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“Has Dad’s mistress visited him?” I blurt out, straightening even as her shoulders deflate. I did that—hurt—her, but I keep going because I can’t stop. This is how we interact. “Maybe she has some money we can borrow.”
I know I’m being a bitch, but I can’t help it. It’s her fault for turning a blind eye to them, for focusing on bullshit displays of wealth, for finding the diamonds a suitable substitute for his loyalty, and a new car the reason she smiles at him every day.
For being so fucking weak!
Gah.She’s a shit role model. Chloe’s mum and mine both, dragging their daughters, clutching their pearls, singing the man of the house is home, back to the 1950s.
I swallow as she slowly shakes her head. She looks down, then up, still shaking her chin slowly, and it’s so theatrical. I pretend not to buy it. “Why do you say such hurtful things to me?”
“You let him have affairs,” I say with a shrug. “I just presumed you’d be used to the other women by now.”
“I let him, do I?” She presses her palms to her chest, her thumb and forefinger dancing around her gold-looped necklace that vanishes between her designer breasts. “God,Kaya. You’re mad. I know. I should—”
“Look,”—I slide into the car and buckle myself in— “Mac is on the clock. I have to go.” I close the door on her face, just as she squeezes her eyes shut, holding them like that with the same aversive tightness she displayed the moment she caught my dad with the receptionist bent over our kitchen table.
I stare straight ahead as the car pulls away, avoiding Mac’s gaze, embarrassed that he witnessed that.
The road shoots between the tyres, the houses a stream of concrete in my passenger window. Twisting my knees up to the side, I lean on the door and sigh.
I’m not an arsehole.
There is history there…
“I’m not a bitch,” I mutter to the door.
“I didn’t say you were.”
Twisting to face Mac, I look at his sun-touched skin and dishevelled hair. Greying. A distant gaze that hums of a carefree, wild life. Unapologetically so.
“You don’t understand,” I press. “We needed her to show us what it means to be a woman. And instead of empowering us, she raised her four daughters to be perfect little models of poise and manners. We might as well be chattel for a man’s gaze. Like she was. Her main goal was to make sure we looked good and behaved perfectly. She didn’t have fun with us. Play. She didn’t let us get messy.”
“Ooof.Four daughters,” is all he says, spinning the wheel to take another road, leading towards the coast.
I raise an eyebrow at him. “She wants us to be just like her. And I’m not! I’m nothing like her. I would never let a man cheat on me.”
His expression is lax, chilled. “Let him?”
“Yeah. She forgave him.” I blink at Mac, noting a strange smile on his arid lips. “Time and time again,” I ground. “What does that say about her?”
“Hmm.”
My brows bunch. “What?”
“And what’d happen if she left him?”
“She’d be fine. She’d get half of everything.”
“Hmm.”
“Stop with thathmm-ing.”
“Where would you live?”
Adamantly, I say, “I’d stay with my dad.”
“Not her?” he questions pointedly.
“No. God, no.” I laugh but feel as though I’m alone on this anti-mother-dearest hill. “I have far more in common with Dad,” I announce proudly.
