Chapter
54
It’s so surreal, waking up next to Greg on Sunday morning. For a few seconds, pressing closer to him, his arms around me, I feel weightless, like nothing in the world could be wrong.
It’s just a few seconds, though. Because then I remember.
I’ll be sued I’ll be penniless I’ll lose the house!
What if Anna doesn’t have enough for the story!
What if I lose my job and then!
I lose access to Slack!
I scramble out of bed, and Greg startles awake. “What? What’s happening?”
“Mom is still trapped,” I say, throwing open drawers, pulling on clothes. “I need to get her out of there, before I lose access to the company systems and can’t talk to her anymore.”
I turn and lean against my dresser. “I’m going to try your plan. Of being honest with her. Really, really honest.”
“Okay.” He nods. “How can I help?”
“Can you call your mom?”
Tita Wendy sets up her orb in the kitchen, smoothing out the navy blue cloth she brought from her shop over the table. She straightens her spine and swirls her hands around the crystal ball, humming low in her throat, and it starts to glow again. My phone is open in front of her, connected to Slack. Tita Wendy’s head bobs, and her eyes fly open again. “Try now,” she says.
Whenever I tried to voice call Mom over Slack, aside from that last time in Tita Wendy’s shop, all I heard was a horrible screeching noise. But this time the call connects, and Mom’s voice comes through, on speakerphone.
“Ruby? Are you all right? How was the wedding? I didn’t hear from you!”
Tita Wendy arches a brow at that, but she stays quiet.
“Mom!” I’m already blinking back tears at the sound of her voice. “Mom, I called because…I have to be honest with you about some things.”
“All right, fine! No need to be dramatic!” Mom shouts, the sound of swirling wind in the background. “What is it?”
“I didn’t get married!” I’m trembling, and Greg gives my right hand a quick squeeze. “I couldn’t go through with it.”
“Why not?” But Mom sounds more surprised than upset.
It feels like there’s not much time, so I have to explain it the simplest way I can: “I didn’t love him.”
“Then good, I’m glad you didn’t go through with it! That would have been awful! Life is hard enough.”
I want to laugh and cry at the same time, but I steady myself and push past the tightness in my chest. “Mom, I’m not sure if you remember, but you died four months ago, and you’ve been haunting the TKCORP Slack, and I’ve been trying to find a way to free you. I tried a bunch of things to narrow down what it could be. I tried fixing the things that might bemaking you stay here—because you were disappointed in me, maybe. But I couldn’t figure it out.”
“I wasn’t—” Mom protests.
“I know you were, Mom! It’s okay! Let me finish. I keep thinking about that last conversation we had and wondering if—if maybe you’re holding on because you feel like things aren’t resolved between us, somehow. Because you’re worried about me. And—”Deep breath in, deep breath out.I glance at Tita Wendy, and she nods at me to keep going. “And I wanted to tell you I’m grateful. For how hard you worked to raise me. For everything you sacrificed. And—”
“Ruby,” Mom says sadly, over the increasing background noise.
“And I have a lot of good memories of you!” I need to keep going or I’ll lose my nerve. “Maybe you don’t know that, but—especially right after Dad left, and how we’d do everything together. Watching movies, eating ice cream, staying up late. And how we’d relive that as I got older, every time we had a movie night, and we’d pop popcorn and you’d ask me for all the gossip about the boys at school. Even though…I wasn’t really honest then, and there was only one boy on my mind.”
I squeeze Greg’s hand a couple times, a quick pulse. Tita Wendy stares up at the ceiling, like she’s trying not to notice, but I think I catch a little smirk.
Mom’s quiet, and there’s just some crackling on the other end of the line.
