The Reckless Oath We Made(37)

Me and my big mouth. Of course, she wasn’t going to get rid of anything. It was all going back in the house.

“Fine, but it needs to go inside. Can we do that without looking at every single thing?”

“There’s no need to get snippy with me,” Mom said. “You’re welcome to go and do whatever you like. I’ll have this all cleaned up by the time you get back.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, because Mom was delusional. It was going to take weeks to deal with what the cops had done.

She put something else into the cardboard box that Gentry had been holding. The bottom was about to give out, and she’d jammed it full of a bunch of random crap including those chipped and stained Snowbabies. The whole thing was so pathetic, I couldn’t stand to watch.

“Oh, here are LaReigne’s baby dishes. Look at how cute they are. It’s the whole set: a plate, a bowl, and the little cup.”

“Mom, I can’t spend all day at this. I need to pick Marcus up from school and find a place for us to stay tonight.”

“Well, you can stay here now.”

“We can’t stay here,” I said.

“Why in the world not? You can sleep in your old bedroom and Marcus can sleep in LaReigne’s room. There’s plenty of space.”

“Just because the police emptied those rooms doesn’t mean we can stay in them. The mouse shit in my room is ankle deep.”

“Well, whose fault is that? You were always leaving food in your room,” Mom said.

“Oh my god. How is it my fault? I haven’t lived here in ten years. I had to leave home, because I couldn’t get to my bed. I was sixteen years old and you buried my bed under all your fucking crap.”

“Don’t you swear at me! You’re responsible for the condition of this house, too. You never help—”

“You won’t even let me take the trash out without checking it, because you think I’m throwing away your treasures!” I hated myself for getting sucked into the same old argument. I knew better.

“You’re always breaking things,” Mom said. “You’re as bad as the police. You’re just a big hoyden, always stomping around and breaking things. You broke that whole box of good crystal, and that can’t be—”

“I was twelve! And you had it stacked on the edge of the fucking bathtub! I was trying to take a bath, and I accidentally knocked it off, which I wouldn’t have done if you hadn’t set a fucking box of fucking dishes on the edge of the fucking bathtub. I cut my foot open, and you’re still blaming me for—”

“Because you don’t have any respect for anything!”

“For this shit?” I grabbed the nearest thing: the box of figurines Gentry was holding. “I don’t respect this because it’s shit. And you care more about this than you do about your family. You’d rather pile this shit up than have Marcus come stay with you. So fuck all of this shit.”

I dumped the box on the sidewalk, but that wasn’t enough, so I stomped on it, too. Right while I was in the middle of trying to annihilate all those little Snowbabies, I realized it was the wrong box. It wasn’t the box of chipped thrift-store figurines. It was Mom’s treasures. The champagne glass Dad won for her. The little animals she’d inherited from her mother. LaReigne’s baby dishes. I bent over, meaning to salvage something, but Mom laid into me. Slapped my head, pulled my hair, the whole time screaming. I didn’t even put up my hands to defend myself, because I deserved it.

Gentry stepped in between us, which I hated for him to do. I honestly would rather have taken my beating than have Mom smack him. From where I was bent over, I heard the sound of her open palm on his back and shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Please stop. I’m sorry.”

“You hateful, selfish girl! All you care about is yourself.”

At least she wore herself out pretty fast. She stopped hitting Gentry, and trying to hit me, because she couldn’t catch her breath. For a minute or so, I stayed where I was, crouched down with Gentry bent over me protectively. When he straightened up, I stood up and tried to apologize again.

“I didn’t mean to, Mom. I thought that box was something else.”

“Get away from me. I don’t want you here.” She was rocking back and forth, taking big shaky breaths, and then in this soft voice, she said, “I want LaReigne.”

I wanted LaReigne, too. I wanted the LaReigne who had held my hand when I was eight years old. The LaReigne who could make Mom listen to her. I wanted her to come and help me figure out what to do, and that wasn’t going to happen. LaReigne wasn’t going to come save me. Maybe I was going to have to go save her.

“You don’t want to be here, and now you don’t ever have to come here again,” Mom said.

It was true that I didn’t want to be there, and I wished the other part was true, too.

Gentry stood between my mother and me, scratching the back of his neck. I could tell he was upset, but after a minute, he put his hands down and said, “Thy nephew, my lady?”

If it hadn’t been for Gentry, I don’t know what I would have done, because I staggered toward the street kind of in shock, and followed him to his truck.

“I’m sorry about my mother hitting you. I’m sorry about all of this. You probably need to sleep before you go to work,” I said, as Gentry opened the passenger door for me.