Stone Cold Fox (94)
“Together?” I asked Mother. “And then what?”
“And then you’ll see how good it feels! To embrace the chaos, take risks, go wild. LIVE. And we’ll be back together again. You’re just like me, bunny. You can’t run away. We’re two of a kind. She’ll be like us, too.” Mother motioned to my belly, reaching out to touch it, but I stepped away to grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
“We don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy yet,” I said to her, before downing the entire thing. My thirst was unquenchable. A sign of my own nerves.
“It’s a girl,” Mother declared. There was no way for her to know, but I had a feeling she was right.
“I don’t want to leave Collin,” I said. “That’s the only reason I’m even entertaining this—”
“No, it isn’t,” she interrupted me. “You still want Mother’s stamp of approval, don’t you?”
“Mother, I don’t think I can do what you’re asking me to do. I’m not like—”
“Maybe you were right,” she interrupted me again, even faster, in a moment that felt honest, but also manipulative. The sweet spot in our performances for each other. “That other girl never felt like mine, but you? You’re mine. You’re all mine.”
That was all I ever wanted to hear from Mother. When she said things like that to me, I would always do whatever she asked. She knew that, too. That was just the kind of woman she was. A monster. My monster. My mother.
“Oh, we used to have fun,” Mother continued, laughing. “Don’t pretend like we didn’t. We were good-time girls and that familiar feeling never goes away, no matter how old we get. Despite what you may think, I know you will tire of this life. I wish you would just realize that and stop fighting it. You won’t be able to get out of this unscathed, you know. I don’t care what you two agreed on when you got married, but the house always wins, and the house of Case is very powerful. It’s intoxicating, isn’t it? The challenge it would be to take them on from the inside? We could do it together. I’ll even let you take the lead, since it’s your husband this time, but you have to let me in. We can take our time. Enjoy ourselves a little bit while we secure our treasure. You’ll have the baby. You’ll introduce me to the family. You’ll remember how to play. It’s our favorite game, bunny. The long game. Just like old times. You can even pick the ending. I know you’re softer than me, no one else has to die. But first things first, whether you like it or not.”
“Gale,” I said, hushed, sitting in the gravity of the situation at hand.
“And it has to be tonight.”
If it were any other time, before Collin, before Syl, before everything, I might have taken a bite of her apple, just to be closer to her, but now? I was repulsed by the thought. Letting her into the fold I had cultivated, allowing her to be a part of my child’s life, working with her to con the Cases, as if we could? I found it so preposterous that I was relieved. I had changed, I wasn’t like her and I made my life for me all on my own.
But Mother was absolutely right about Gale and it was torturing me. It was the only way to preserve the life I built. We had to do it. I had to do it, but I couldn’t. I could do a lot of things, I had done a lot of dark and terrible and awful things in the name of self-preservation, but murder? That wasn’t me after all.
Was it?
“What time?” I asked her, wanting to hear her plan as I made up my mind. If anyone could convince me, it was her, whether I wanted to or not.
“Wait until Collin comes home. Have a normal evening together. Ask him if everything’s all right. Make everything all right. And wait until he’s asleep. Should we say midnight? Behind her building, do not go inside. Wait for me and we’ll go together. Remember, it doesn’t get done unless we’re together. Understand?”
She would not let me off easy. She never did.
Mother got up to leave, heading for the back door. She was ready to slip away the same way she’d slipped inside. She issued her orders and I was to obey them, just like old times. And of course, she always got the last word.
But not this time.
“Wait,” I blurted out. She looked back at me with her pursed lips, still pretty and full and bright red. She was curious and amused at my defiance, throwing up her hands, awaiting what I would say next. “I want an apology. I deserve one.”
She went quiet for what felt like a full minute, stoic and still, weighing not what would be best for me, but for her. So rarely were they the same, but in this moment they happened to be in alignment. Mother’s eyes softened as they’d done in the past, only once in a great while, her sharp edges falling away. Her shoulders released, rolling down her back. She walked closer to me and slowly her arms reached out. I let her touch me; she gingerly placed her hands on either side of my waist, then she slid them to my stomach and finally up my body, brushing the hair along my face, sweeping it over my ears.
“You’re right,” she said. “You were just being a teenager and I took my anger out on you in an unacceptable way. I can admit that. But that man was just an empty threat, bunny. I would never hurt you or let somebody hurt you, you know that.” She said all of this wistfully, as if what happened in Las Vegas was an isolated incident, like my whole childhood with her as my mother wasn’t where it all went wrong for me. “And I’m so sorry,” she finally said. “I’m sorry, Bea.”