Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“I’ll leave you two alone,” the doctor says and walks off as I stand go give my mom a hug.
She feels bony and thin. It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other—she disappeared from the house about six months ago and called maybe twice in all that time before getting arrested and ending up here. She looks older, rougher, more beat up, and I wonder what she’s been doing with herself and decide I really don’t want to know.
That’s how it always is with my mom—she has an entire life without me, an entire world filled with pain that I’ll never know or understand, and I don’t want to see it. My mom is still my mom, even if she has a disease that takes her from me.
“Sweetie,” she says, and I feel all the love I’ve been missing from my life come flowing out of her in that one word. Mom’s an addict and a junkie and a mess, but she has always loved me in her own way. I never questioned that even when she was at her lowest. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I missed you too, Mom. Are they treating you okay here?”
“I’m fine, sweetie, I’m fine. I’m more worried about you.” She laughs and steers me to sit down at the table again. I blink tears from my eyes and Mom brushes my hair back from my face. “I know living with those sharks hasn’t been easy on you. I keep saying you need to move out.”
“I can’t, and I don’t want to fight about this again,” I say and try not to let myself get annoyed. We’ve had this discussion a thousand times: I’m stuck living at the main house so long as Grandfather controls all my finances, and I don’t see him relinquishing my trust anytime soon. It was structured such that I’d control it myself when I turned thirty, and not a second before, and that’s unique in the family—everyone else got theirs at eighteen. But I can thank my mother for my situation. Grandfather said it was for my own good and a way to keep Mom from getting her hands on what’s mine. I suspect it’s more of a way to control me too, but I never say that out loud.
“You’re right, you’re right, I don’t want to fight either. So, tell me everything that’s been going on in your life since I last saw you. How long has it been? Three months?”
“Six,” I say gently and try not to let it hurt my heart when her face shows nothing. Her sense of time is always a mess when she’s deep in the junk and she probably doesn’t remember half the time she’s been gone. “But life’s been good,” I say and push myself forward. I talk about my friends and work, and I can feel the Ford subject beginning to bubble up inside of me, since that’s really the only thing I want to talk about these days. Before I can stop myself, I blurt out, “And recently Grandfather’s been trying to find a husband for me but I think I’m going to marry Ford Arc instead.”
Mom’s jaw drops open and she doesn’t say anything for several long moments as that statement sinks in. I’m not sure she knows who Ford is but she definitely knows that last name. I shift uncomfortably as I wait for her reaction, and I could’ve probably been a little more diplomatic about that revelation, but this felt like the sort of thing that needed to be ripped out of me like tearing a band-aid off a hairy arm. I got it over with and now it’s out there, and Mom’s looking at me like she thinks I might be joking. I don’t want to have to tell her it’s very serious.
But slowly, she says, “Why’s my father trying to find a husband for you?”
I clear my throat. “I just told you I might marry Ford Arc and that’s what you ask?”
She shrugs. “I’m taking it one thing at a time. That’s what the therapists keep telling me in here, one day at a time. See, sweetie, I’m learning.”
“Grandfather thinks I’ve been single and useless for long enough.” Mom scowls and shakes her head. I say quickly, “He didn’t approach it that way, but you know how he is.”
“Typical of my father. If you’re not doing something to glorify the all-powerful and almighty Stockton family, you’re worthless. There’s no intrinsic importance to anyone, only whatever we bring to the country club. It’s nice to hear he hasn’t changed, except it’s also not.”
“He hasn’t and that means I need to keep him happy if I’m going to have him pay for all your bills.” I regret it as soon as the words are out. Mom grimaces like I’ve kicked her in the stomach, and she looks away toward the pools. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry, Mom, it’s not like that, it’s only—”