Maybe Matt's Miracle(41)

She lays her head back against the seat and tilts toward me. “I’m glad you came,” she says quietly. “Surprised, but glad.” She smiles.

I’m immediately jarred because there’s no malice or artifice. And instead of looking at my clothes, my makeup, or my hair, she’s looking at my face. I purposefully didn’t dress up today because I wanted to give her plenty to pick on, with the hopes she would leave my kids alone.

“Why are you surprised?” I ask.

She shrugs. “If I were you, I wouldn’t have come.” She looks into my eyes, and my heart leaps into my chest, and then it gathers in my throat. I have to swallow hard to move past it.

My mother’s feet are bare, and I see fuzzy slippers lying beneath her on the pavers. They have Oscar the Grouch on them, and my mind is blown. “Nice slippers,” I say.

Mom smiles. “Your dad brought me those.” She snorts. I have never heard any such noise come from my perfect mother’s nose. “They’re kind of fitting for the situation.”

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She puts her feet down, sliding them into those crazy slippers she normally wouldn’t be caught dead wearing, and runs her hands up and down her arms. “I’m better today. The first week was kind of hard. A lot of puking my guts out and even more time spent wishing I could.”

My mom just said the word puke.

She narrows her eyes at me. “What’s on your mind, Sky?”

I shake my head. “Nothing.” If I could verbalize it, I still wouldn’t. She’s been fragile my whole life, and just because she doesn’t seem fragile right this second doesn’t mean she’s not.

“Your dad comes by every day,” she says quietly.

“He told me.”

“Glad you two are talking,” she says quietly. She’s looking at me, really looking at me, and it makes me a little restless.

“Why did you want to see me?” I ask. I heave a sigh. I feel like all the air has been sucked out of me.

“I’m supposed to make amends to all the people I have wronged,” she says with a shrug. She reaches over and picks up a pack of cigarettes. She shakes one free and lights it. My jaw falls open. I can’t help it.

“When did you start smoking?” I ask.

She smiles and lays her head back in that lazy way again. “You can’t take all my bitterness, betrayal, and hatred, and my alcohol and drugs from me and leave me with nothing,” she says with a laugh. But there’s no mirth in the noise. “I’ll quit. I just need to get through this.”

I nod because she may as well have slapped me.

“Your dad told me that he had a talk with you,” she says. She blows out a long puff of smoke that seems to go on forever. “He told you about our history.”

I nod. “He told me about the baby and Kendra’s mother.”

She doesn’t say anything. She just smokes, letting the cigarette dangle from her lips for a second with one eye closed.

“He said you told him to go to hell, pretty much,” she says. She smiles. It’s cheeky and so beautiful.

A grin tugs at my lips. “I didn’t say that in so many words.”

“You told him that his choices affected the way you look at life. Men, in particular. Or did he get that wrong?”

“He got it right.” I nod.

“Your dad wasn’t alone in that. I am just as much to blame, if not more so.” She shrugs, and a sad smile crosses her lips. “I was a terrible mother, too deeply mired in my own addictions and my own problems to parent you.”

“I don’t need apologies.”

“Too bad,” she bites out. “You’re going to get them.” She leans over and smudges out her cigarette. Then she touches my knee. “I’m sorry I didn’t do better. I always said I would when I could, but I never got to that point. I’m sorry.” Her eyes flit around, and then they land on me. “I kept telling myself that tomorrow I would change. But tomorrow never came.” She blinks back tears. I have never seen emotion on my mom’s face before. She’s usually a vacant shell.

“What do you want me to say?”

She shakes her head. “There’s no right thing or wrong thing to say. You can tell me how you feel. You can tell me to go to hell. Do what’s right for you because I never did.” She points a finger at me. “You’re responsible for your happiness and taking care of your heart. Only you. Other people contribute to your happiness, certainly, but you can’t wait for anyone to make you happy, Sky. Nobody is going to do that for you.”

She leans back again and draws her feet up.

“Now tell me how you feel,” she says. “Don’t hold back.”

I take a deep breath, and I open my mouth to tell her that I would never be so cruel. But what tumbles of my lips is something else entirely.

“I feel like I don’t even have parents,” I say. “You and Dad were never around, and when you were, you weren’t. My nannies took me to dance recitals, and the household staff taught me to drive. And every time I got close enough to one of them to think they might love me, you fired them. It was cruel and harsh punishment.” I lay a hand on my chest because it’s suddenly aching. “I never did anything to either of you, except exist. I was quiet when you had a headache, when you were so hungover that you couldn’t get out of bed. I was a perfect student. I was a drama-less teenager. I did everything just to make you like me. But you never did.”