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“Oh, I got some money from insurance to replace essentials and Mack offered to take me to the mall,” she says, sounding happy as can be.
“Oh, he did, did he?” I turn, throwing a frown in his direction as she nearly flies out the front door. “That’s mymother!” I hiss at him.
He takes a step toward me, using his height to his full advantage. “I understand that and will show her every respect. And you need to understand, that while Molly might not be my daughter, well, think of me as her uncle. One who’ll make sure she’s being shown the proper respect.”
“If you hurt my ma…”
“Not my intention, so go take your nap and get off my back.”
We exchange glares until he turns on his heel and heads out to her car.
This is my fault, I think to myself. We went my whole fucking life without talking about our issues, then I had to get all deep and ask Mom if she’d consider dating someone.
*
A few days later, after we convince Ma to come visit Rowansville, I make the single trip it takes to load up her car with all of her worldly possessions. Looking back at the house, Shannon gives me a nod.
We talked at length last night and are on the same page about how the house fire might have been the best thing in the world. Instead of being held in place by her memories, our mother is now thinking about what she wants to do with the rest of her life.
But as Mack pulls up the driveway, I still think that baby-steps would be the wisest approach.
With a rented trailer attached to Mack’s truck, I switch off driving home with my mom and enjoy the visit.
After Russian told me that the resorts were all booked due to the summer travelers, he checked around for me and let me know that Riley would let Mom use the apartment that she has in the town center.
That’s one less worry I have. The main one being why I haven’t heard back from Molly. I’ve been gone ten days and have left her messages, not only from my burner phone, but from Mom’s phone.
Pulling up to the clubhouse, I head inside to pick up the key for the apartment before I head back out to unload my bike from the trailer.
“We need to talk,” Shade says, falling into step behind me.
“Any blow back from the job?” I ask, wondering what’s so important.
“Nah, Wrench has been keeping an eye on things. Here, you’ll need these,” he responds, and I look down to see my phone and wallet in his hand.
I stop in my tracks, staring down at them in confusion. “Why do you have them?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I picked Jessa up from Molly’s a week ago,” he says, reaching his hand up to block the glare of the sun when we get outside. “They were on the bottom half of a bottle of vodka and not exactly making sense. My only take-away was that you’re banned from the bakery, again.”
“What? How?” I ask, getting a shrug in return.
“Before Jessa passed out she said ‘good riddance’ and that you’d better be away on club business, alone, or she’d kill you herself.”
“I didn’t do anything!” I nearly shout in frustration, lowering my voice when my ma looks over at me.
“Is that your mom?” Shade asks, smiling in her direction. “How’s she doing?”
“Fine. Crap, this is going to hurt.” Wheeling my bike off the trailer, I park it before walking around to the driver’s side and dangling the keys I just received. “Mack? Can you ride over to the apartment with my mom? I’ll take your truck and return the trailer, then run an errand.”
Glaring at me, he exhales through his nose. “Did you just refer to Molly as aquick errand?”
“Something you know that you want to share with me?”
“I know she hasn’t been taking your calls,” he replies. Mack seems to be internally debating something, but he finally relents and opens his door. “I’m taking your mom for dinner. Get me my truck back tomorrow.”
“I’ll get it to you tonight,” I tell him as we swap the keys.
“Tomorrow’s soon enough.”
