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“What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing is going on with me Magnolia Tree Lucas.”
“Marie,” I mutter.
“Tree. Just because they made a mistake, it doesn’t change what I wanted you named. Plus, I just don’t want to humor you anymore. It’s time my children get their heads out of their asses and start looking at the big picture,” she announces, and I nod my head.
There it is. There’s my mother.
“And the big picture would be me taking you off the main road to somewhere we aren’t even sure of how to find, to find someone you don’t know and all so you can look at a cabinet for your kitchen that you don’t really need?” I ask. This is not the first time I’ve said those words, either. That’s because Mom has had me doing everything from sightseeing to stopping at the new dollar store they put in. Which means I’ve been on the road for two hours. I had plans tonight, and honestly, I wanted alone time with Bryant. I texted him, and he said it was fine. He said Luka picked Terry up for a camping trip and he’d just grab a sandwich for dinner. His easy acceptance just pisses me off more. Shouldn’t he be a little upset that I’m not there? Wasn’t he the one who said he wanted me in his bed? He sure is acting like he couldn’t care less if I was there tonight.
“I found the cabin on that swap-shop list thingy,” she says with a shrug. “Oh look! There’s our exit! Take it, Magnolia. Right here! Oh, I’m so excited,” Mom yells, pointing and appearing so happy that she’s practically jumping in the seat.
“If you’re this easily excited, Jansen must be a happy man,” I reply sarcastically, taking the exit.
The last thing I want to do is to go look at some cabinet out in the middle of nowhere. If I don’t take her, however, I’ll never hear the end of it—and knowing my mother, she will walk there alone and make Jansen pissed at me.
“He is. You wouldn’t know much about that, though, would you, Magnolia?”
I jerk because Mom is many things, but she’s never purposely sucker punched me with a direct hit the way she just did.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie.
“Bullshit.”
“I thought you were going to clean up your language?”
“Okay, fine. Male bovine with working hangy-down-thingy-ma-bob droppings. Is that better?”
“Have you taken up sniffing glue, Mom? Did something happen that I should worry about?”
“I think you have enough to worry about. What are you going to do about Red?”
“Who?” I ask, completely lost.
“That man you’ve been tangled up in since you were too damn young to get tangled.”
“Mom, I don’t want to talk about this.”
“You’re losing him, baby,” she says, reaching out and touching my leg, her voice softer than I can ever remember.
“I know,” I admit.
“You need to fix that, Magnolia.”
“Mom, it’s too late. It was too late when we divorced.”
“You’re lying to yourself, baby girl. That man loves you, and you love him too.”
“Sometimes love isn’t enough, Mom,” I respond, my heart squeezing painfully in my chest.
“And you’re just talking foolish, baby. Love’s the only thing worth pursuing. Now, I admit, I had my doubts on that boy in the beginning,” she confesses and despite my heart being heavy, that makes me laugh. She’s severely understating that. She did not want me to get married.
“Gee, you don’t say,” I sass.
“When I’m wrong, I can admit it, at least eventually. You need to pull yourself out of the past and look to your future, sweetheart.”
“If only it were that easy,” I breathe out, the weight of the world on my shoulders.
“It might be the easiest and hardest thing you’ve ever done, honey, but I promise it will be worth it. You need to start trusting yourself. I’m not sure you ever did and maybe that’s my fault. I failed you as a mother. I forgot to tell you every day how amazing you were.”
“You never failed me or any of us, Mom. You’re the strongest person I know. I wish…”
“Wish what, honey?”
“I wish I was more like you.”
“Girl, if you got any more like me, the world would stop turning because it wouldn’t know what to do with two of me.”
“Sure,” I mumble, definitely not crazy enough to believe that. Maybe Mom believes it, but she doesn’t truly know me.
Mom lets out a melodramatic sigh. “You might be even more stubborn than me, though,” she says, and out of the corner of my eye, I can see her shaking her head at me.
“Did you know that people die meeting strangers on Craigslist?” I ask her, figuring it is past time to change the subject.
“Just drive, Maggie. I need a cabinet to match my kitchen table,” Mom admonishes.
“Hate to break it to you, Mom, but I don’t think you can have sex on a cabinet like you do a table.”
