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I take a breath and look down at my phone.
“Please.” She repeats and the brokenness in her voice tugs at my heart.
“Okay. Half-hour, but that’s it.”
“Thank you, princess.”
I follow her to the decade old Cadillac I still remember from when I left. Grandmother’s old car. A hubcap is missing and the vinyl top is torn. I take a seat inside and the scent of my childhood turns my overly sensitive stomach.
As we ease out of the parking space I roll the window down and lean over toward the fresh air, trying to keep my breakfast from reappearing.
We ride and park in silence. I exit the car before she’s turned it off, unsure if I can take another minute in that space.
I don’t look back as I march into the coffee shop. I know I’m being rude but I’m on the defensive and it’s going to take a lot more than a little pity to patch up the disaster of a relationship I have with this woman.
Taking a table in the corner, I watch as my mother goes to the counter and orders two coffees, then slowly walks to where I’m seated. Her slight limp from the car accident that ended her pageant career is more pronounced than before, but I steel myself from too much additional pity. She doesn’t deserve it and I can’t handle it.
“Thank you for this.” She sits and slides the paper cup to my side of the table.
“So what is there to talk about?”
I let her ramble for a bit, sipping my coffee and letting my stomach settle.
Looking at her while she talks, I see the woman I remember. The woman I wanted to be when I was a little girl.
She was beautiful back then. Stunning even. Willowy and elegant, with my hair but shocking green eyes. She’s taller than me, her legs ending high on her body, and she always reminded me of one of the actresses from that old, black and white golden age of Hollywood.
Sure, she’s older, but she’s still far more classically beautiful than I will ever be.
She talks about that piece of shit that is my sperm donor. How the affairs with both her and my grandmother turned my already misogynistic grandfather into a full-blown asshole, which set the stage for my Grimm’s fairy tale childhood.
No revelations are forthcoming, and I’m a bit surprised at myself that I have no questions for her. Still, there’s a remnant of the little girl inside of me that still longs for her approval. It’s a battle of will to not cave to her obvious manipulation.
After about fifteen minutes of me nodding and giving her a few, uh-huh’s at appropriate times, my curiosity gets the better of me.
“Okay, so you aren’t telling me anything new. I get that you’re sorry. I hear that you’re leaving your husband.” I deliberately emphasize that I’m not calling him my father. He lost that right a long time ago, and now I know it was never even true. “What I don’t get is why are you here? Why now?”
Her fingertips tremble and she spins the coffee cup on the table. “I want to come live with you.”
I nearly spit my coffee across the table, then can’t hold back the gut busting laugh that spills out of me.
“Is this a joke?” I spin around, looking around the coffee shop. “Are there cameras hidden somewhere? You are joking, right?”
“No.” The cartoon image of this woman who is my biological mother turns from eliciting pity in me to frothing anger.
“Thanks for the coffee.” I push my chair back to stand. “Have a good life.”
“Wait.” She half shouts. “I have nowhere to go. When my mother dies, the executor of the trust puts your father in charge. My father left me nothing, it all goes to him. When I told him I wasn’t happy, that it wasn’t working and it hasn’t for a long time, maybe it never worked, he kicked me out. He has the power to do it, too, everything will be in his hands now. Your grandfather didn’t believe women could handle money. I have nothing, Stephanie. I need you. Please.”
I hear her words, but her face tells a different story. I guess I know now where I get my ability to lie from. She’s good, but it’s like looking in a mirror. Every tell, every pull of her face is screaming at me that this isn’t the truth.
So what is?
“What do you really want?”
“I told you! I have nothing. No one. Nowhere to go.”
Before I can reply my phone goes off. It’s Daddy texting me.
“Please.” She repeats. “Is that Stas? Please don’t tell him I’m here. Not yet. I’m begging you, Stephanie, I need you. I’ve missed you, okay? Is it so wrong for a mother to miss her daughter?”
