AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My lips part and I look up at Dixie with a new perspective. I've often wondered about my mom's childhood.
“Wow. I had no idea.” I've never met any of my mom's friends before. The only version of her I've ever known has been almost friendless by choice. Unless we're counting those weird work frenemies she has.
“You look just like her, you know,” she murmurs, her gaze tracing my features. “All except for your eyes. You've got your daddy's eyes.”
I can feel my eyes widen as she dropped that little piece of information. “You know my dad? I thought he went to school in upstate New York.”
She lifts a shoulder and lets it fall just as quickly. “Met him a few times when your mom came to visit. How's she been?”
“Good,” I answer automatically.
It's my go-to response and it flows much easier than the truth:I have no idea because she doesn't think to include me in her life. She never really has.
I clear my throat. “When's the last time you saw her?”
“She spent an entire summer here when your sister was a toddler. That was, gosh, I don't know, probably twenty-six years or so ago.”
Huh. My mother will never win any sort of mothering or parenting awards, but I'm pretty sure she wouldn't just leave a newborn several states away. I doubt Nana Jo would've allowed it.
So it must've been before I was born.
Or when she was pregnant.
Now I'm tasked with the shitty job of breaking it to this nice woman that my mother is awful and she's never once mentioned Dixie to me.
I shift in my seat. “Oh, I didn't know she came back here then. She never mentioned it.”
Dixie smiles. “Don't worry about it, honey. I'll let you girls finish your lunch. Bring your car down to RCGC this afternoon. I'll have one of my boys take care of you, yeah?”
I straighten in my seat. “Really? You have availability?”
“I'll make room for ya. Consider it a friends and family favor,” she says with a wink.
I bite the inside of my cheek. “Oh, shoot. Would I be able to get it towed to your garage? Because I don't think it'll start. It sort of died about two blocks down.”
“No problem, honey,” Dixie says, waving a hand dismissively. “I'll send one of my guys to tow it to the garage. I just need your keys.”
I'm already rifling through my purse for my keys. I unscrew the car key from the rest of them and drop it in her waiting palm. “Thank you so much. I'll be right over after we pay.”
“Don't rush on our account. You girls have a good day now,” she says, tapping the key in her palm a few times. She turns around and makes her way out of the restaurant.
As soon as she's out of earshot, Cora leans over the table and hisses, “That's the ultimate Reaper old lady.”
28
SILAS
“You didwhat?”My eyebrows knit together and my eyes narrow.
My mother calmly continues her process of shutting down the office for the day. She stacks colorful Post-It notes on top of one another and puts them in a little compartment in some desk organizer thing I bought for her last year.
“I told Evangeline you'd give her a ride home,” she answers without looking up from her task.
“Why?” It's practically a growl, but I'm too irritated to check myself.
She gives me her attention then, a steely glare through her eyelashes as she pauses her tidying up.Shit. I know that look. Almost thirty-one years old, and I still respond to my mother'slook. I hold in a sigh and prepare myself to withstand her sharp tongue.
She slowly stands up straight, her left hand sinking into her hip. She lets her face fall into something we used to call her bullshit look growing up. As in if she's giving you this look, she's tired of your bullshit.
