Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
“How are you even here?” Mom demanded. “For years, Diana wasn’t even talking to you.”
I got there before Dad did. “That’s not your business.”
“How is it not my business? I’m your mother!” Mom shouted.
“It’s not your business, because Dad and I had a thing after I got sexually assaulted in my dorm room.”
Gram gasped, then moaned, and finally reeled, throwing out a hand to catch the kitchen counter.
Big Petey got close to spot her.
Mom stared at me.
Dad moved nearer to me.
But as much as I felt for Gram, and it was a lot, I was in this too deep, so I was all about Mom.
“But I didn’t even tell you about it, Mom, because you’re so goddamned fragile, I knew you couldn’t handle it,” I went on. “Except I realized the truth recently. I didn’t tell you about my assault because I knew deep down inside somehow, you’d twist it, and you’d make it about you.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Mom whispered.
“I know it is. I even feel it is, because it’s true,” I returned.
“Diana,” Gram choked.
I looked to my grandmother, and the expression on her face wrecked me.
“I’m okay, Gram. It was ten years ago. I’m good,” I promised.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
And…yeah.
I didn’t tell her and Gramps either, because Gramps wouldn’t have been able to handle it (he was super protective of all his girls, a boon (for me), what would become a burden (because…Mom)) and Gram would have told Mom.
“Because you would tell Mom, and I couldn’t handle dealing with what had happened and dealing with her too.” Tears filled her eyes, so I said softly, “I’m sorry.”
“That’s why you quit school,” she surmised.
“Part of it, yes.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me, doll. It was me and your grandfather who let you down,” Gram said.
“No, you didn’t. You let me move in with you.”
“We could have done more.”
“There wasn’t more,” I told her. “You did what I needed.”
“Well isn’t this marvelous?” Mom cut in sarcastically. “Everyone is all good and cozy, except you all are angry at me when I didn’t even know what was happening.”
“Maggie, your daughter just shared—” Gram began.
“Save it, Mom!” my mother screeched.
“Do not talk to her that way,” I warned.
“Speaking like that to your own mother,” she bit at me, like she hadn’t just screeched at hers.
Seriously.
I’d had enough.
“Are you actually my mother?” I asked.
It was a low blow, and it landed.
Mom let out a noise like she’d been gut punched.
Gram flinched.
Dad whispered, “Diana.”
But Hugger?
Hugger grinned at me.
And Pete?
He winked.
“I see how it is,” Mom said, her voice mortally wounded.
But no.
Oh no.
She wasn’t the victim here.
“In essence, you took my father from me,” I said with deceptive quiet. “You lied to me and made me believe things that weren’t true about my own father. You drove a wedge between us when he loved me, he provided for me, he was there for me. But your lie was always between us. He knew it, and he sacrificed what we could have had to give me you.”
Gram made a sobbing sound.
Mom stared at me.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you for that,” I stated honestly. “What I do know is you coming to my home, speaking like you did to me, Harlan, Pete, Dad, Gram, is not the way to guide me to that.”
“I suppose you can go to Nicole, who’s always been there for you, and cry on her shoulder,” Mom returned.
“I know I can, because you’re right, she’s always been there for me,” I replied.
Gram made another weeping noise.
Mom turned to Gram. “I want to go back to the Biltmore. I need to rest and process all of this before I go to my spa appointments.”
Good God.
“Do you hear yourself, Margaret?” Gram asked, clearly so shocked by her daughter’s statement, it shocked the tears right out of her eyes.
Which was not shocking because Mom was a huge-ass brat. And not the good kind.
“I think I’ve been treated abysmally, so you can’t be surprised I need some time to—”
“For goodness’ sakes, stop talking,” Gram sighed. “And order up one of those Ubers. I’m not taking you back to the Biltmore.”
“Mom!” my mother snapped.
“Loved you to bits, did you wrong,” Gram muttered.
“Mother!” Mom shouted.
“I’m shattered, Maggie,” Gram whispered. “You might not have been here for all that just happened, choosing, as ever, to live in the fantasy world in that head of yours, but I was. Order a damned Uber.”
“I’ll call for one,” Dad offered.
“I don’t want anything from you,” Mom snapped at him.
“Fine,” Dad murmured.
“So this is it?” Mom asked me.
“That’s up to you,” I said.
“Well, I certainly won’t come all the way down from Idaho to be treated like this again,” Mom warned.
“I think all that needed to be said was said,” I stated. “It’s up to you to apologize and—”