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I grinned, and I could’ve sworn the color on her cheekbones deepened. “See ya then, little butterfly.”
13
Lark
“Where are you going?”
My mother looked up from her spot on the one armchair in the living room that didn’t have any clutter on it.
I pushed a long curl out of my face. “What makes you think I’m going somewhere?”
She raised her brows as her narrowed gaze scanned me from head to toe. I tried not to fidget under her assessment. “You’re wearing makeup. You did your hair.”
I sucked on my bottom lip. Okay, so it was obvious that I was going somewhere. But I hadn’t seen the Ramsey clan in a really long time and I wanted to look…different. “I’m having dinner at the Ramseys’ tonight.”
Mom stiffened, her fingers curling into the pages of the paperback she’d been reading. “Oh?” Her voice sounded as tense as her body. “I was hoping you’d be home tonight. I’ve had a horrible headache all day, and you know how my migraines get worse at night.”
I tried not to let my face show my doubt. “You’ve seemed to be doing well today.” I’d been home all day, deep cleaning the house and catching up on some work for my actual job. We’d had a good lunch together, with actual conversation that wasn’t about her many recent ailments.
Mom shoved a hand through her frizzy hair. For my entire life, she’d bleached the crap out of it, but her dark-brunette roots were starting to show through more than they ever had before. “I just haven’t said anything. I see the look on your face when I talk about the pain I’m in.”
Her words sent a shot of guilt through my chest. I thought I’d been covering for myself quite nicely. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel bad for her. It was just…exhausting, sometimes, constantly hearing about how wrong everything was. Mom was always good at that, letting the world know how awful she had it. It’s not that she didn’t have difficulties, but continuous negativity drained all the hope from everything.
When I was growing up, all I heard was how hard it was being a single mom. Every day.
I’d never known the man who was my father, and my mother acted like he never existed. She’d said he’d died a long time ago and wasn’t a good man so she never talked about him much.
“He might be your father, but he never deserved you,” she’d always say. “You were never his, Lark.”
But she never let me forget that I made her life difficult.
I hurried to the coat closet, feeling her gaze on me the whole way. As I shrugged on my coat, I pulled in a deep breath. “I’m sorry that you’re hurting, Mom. You already have your meds next to you. Is there anything else I can get you before I go?”
She pursed her lips, her expression hardening. “I didn’t know you were still friendly with that family.”
I frowned. “Raleigh invited me over for dinner, and I couldn’t say no.”
“Yes you could’ve.”
“Mom,” I said, my voice not as sharp as I intended it to be. “Please, stop. Since when do you have a problem with the Ramseys?”
It was her turn to shift in her chair. She looked down at the book sitting on her lap. I thought that she was going to ignore my question, but then she scoffed. “I’m not fond of people who run my only daughter out of town.”
My head jerked back, stunned. “What are you talking about?”
There were a lot of reasons I left Ember Hollow all those years ago, but the Ramseys weren’t even close to being on the list.
Mom’s jaw hardened. “No?” There was a pause, and the look in her eye made the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “If their daughter hadn’t gone and gotten herself killed, you never would’ve left me.”
My knees buckled, and I leaned against the closet door. It felt like she’d slapped me right across the face. “Is that how you feel?” I hissed, appalled.
All my mother did was shrug. And then, as if she hadn’t said the most horrendous thing I’d ever heard, she brought her book up, shielding her face from mine.
It was probably better that way. I didn’t want to look at her anymore either.
My ears rang as I straightened, steadying myself on my feet. I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly thick and dry.
I turned toward the door, but my feet didn’t move. I glanced back at my mother in her armchair. The woman I’d spent most of my life taking care of and cleaning after. The woman who had always leaned on me when she was too tired or too sick.
