“I told you Mav isn’t my boyfriend anymore.”
She fluffed her silver hair at the back. “A technicality. We both know you’d just have to say the word and he’d take you back. Though, no offense, I don’t see why he’d even want to be tied down to just one woman.”
“Excuse me?”
“You know men love to play around.” Her look of disgust spoke to her feelings about the entire gender. “It feeds their ego. Don’t make the mistake of thinking your man is different than all the rest.”
I would hate to go through life being as cynical as my mama, but I knew it was pointless trying to change her. She was who she was and that was never gonna change.
Mama pulled her phone out of her purse. “Let me see if I can find that.”
She scrolled through her phone while I checked my watch, wondering when my sister would arrive. I had back-to-back appointments all afternoon and there was only so much mama-alone-time I could handle in one day.
“Ah, yes. Here it is.” She passed me her phone.
There was a post that said, Home Sweet Home, with a partial photo of the front of his new house. It was concealed enough by trees that it couldn’t be easily identified by a passerby, which I assumed had been his intent.
It made me wonder when the photo was taken and whether Mav had been back to Nashville since he showed up at my apartment three weeks ago.
“Beautiful home,” she said, returning her phone to her purse. “Some lucky lady sure will enjoy being the mistress ofthatmanor.”
I couldn’t help giving her a dirty look. “It is a beautiful home. I was with him when he bought it.”
“Ah, so he bought it for you then.” Her smile spread as she reached for her water glass. “I assumed as much.”
“No, he bought it for himself.”
“Honey, that man would do anything for you. Are you so blind you can’t see that?”
I curled my hand around my forehead. I should have brought aspirin with me. It was a lunch with Mama, after all.
“I don’t understand this one-eighty regarding Mav. You’ve always been his biggest hater. Now all of a sudden, you’re his biggest fan?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” She leaned back, straightening her lavender cardigan over her matching tank top. “But the girls reminded me their daughters are all married to scoundrels too. One’s a beer-drinking, skirt-chasing car salesman who can never make the mortgage payment—”
“I’m really not interested, Mama.”
“My point is,” she said, raising her chin. “Maverick is a successful country singer now. On TV and everything!”
“You’re the last person I ever expected to be star-struck by Mav.”
“I’m not star-struck.” She extended her hand, looking at the pearl ring I gave her for Christmas last year. “I’m just saying, he may not be so bad, after all. He seemed sincere, that night when we talked in his truck.”
“I know he’s sincere about loving me and wanting to stay sober—”
“Hey, why’d you break up with him?” She leaned in, whispering, “He wasn’t caught with some groupie, was he?”
I rolled my eyes. Mama still watched too many soap operas. “No, nothing like that.” I considered telling her it was a personal matter, but she could be relentless and I was already tired of this conversation, so I said, “He fell off the wagon, so to speak.”
“Is that all?” She shook her head. “So what? As long as he’s not getting drunk every damn day and—”
“Are you listening to yourself right now? An alcoholic can’t drink. And after what I went through with my own recovery, I know that better than anybody.”
“All I’m saying is that I expected every man I met to be perfect, and when he wasn’t, I cast him aside.” She spread her hands. “And look where that got me, Codie. Old and alone.” Her voice broke. “I just don’t want to see that happen to you because you expect the man who obviously loves you to be perfect.”
I was stunned speechless. I wasn’t being unreasonable, was I? I didn’t expect Mav to be perfect. Just sober.
Ugh! Thanks to my mama I’d need an emergency appointment with my therapist, who I hadn’t seen in over a year, to work all this out.
