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“Asshole,” Mom muttered, reaching to the bottle to pour us both more wine.
“Witches here have pretty much gone underground, so we can’t find one. But even if we could, we couldn’t tell her, or him…no gender discrimination here, folks, what we need them to do.”
“Yup,” Mom concurred.
“I’m engaged to be married to the most gorgeous man ever created, in two universes, though I barely know him. And now, for some reason, he’s avoiding me.”
“Gotta admit,” Mom slurred. “Thas weird.”
“We’re gonna meet the king and queen. I’m going to have dinner with them, with my fiancé, who, it’s worth a repeat, I barely know, and can’t know him better if I never see his fucking gorgeous fucking annoying face. And they’re coming to my wedding to said gorgeous, barely-known, insanely annoying man.”
“I’m kinna excited about that, baby,” Mom said.
I looked her in the eyes. “We’re not going home, are we?”
She looked into mine, and she was drunk, but not drunk enough not to really mean what she said next.
“Your sister can’t make the trip. She’d lose it in our world. And we can’t leave her.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
Mr. Popplewell got done snarfing, did some rolly-poly thing which meant he kicked his bowl down the table, before he landed on his side, his fat belly globbing out on the shining wood in front of him.
Mom watched this indulgently.
“Mmmrrrrm, thank you, Mmmmmmuuuummy,” Mr. Popplewell purred, then started licking his paw.
Mom turned back to me.
“You know me. I think things happens for a reason, honey. And it wasn’t fun, and I hate the idea of what’s happening at home, people we care about not knowing where we went, never knowing. I hate that. And I hate your father exponentially more than I already did because he’s the cause of it. But I think we were meant to be here. I think we were meant to be here for Maxie, who until we got here, had no one. And I think you were meant to be here for Loren.”
I blew breath between my lips and said, “Hardly.”
She shook her head, took a sip, and with her other hand, reached out to scratch Mr. Popplewell behind his ears, making his loud purring go even louder.
She then replied, “I don’t know. There’s something about that guy.”
“How can you tell? You never see him.”
She focused soberly on me again and said, “I can tell because I’m your mother. I think you’re the most wonderful being ever created. But you can still screw up. All of us can. We’re human. But to him, you can’t. He looks at you like you’re going to say to him, ‘Hang on a second. I gotta run and make sure the world is still spinning ’round. Be right back.’”
And there was that leaping heart again.
“He doesn’t look at me like that.”
“You came out of me. I fed you from my body. I cleaned your scraped knees. We cannot go here. So I’ll say it fast. Hewantsinmylittlegirl’spants. Bad.”
“Mom!”
“But that’s not it.”
“If this was true, why is he not here?”
She shrugged. “You’re asking me how a man’s mind works?” She threw out her wineglass, nearly sloshing wine on the table and definitely putting Mr. Popplewell on alert. “My choice in men got us in this situation in the first place.”
“You aren’t responsible for us being here.”
She avoided my eyes.
Mr. Popplewell settled back down.
“Mom, look at me.”
She looked at me and stated, “We’re gonna be okay. We’ve got money. We’ve got each other. And now we have Maxie. I like Satrine. She kicks ass and rocks a hat. And you gave yourself that name because I told you I was going to give it to you, but your dad wanted to call you Maxine, and that name far from sucked, so I went with it. But there are many people who are suffering because of your father’s actions, and that suffering will never leave them. The question of us vanishing will never be answered for them. And I chose him. So I know I made a bad choice at age twenty-four of the wrong guy. I’m not the first, far from it. I won’t be the last. Still, it’s heavy, baby.”
Yeah, totally heavy.
“I get that, Momma,” I said gently.
“So I focus on you. And I focus on the fact that Maxine has had enough taken in her life, it’s not a great tradeoff, those people who care about us never knowing what happened to us. But she gets us. And she’s happy. Like I said, I think we were meant to be here. But the bottom line is, we’re here. And as usual, we’re doing what we do. Making the most of it. And I’m proud of us for that.”
I was too.
“I love you, Mom.”
“And I you, my girl.”
“But you forgot to mention how much you’re getting off on being Lady Corliss,” I teased.
