Lovegame(99)

Not often, but then, that’s how I’ve always liked it. How we’ve both liked it. It helps us maintain the illusion of closeness without actually being close.

“Are you all right, darling?” she asks, pausing as she opens the refrigerator and looking back at me. “You look…peaked.”

My acting must be worse than I thought if she got that while her back was turned, or she’s feeling a lot more sensitive than usual. I really hope it’s the former, because I can control that. If she’s having one of her rare “I’m-interested-in-your-life” days, then there’s no way I’m going to be able to do this today. Not when my stomach is still roiling from picking around in the past yesterday.

And from trying to explain the inexplicable to Ian.

When he’d calmed down—and it had taken a while—he’d demanded to know why I still had anything to do with her. Why I would throw her a birthday party and cater to her whims when what I should do is throw her out of this house and my life.

I didn’t really have a reasonable answer to give him…and all these hours later, I still don’t. All I have is the truth. She’s my mother.

Yes, when I was young, she did some really terrible things to me. Unforgivable things. But she was sick then, not really in touch with reality. Or at least, that’s what my father told me when he had her taken away. Institutionalized.

He told me the same thing again when he let her come home nearly nine months later. That she’d been clinically depressed to the point of delusion and wasn’t responsible for what she’d done.

It took me months, years even, but I finally managed to accept that he was right. After all, when people are physically sick, we don’t blame them for how the disease ravages their bodies. So how could I blame her when she’d spent close to a year in a mental hospital trying to get well? Just because we couldn’t see the disease, didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

I figured, with what he knew—with what he did for a living—Ian would be the last person I had to explain that to.

“Sit down, darling,” my mother said as she carried the fruit salad to the table. “I’ve got this.”

“I can help.” I go to the oven, take out the platter of waffles and bacon she has warming in there. “It’s your birthday.”

“You really are the sweetest thing.” She pats my cheek before grabbing the carafe of juice off the counter. “Would you like coffee?”

“?‘Like’ is too mild a word for how I feel about coffee this morning.”

She laughs. “I figured. That’s why I made a whole pot, just for you.”

“Aren’t you having any?”

“I think I’m going to stick with tea,” she says, holding up the small Limoges teapot she’d been using since I was a child. “Trying to flush out some of the alcohol from the last couple of nights; I went out to celebrate with some friends last night and the four of us went through three bottles of champagne. It was fun, but two nights in a row is a little much for me, I think.”

“It’s a little much for anyone who isn’t twenty-one,” I tell her as I settle at the table. I try not to think about the fact that, just a few days ago, Ian was f*cking me right here. “You know, maybe I’ll have tea, too.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! You’re still young. You can afford to indulge in a couple cups of coffee. It’s old women like me who need to be careful.”

At that, my brows hit my hairline. Never in my entire life have I ever heard my mother refer to herself as old. In fact, from the time I turned sixteen, she’s talked about the fact that we look more like sisters than mother and daughter.

My expression must give me away because she rolls her eyes at me, something else she never would have done even a few months ago as she’s convinced it causes wrinkles. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’ll be back to normal tomorrow. I guess I’m just feeling my age today.”

“Fifty isn’t old,” I tell her, tongue firmly in cheek.

“And it never will be,” she agrees with a laugh.

We spend the first half of breakfast rehashing the party, as we always do. My mom loves to gossip over who was wearing what and who is sleeping with whom. I’m exhausted, but I try to keep up as my mom chatters on and on. Better to suffer through and get it all out now, than have to talk about everything again later. Still, the longer she prattles on, the harder it is to keep my eyes open.

I pour myself a third cup of coffee, hoping it will help. I take a long sip, doing my best to look attentive, but she must notice because she stops mid-description of Cassidy Barber’s dress. “I’m sorry.” She puts her hand over mine. “Am I boring you, love?”

I smother a yawn. “No, not at all. I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”

And just like that, her eyes sharpen. “Were you with that writer?” she asks. “Ian Sharpe?”

I’m tired enough that I don’t think before admitting, “I was, yes.”

I expect her to be overjoyed—the lead actress hooking up with the esteemed writer weeks before the movie drops and Oscar noms come out? It’s a match made in publicity heaven. But she just sighs and looks concerned.

“Oh, darling. Are you sure that’s wise?”