I used to get so excited when she'd smile and clap her hands when I would bring home a perfect report card, or how she'd bring flowers to one of my cello recitals, waving and grinning from the front row. When was the last time that she had seemed proud of anything I'd done? She attended my college graduation, but not with any real satisfaction, stating that social work was, "a sucker's degree."
Poppy angrily clears her throat and I realize I've just been staring at her. "No," I lie. "They're staying with some friends, I think. I spoke with them yesterday, and they were doing fine."
"So, you don't know where they are?" She leans forward, her hands digging into her purse. "Is that what you're telling me? That you don't know where my eighteen-year-old daughters are?"
Gee, Poppy. Shouldn't I be askingyouthat?I think.
"I spoke with them, Poppy." My mother enjoys having us call her by her first name because she said it made her feel 'more like a sister than a mother.' "I'm telling you that they're safe," I say sharply. "But let's not pretend, here. You're not worried about their welfare. You're worried that they haven't come home so you can push them around and pressure them into whatever Jack's little game is, am I right?"
She leans back, crossing her legs so that I can see her expensive red-soled shoes. The gloves are off. "You're not their mother, I am. I want what's best for my daughters. That includes you."
"And you think inflicting The Chads upon us is in our best interest?" I ask, my sandaled foot is jiggling madly under the desk. "Iris and Rose are teenagers, for hell's sake!"
"Don't swear!" she snaps. "Apparently, the nuns weren't strict enough with you at St. Mary's."
"Oh, I can show you the scars on my knees from hours of doing rosary as penance," I retort. "Believe me, they were very fond of old-school punishment. But I'm not a child and neither are Iris and Rose."
Poppy's eyes narrow thoughtfully and I know she's pivoting into a new approach. "I know we haven't been as close since we lost your father," she says, a practiced note of softness slipping into her tone.
"You mean, when I walked in on you and Jack in bed at the Newport Beach house?" I retort sweetly. The memory pops up with unfriendly clarity, curdling my stomach
"I'm sorry you had to see that," she says with not the slightest bit of remorse. "But Jackseesme, in the way your father never did. While I'm heartbroken that you have lost a father, Jack is here and ready to step up."
The sheer scope of her arrogance and heartlessness is breathtaking, and it takes me a moment to reply. "I miss my mother," I offer in a rare moment of vulnerability. "I miss who you used to be."
I should know better.
Spreading her ringed fingers out wide, she says, "This is who I've always wanted to be. Your father was the one who loved to see me in those little sundresses and acting like a hippie, like my parents." Poppy leans forward, dramatically pounding onher bony chest. "Jack knows who I really am; intelligent, and driven. Someone to be respected." Her hair is shellacked into a perfect bob, her bangs ruler straight across her forehead over her painted-on brows, her lips are considerably fuller since I've seen her last. She's had some work done.
"Then it makes me question," I say, the words choking my throat, "if I ever knew you at all."
With an irritable sigh, she rises from the chair, slinging her Prada purse over her shoulder. "I don't have time for your dramatics." She heads for the door. "Just send Iris and Rose home before I have to go looking for them." The sharp clack of her heel’s echoes down the linoleum hallway.
There's one picture left of my mother in my apartment. It was from a trip she and I took together when I was ten or so, when I could still call her Mom and not Poppy. She had long, flowing curls like mine, and she was holding my hand, swinging our arms as we walked barefoot on the beach, laughing and singing "Message in a Bottle" from The Police.
As I stand here in my tiny office, the memory is fading away, along with the sound of her heels and I realize I can't quite picture who she used to be at all.
Chapter Seven
In which shooting people and blowing stuff up is what family is all about.
Roman…
"Now,thisis what family is all about," I whisper, watching the barren scene and empty roads.
We've surrounded a remote dock area and warehouse down the coast from Portland, Maine. It may be early summer, but in Maine, spring's icy tentacles seem unwilling to let go as Alexsey shivers, pulling on a black hoodie. The wind sweeps in, salt-tinged and pure.
The Morales Cartel has been forced to move their operations further out of New York as we methodically crush their attempts to infiltrate our territory, which is why we're crouching in the chilly seagrass in Maine.
Morales' men are lazy; his deck crew should have been here by now, ready to offload the cargo. The warehouse isn't in great shape, cracked and pitted windows, and flimsy front doors. But the docking area has new heavy-duty tie-offs and moveable conveyor belts to empty the ship's cargo hold quickly. Looking through binoculars, I can see the lights from Morales' ship as it heads into the harbor.
"I'll bite," Dmitri says. "How is this what family is all about?"
"Quality time, brother." I hand him the binoculars. "Having deep, meaningful conversations, speaking about our hopes and dreams, our plans for the future. The hottest women we've ever fucked."
"I'm not sure asking Dmitri about his long and sordid past is a good idea." Alexsey's laughing quietly. "Though mine has to be Mary Sue Roswell, that beauty queen from Georgia who came to New York to be an actress? She could suck a-"
"Shut the fuck up," Dmitri snaps. "We're working here."
