anymore!”
Carlene went utterly still, staring at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I’ve had enough of you and your toxic bullshit! I’m doing what I should have done a long time ago. I’m leaving Atlanta, and I’m getting as far away from you as possible!”
Panic flared in Carlene’s eyes. “You can’t do that—”
“Watch me!”
And as Lexi spun blindly and fled from the house, she knew just where she would go.
Chapter 19
Quentin slowed his car to a red light and impatiently drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. He was eager to get to Lexi’s house. He hadn’t seen her in over a week, and he missed her like crazy.
