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“No, becauseyoucouldn’t finish the job.”
“If you hadn’t orchestrated any of this with Gale and Syl and—”
“Don’t you see that I was trying to help you?” Mother raised her voice and stood up out of her seat, edging closer to me with every word, believing all of it. “You don’t belong with Collin or his awful family, stuck in a palatial prison of your own making. You’ll hate it. Trust me, you will get bored and then you’ll do something completely destructive, which you’ve proven you absolutely cannot handle on your own. You’re better off with me, despite your best efforts. Aren’t you exhausted living this way? Aren’t you tired of pretending to be something you’re not? You must be so tired, bunny.”
“IamBea Case, Mother.”
“Sure.” She laughed at me. The cruelest sound I knew. It used tomake me wilt, but now it lit a fire. Mother had never seen me with the fire of my own so I would show her. Again, if not now, when?
“Iam, Mother. And now I’m about to lose everything I’ve worked so hard for because of your foolish actions and trusting the wrong person when you could have just let me go. Why couldn’t you just let me go?”
“Maybe you’ll understand when you become a mother.” She smiled, mocking me again, enjoying my pain and desperation.
“Gale has probably already alerted the police or the FBI or who knows what, some sort of private investi—”
“Oh, please!” Mother guffawed. “Gale’s bound and gagged in her bathroom.”
Mother delivered this news like a comedian delivering a punch line, awaiting my applause, my laughter, my delight.
“See? Mother always has your back. You need a push from me, I suppose. I’m happy to assist, but you’re going to finish the job. You’re my daughter. Always will be. So we can do it together.”
She was correct that I hadn’t been able to finish the job. It only proved I wasn’t like her, right? I wasn’t able to take someone’s life after all. A sweet relief on a cellular level, a new awareness in my bones that I couldn’t actually go through with it. I didn’t take Gale’s or Mother’s. I was not a killer. I never was. But if I couldn’t do it now, then what would this all be for? I didn’t want to lose Bea Case, and it appeared the only way I could keep her was to kill Gale Wallace-Leicester.
“Together?” I asked Mother. “And then what?”
“And then you’ll see how good it feels! To embrace the chaos, take risks, go wild.LIVE. And we’ll be back together again. You’re just like me, bunny. You can’t run away. We’re two of a kind. She’ll be like us, too.” Mother motioned to my belly, reaching out to touch it, but I stepped away to grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
“We don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy yet,” I said to her, before downing the entire thing. My thirst was unquenchable. A sign of my own nerves.
“It’s a girl,” Mother declared. There was no way for her to know, but I had a feeling she was right.
“I don’t want to leave Collin,” I said. “That’s the only reason I’m even entertaining this—”
“No, it isn’t,” she interrupted me. “You still want Mother’s stamp of approval, don’t you?”
“Mother, I don’t think I can do what you’re asking me to do. I’m not like—”
“Maybe you were right,” she interrupted me again, even faster, in a moment that felt honest, but also manipulative. The sweet spot in our performances for each other. “That other girl never felt like mine, but you? You’re mine. You’re all mine.”
That was all I ever wanted to hear from Mother. When she said things like that to me, I would always do whatever she asked. She knew that, too. That was just the kind of woman she was. A monster. My monster. My mother.
“Oh, we used to have fun,” Mother continued, laughing. “Don’t pretend like we didn’t. We were good-time girls and that familiar feeling never goes away, no matter how old we get. Despite what you may think, I know you will tire of this life. I wish you would just realize that and stop fighting it. You won’t be able to get out of this unscathed, you know. I don’t care what you two agreed on when you got married, but the house always wins, and the house of Case is very powerful. It’s intoxicating, isn’t it? The challenge it would be to take them on from the inside? We could do it together. I’ll even let you take the lead, since it’syourhusband this time, but you have to let me in. We can take our time. Enjoy ourselves a little bit while we secure our treasure.You’ll have the baby. You’ll introduce me to the family. You’ll remember how to play. It’s our favorite game, bunny. The long game. Just like old times. You can even pick the ending. I know you’re softer than me, no one else has to die. But first things first, whether you like it or not.”
“Gale,” I said, hushed, sitting in the gravity of the situation at hand.
“And it has to be tonight.”
If it were any other time, before Collin, before Syl, before everything, I might have taken a bite of her apple, just to be closer to her, but now? I was repulsed by the thought. Letting her into the fold I had cultivated, allowing her to be a part of my child’s life, working with her to con the Cases, as if we could? I found it so preposterous that I was relieved. Ihadchanged, I wasn’t like her and I made my life for me all on my own.
But Mother was absolutely right about Gale and it was torturing me. It was the only way to preserve the life I built. We had to do it.Ihad to do it, but I couldn’t. I could do a lot of things, I had done a lot of dark and terrible and awful things in the name of self-preservation, but murder? That wasn’t me after all.
Was it?
“What time?” I asked her, wanting to hear her plan as I made up my mind. If anyone could convince me, it was her, whether I wanted to or not.
“Wait until Collin comes home. Have a normal evening together. Ask him if everything’s all right.Makeeverything all right. And wait until he’s asleep. Should we say midnight? Behind her building, do not go inside. Wait for me and we’ll go together. Remember, it doesn’t get done unless we’re together. Understand?”
She would not let me off easy. She never did.
