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Once they wheeled Angus into the living room and got him situated in the overstuffed recliner next to the front window, she gave Oliver a nod, indicating he was to follow her.
“Where do yoo two think yer goin’?” Angus asked with one bushy eyebrow up to his hairline.
“We’re going to my room to go over the reading list.”
“Ah no see a list.”
“Everything’s online now, and my iPad is in my room.”
“Keep yer door open then. Me legs are broke but not me good sense.”
Finally in her room, she pulled the notebook from her leggings as Oliver lay sideways on her bed with his hands behind his head.
“Read already,” he said, just as eager to hear what Maisie had written as she was.
Two hours later, Mia closed the notebook in shock.
“Um, I hate to say it, but your aunt, Maisie, was a total beotch. Excuse my language.”
Not her aunt. Her mom.
Her bio-mom. And yes, Maisie was a total bitch.
Mia was speechless, and that never happened.
“Your mom,” he added and then stopped, as if sensing she was a bit shell-shocked. His inclinations were spot-on as the contents of the diary were like a nuclear bomb had been detonated in her room and she was surrounded by the smoke and charred remains. “Um, your mom was blamed for a lot of shit…I mean stuff, that she didn’t do. Everyone in town knew your grandma wasn’t, you know, all there. Thought both sisters were being abused. But it was only Birdie, with Maisie fueling your grandma’s anger. That last thing your aunt did to your mom and dad… Dude, that was just pure evil villain shit…I mean stuff.”
“Yeah, she was a really bad person,” Mia mumbled, wondering if those moments of crazy rebellion she felt and the heartless words she spewed as a result had been inherited. A genetic trait. It would stand to reason as it was Maisie’s blood that ran through her veins, not her mom’s.
“And I knew your grandma was crazy, from all the rumors in town and how they downed cyanide like it was Kool-Aid. But, whoa, the things she did to your mom were, like, psycho-level.”
“Yeah, she was a really bad person,” she repeated. No wonder her mom didn’t want to take her to church.
“And what about your asshat of a grandpa—”
“I get it,” Mia blurted. “They were all truly heinous, vile human beings.”
“Well, except for your mom. You have to feel better about that.”
But that was just it. Her mom wasn’t really her mom.
Biologically, anyway.
Her mom who was vilified by an entire town.
Based on lies and manipulations, and some pretty long-range gaslighting strategies, curated and commandeered by her own flesh and blood sister.
Her hand went to her chest that ached, like swollen gums from a bad tooth, where you could feel the heartbeat thump alongside the pulsating never-ending pain.
Her fingers touched the heart necklace at her throat and she instantly felt her dad’s love, as if he were watching out to her from Heaven, as her fingers curled around the pendant.
She missed her mom and desperately needed to see her. Like yesterday. She wanted to see her and hug her and love her with everything inside of her.
And then, she wanted to tell her how very, very sorry she was.
She closed her eyes, but couldn’t seem to get the last pages of Maisie’s diary out of her head.
Her mother was a monster.
