Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77793 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
She’s got a full face of makeup on even though it’s five in the morning, and she blinks long, false eyelashes at me and purses her pink lips. “The address on the letters. You do put a return address on, dear.”
There’s a lump in my throat that is turning into the size of a small house. “You haven’t called or texted me in over seven years,” I grind out. I’m being unfriendly and churlish, but so what. Did I mention that it’s been seven years since I saw my mother, and in that time, she’s sent nothing but a few postcards to tell me she’s still alive? She never answered any of the letters I sent her. Not. One.
She looks genuinely confused. “Well, that’s what the postcards are for.”
I’m not playing this game. I’m not giving her an inch because I know my mom is the kind of person who people like to say will take a mile, and it’s one more mile than I can afford. If we’re talking about fucks here, I’m supposed to be fresh out of them, not that I’ve ever thought that saying makes any sense.
I can feel my eyeball twitching. It’s not one of those I haven’t had my morning coffee eyeball twitches, but coffee would have helped. I could invite my mom in to have a cup, or I could also tell her to pound sand. I mean, pavement since I don’t live on a beach. She used to, though, and if she’s here, it means she doesn’t anymore.
“What happened to Jim? Or was it Rob? Or Steve?”
My mom’s lips pucker like she’s thinking, and then it’s like the lights come on in her head. “Oh! You mean Herbert,” she says in a high-pitched sing-song voice which quickly goes flat. “That’s over. Never get involved with a man who could be a plant.”
“A plant?”
“Herb?” She gives me a look that says I’m being super dense, and she expected more from her long-lost daughter after seven years, at five in the morning.
Is this even real? I’m still not convinced this isn’t a product of my imagination. Maybe I had sex so hard last night that it’s making me see things. Maybe too many orgasms can put one into a state where one sees one’s absent mother, and she’s snarky and sassy and rolling her eyes.
Nope. This is real.
I do what I do with people who annoy me, and I imagine my mom cloaked in a big pickle suit. Then, I imagine she smells like vinegar and garlic. That keeps me calm. It’s a weird thing to do, but it works.
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a person’s name,” I force out. Pickle. She’s a big pickle with pickle warts. “That’s not the point. The point is, you can’t just show up here.” She’s a pickle. She can’t hurt you. “I have a life. A life that, um, you’re not a part of because you chose to leave it and have one of your own. I can’t just up and leave my life because my life is stable, and I have responsibilities. It would be an incredibly shitty thing to do.” Pickles can hurt you if you choke on them. They can probably kill you. They can back up the plumbing in a house if flushed down whole and can cause major problems. If you got pickle juice in your eye, it would sting like a real bitch or even blind you. Pickles. Are. Not. All. That. Harmless.
Fuck. I think I just ruined my own pickle strategy.
I also feel guilty AF about what I just said. Isn’t that what I was going to do? Just up and leave and go back to San Diego with Orion and then, well, go wherever? Wasn’t that what I was going to try and do? Make it work? I can’t stand here and be angry with my mom for leaving to go travel the world with some guy, or a bunch of guys, or whatever when I was going to leave for the very same reason. Yes, there might be some sweet hacking perks, but they would just be that. Perks. I married Orion the first night I met him. At least my mom never did that.
That I know of.
My mom senses my moment of weakness and uses it to her advantage. Her face softens, and she tries a different tactic. “Invite your mom in for a cup of coffee, and let us catch up. I’ve missed you, Sarah Bear.”
I haven’t heard anyone call me Sarah in ages. It feels weird, and it’s like my mom is talking to another person, but that’s how I signed all my letters, and that’s the name I wrote on the return address. Echo is legally my name now, but I’m keeping that one close for a while.