The Familiar Dark(38)

I didn’t have to see her to hear the smirk in her voice. “That Izzy Logan’s daddy. Walked out of here like he was half drunk. And not on alcohol.” She gave a guttural laugh. “Let me guess, he was looking for a certain kind of comfort.” She let her voice linger on the word, making it sound dirty and disgusting. And to most of the world that’s what it would be. A married man and his baby mama, hooking up in her crappy apartment while his grieving wife sat at home alone. But there was so much more to the story. It had never been about the sex. It had been about Junie. And this morning Zach was back where he belonged.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I muttered. When I poured coffee into my mug, it slopped over, scalding my fingers. “Ow, shit.” I flapped my hand. “What were you doing here last night anyway?” Hoping to deflect her attention, already knowing it was a losing battle. When she latched on to something, sensed a weakness, she was worse than a dog with a bone.

“Came to see you. But changed my mind when I saw Logan doing the walk of shame.” She got up and wet a paper towel in the sink, held out her hand for mine and wrapped my fingers in the cool cloth. I used my free hand to point at the oval scar on the back of my hand, below the edge of the paper towel. “Remember that?” I asked her.

She nodded. “Yep. You had it coming.” No remorse, no give. I’d been seven and whining for dinner, not shutting up even when she’d warned me. Cal must not have been home; otherwise he would have stopped me, pulled me away before things went bad. But he hadn’t been there, and Mama’d grabbed the white-hot spoon she’d been using to melt meth and held it to the back of my hand. It was the one constant of my childhood. A refrain as familiar as my own name. You had it coming. Four easy words that excused every variation of sin. Thanks to Louise, I knew more about my mama’s past now, but it didn’t do a single thing to change our present. Even if I wanted a different relationship between us, even if I tried, she never would, because she saw absolutely nothing wrong with everything that had come before.

I started to pull my hand away, and she tightened her grip. “Logan is Junie’s daddy, isn’t he?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

She tsked at me under her breath. “I’m not gonna tell no one, if that’s what you’re worried about. I can keep my mouth shut with the best of ’em.”

My shoulders slumped, and I leaned back against the counter, all the fight, all the denial, gone out of me. “How’d you know?” Someone finally figuring it out, after all this time, didn’t feel like the relief I’d thought it might.

My mama shrugged, let go of my hand. “A feeling I got when I saw the two of you at the press conference. The way he looked at you.”

I shook my head. “He doesn’t look at me any sort of way.”

“Yeah, he does. Man’s got a soft spot for you. I could see it clear as day. Then something about the way he swung his arms when he walked. Reminded me of Junie.” She shrugged again. “Put two and two together, that’s all.”

See? That’s what I mean about never underestimating my mama. Doesn’t matter how many drugs she does or how worthless she appears to be. She’s always watching. Calculating. Filing things away. She always has exactly the right ammunition at exactly the right moment. And before you know what’s happening, you wind up ambushed and gut-shot, my mama standing over you, triumphant.

“Well, at least I know who Junie’s father actually is,” I told her. “Gives me a leg up on you.”

My mama blew air out from between pursed lips. “Doesn’t matter who he was. I don’t care. He was only a sperm donor anyway.” Typical Mama. Trying to shame her always backfired because it was an emotion she couldn’t feel. As a kid, I’d tried every which way to get her to tell me about my father. I even tried crying once, always a dangerous tactic with Mama, more likely to get you smacked than comforted. I told her kids at school were making fun of me. She’d pinched me hard enough to break skin, told me to shut my lying mouth before she shut it for me. Said she knew none of those kids gave two shits about who my daddy was because most of them didn’t have a daddy, either. For a long time, I’d nurtured the thought she was hiding some big, dark secret. Like maybe my daddy was famous and she’d been sworn to secrecy. But eventually I’d wised up and realized Mama was telling the truth. She had no idea who he was, probably couldn’t even pick him out of a lineup.

“You still haven’t said why you were here last night,” I reminded her. “What you needed to talk to me about.”

She flapped her hand like whatever it was barely mattered. “Was gonna tell you to go talk to Marion.” She poured the remains of her coffee into the sink. “But make sure you’ve got some time to kill. That woman ain’t never told a story she can’t manage to drag out half the day.”

I cocked my head. I saw Marion whenever I went into the Bait & Tackle, but I couldn’t imagine what in particular she’d want to discuss with me. “Talk to Marion about what?”

“That guy Izzy’d been fooling around with.”

“Wait, what . . .” I felt about ten steps behind. “How’d you know about that?”

My mama smiled, showed off her yellow teeth. “Same way I know about everything, Eve. I pay attention.”