Page 131 of Gilt

“You look well,” she says at the same time I blurt out, “You look like hell.”

“Don’t say hell,” she admonishes me.

“There’s no such thing as hell, mom.” I’ve been making the argument since I first dropped the h-bomb to her.

“There is. It’s where sinners and unbaptized babies go.”

“When did you go Roman Catholic on me?” I ask. She’s not Mèrely acting strangely. I think she may have actually lost it, full-blown One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest style.

“I’ve been thinking a lot…” she begins.

In my experience, thinking rarely leads to being born again. Something bigger is happening here.

“And?” I prompt her.

“I’ve had a lot on my mind,” she says.

“I guess it’s a good thing since you’ve been thinking,” I say slowly.

“Do you always have to be so sarcastic? It’s really unbecoming.”

“You have your ways of landing your billionaires. I have mine.”

She winces at my joke, and I feel a twinge of panic in my stomach. Is this where she lowers the boom? Is she about to admit to me that Becca is Nathaniel West’s daughter? Is she about to admit to me that I am, too?

“There’s something I need to tell you,” she says in a strangled voice. “You need to know. I shouldn’t have kept it from you for this long. I thought it was for the best, but…”

Oh, shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

“It’s about your father.”

Shit.

This is not happening. Some part of me reverts back to being five years old, and I have to resist the temptation to plug my ears so I can’t hear what she’s saying.

“We’ve split up,” she says finally. I could swear I hear a record screech to a halt.

“Yeah, years ago.” It’s official. My mom has had a psychotic break. She’s clearly forgotten the last eight years of her life, seeing as she can’t remember she’s remarried to a pedophiliac scumbag, but remarried nonetheless, and that I’m too old for Happy Meals.

“Not your father,” she says with emphasis. “Your stepfather.”

That’s a clarification that should have been part of the original thrust of the argument. “Good. He’s slime.”

“Emma!” She says reproachfully, but her expression softens, and my heart sinks. “I know what he did to you. I know what he did to Becca.”

And just like that, a dam bursts inside of me. I haven’t cried to my mom since I ... I don’t think I ever cried to my mom. The idea that she found out and took action is baffling and reassuring at the same time. It’s a gesture I didn’t know I needed her to make. Now that she has, that only leaves one more thing. “He belongs in jail.”

“Yes, but…”

There’s always a but.