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“Mama Capone, or Cherry as she’ll ask you to call her, is a vibrant, likable, adventurous woman.” Leslie’s dark eyes grew sad as they lost focus.
Sabine waited for more but none came.
“So what’s the issue? You guys clearly don’t like her,” she prompted. If there was something she should know, she wished they’d just get it over with. “What, is she a Nazi or something?”
Everyone shot matching looks of disgust at her. Kara tsked and shook her head.
“Sorry I brought up Nazis. I got nervous and tried to be funny,” Sabine apologized.
“It’s not that we don’tlikeher,” Leslie explained with a frown.
“We don’t like how she treats Dave,” Max added.
Leslie nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
Ugh. This process was excruciating. Either commit to the gossip or keep your mouth shut, that’s what she thought.
“Is she mean?” Sabine asked. If they weren’t going to say it, she was going to start guessing.
“No.”
Leslie and Max exchanged a look. Again.
“Is she bossy? Controlling? Vindictive? What?”
“No, not really,” Leslie said, looking to Max for help.
Sabine’s annoyance reached its limit. She turned off the burner and moved the skillet to a cool one. She wiped her hands on the towel and faced the two men.
She cocked a hip, crossed her arms, and pulled out her teacher voice. “Boys, say what you’re not saying.”
When they remained silent, Kara snorted. “You two are terrible at this.”
Sabine’s lips twitched with a hidden smile because Kara was right.
“Okay,” Leslie declared, waving a hand. “It’s like this. It’s not that she’s deliberately bad or mean or anything. She’s just not a good mom.”
Kara coughed on a cashew. “That’s so ambiguous.”
Sabine glared at them. “More information,” she demanded.
Leslie sighed, his big muscles stretching his maroon sweater to dangerous levels. “She was a single mom. My mom was a single mom. It’s hard. But with Dave it was a different kind of hard. My mom had help because we lived near family. But Cherry didn’t have anyone. At all. No friends, no family. It was just her and Dave. And Dave had certain… challenges growing up.”
Sabine rolled her eyes even as her heart squeezed. “Right. The ADHD. I know.”
Leslie pressed his lips together and took a breath. “At some point when Dave was in high school, she decided she was done.”
“Done,” Sabine repeated, narrowing her eyes.
“Done being a mom,” Max continued the story. “She started to act more like his friend, or a wacky aunt.”
“No discipline, no boundaries, no expectations whatsoever,” Leslie picked up the thread. “And then one day she just left.”
“Costa Rica the first time, right?” Max asked Leslie who agreed.
Sabine swallowed and waved a hand to get their attention. “You can’t just abandon a child. That’s illegal,” she pointed out.
“Yeah.” Leslie shrugged. “If someone turns you in.”
