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“Thank you.” Her voice sounded stronger now that she wasn’t parched.
I returned the cup to the table and sat. She reached for my hand again, and I took it. “You look good. Like you’re ready to take on Fifth Avenue.”
A laugh bubbled up. My mother wasn’t a frivolous spender, but she did love her shopping. “I’m getting there. Think they’d let me in the boutiques in this gown?”
I glanced at the pale pink hospital gown with a smile. “I’ll make sure they will,” I promised. “You tell me where you want to go first, and I’ll make it happen.”
“You’d go shopping with me?”
“I’m getting old, but I can hold a lot of bags.” I flexed an arm, and she laughed again, though her head sank with the effort.
“I’m going to hold you to it.”
“That goes both ways.”
Her eyes zeroed in on me, like they always did when she knew I’d been up to something. How mothers knew that shit was a great mystery of life. “Tell me about her.”
“What?”
“You’ve met someone,” she said firmly, so confident it blew me away.
“There’s not really anything to tell.”
“You like her.” How the hell could she know thingsIdidn’t even know?
“She’s . . .” I searched for a word to describe Sonya and couldn’t come up with anything remotely adequate. “There’s something under the surface I want to know, which makes no sense because I don’t even think she’s a good person. But there’s more than what she shows.”
“You recognize her. A kindred spirit.”
I frowned. Mama had always been a straight shooter, but if I heard her correctly, she wasn’t sure ifIwas a good person either.And she’d be right . . . I suppose.Evidence points that way. “I guess I do.” A kind of relief came over me at the realization. My tigress wasn’t perfect, but who the hell was I to pass judgment?
“I want to meet her,” she said. “Don’t look so surprised. I need to see this woman. If there’s something about her you like, I want to know her too.”
“I’ve been kind of an asshole to her.”
Mama gave me an unimpressed look. “Kinda?”
I shrugged, guilty as charged. “As weird as this is going to sound, I think she likes it.” I smirked at the thought of her feisty side. “She’s tried to knee me in the crotch twice.”
“Classic hair-pulling on the playground,” Mama deduced, amused.
“Something like that.”
“How did you meet?”
I hesitated, knowing she wouldn’t like the answer. “Paths of Purpose.”
Her lips parted before they pressed into a flat line. “Drew Harris.”
“She’s not like the other women there. I still think she got the black eye during a bar fight.”
“Drew!”
“What? Don’t ask me how I know, I just do. She wasn’t beat up by a boyfriend, which is her story, and I assure you she isn’t scared of men. Some of those women are. I promise I haven’t done anything to make them uncomfortable. I’m a jackass, but not to women and kids who have been hurt.” I let out a huff of frustration, always finding myself on the defensive when it came to my character. That was my own fault, but it got old.
“I know you wouldn’t dare do anything ill-willed toward the people there. That’s not what I meant, though it came out that way. Forgive me.”
“Always, Mama.” I squeezed her hand. There was nothing but love in her gaze.
