Burn Our Bodies Down(51)

That’s our car. That’s Mom. A laugh spills out of me, giddy and terrified all at once. I called her, and she actually came. I can’t believe it.

I run out to the front porch in time to see our gray station wagon, battered and covered in dirt, turn in to the driveway and screech to a stop. After a moment, it lurches forward again, but only a few yards before Mom must hit the brake.

I feel a reaching in my chest, and the acid of spite. Come on, I think. I’m right here. You have to come after me this time.

For a long moment it’s just us, just her and me and the space between. All I can hear is the sound of my breathing, of my heartbeat. And then the careful footsteps behind me, the swing and slam of the screen door as Gram comes out of the house.

“Who is that?” she asks me.

I don’t look away from the car. Don’t look away for a second, because if I do she could disappear. If I do she could turn and run, just like she always does.

“It’s Mom,” I say over my shoulder, and I can hear Gram’s sharp little breath.

I can’t see Mom through the windshield, not with her this far away, but I just know she’s looking at me like I’m looking at her. I know she’s hating that I got her here. I made her do it. Finally, finally, I got myself in her line of sight.

But there’s one more thing, one more thing standing between me and winning this fight. She has to get out of the car.

Another moment, another beat of stillness.

“Maybe you should go inside,” Gram says behind me. “I’ll talk to her.”

No way. I’m not surrendering now. If I go inside, she wins. If I move first, she wins. She has to want me enough to do this herself.

“Nobody but you and me,” I say under my breath. “Come on, Mom.”

It’s stretching too long. The urge beating in my chest to just give up, to just go back to her, but I set my shoulders, bite my lip so hard I taste blood, and sit down on the porch, my movements exaggerated so she can see. I won’t do it. This one’s on my terms, not hers.

That must be what does it. I can’t be sure, but it’s barely a minute later—the click as the door opens, sound carrying down the dusty flat of the driveway. The stretch of her legs, and the shape of her against the sun, so familiar it hurts.

I have to grip the edge of the porch to keep myself from standing up. That is not enough. She has to come farther. I’m not asking for much here. I never am. Just one step, Mom. Just one step.

She takes it. That’s all I need before I’m on my feet and heading for her. So quickly it’s embarrassing, but I missed her. She’s my mom, and I missed her.

The distance between us is long and maybe she felt it like I did, maybe she wants us close again too, but by the time I’m a few feet away from her, any proof of that is gone from her face. Just Mom as she always is, a statue an inch from falling apart.

The sight of it pinches my chest. Her familiar smell, like honey and salt. She looks like home, and I wonder what she sees when she looks at me. If I look like Fairhaven. If that makes her want me less.

“Hi,” I say. And then: “You got a haircut.”

“Dead ends,” Mom says. Not a hitch in her voice. Not a flicker, not a fight. Just like Gram. “Needed a trim.”

I don’t think she means it to hurt me. So many times she does, and I know what that sounds like. And this time she doesn’t, but she hurts me just the same. Because I remember it, I remember, good days and cold evenings, the fall snapping in quick, and Mom sitting me down in the bathroom, her scissors careful and cool against my neck as she snipped the split ends from my hair. Just like she taught me to do for her.

Her weight shifting from foot to foot, her eyes darting over my shoulder, to the house, to Gram back on the porch. She couldn’t look more uncomfortable if she tried. I almost feel bad for her—the space in my chest is there, but the pity never fills it.

“I looked for you,” she says at last. “In Calhoun.”

Does she expect me to reward her for that? For doing the bare minimum?

“Okay,” I say. “So?”

Mom folds her arms across her chest, meets my eyes for half a second before looking away again. “So you shouldn’t have left.”

“It was about time I did,” I say. A mistake, I think as she straightens, draws herself up tall. I should have stayed soft. But I’m here now. I might as well commit. “Was I supposed to just wait for you to start caring?”

“That’s it?” Mom’s knuckles are white, her fists clenched. “That’s what you have to say for yourself?”

I know what she wants. An apology for leaving, for not waiting, and all the groveling that goes with it—but like hell I’m gonna give that to her. She doesn’t deserve that from me.

“I asked you about my family,” I say. We both know I mean so much more than that last fight, in front of the pay phone in broad daylight. “But you never told me. So I found someone who would.”

“Well, you seem to have figured it out.” Mom looks up at Fairhaven, lets out a bitter laugh. “I thought when you called me maybe you were ready to apologize, but—”

“For what?” I say. I can feel it starting to throttle me, that anger I can’t ever seem to shake in moments like this. It would be so much easier if I just let her win, but I’m the only person in the world fighting for me. If I don’t do it, nobody will. “I’m not sorry at all. I got what I needed.” Never mind that it doesn’t feel at all how I wanted it to.