I reach out to take the hand hanging at her side, giving it a squeeze. “Thank you.”
When I walk through the double doors, back into the hospital, I can feel the weight of their eyes on me. I take it into myself, fortifying these bones that hold my shoulders straight, because Ms. Crane is right.
My mother didn’t make me.
She didn’t break me, either.
Looking back, I see a lot of things how they actually were. The way my mom was with Daniel, her letting me leave, not trying to find me, being surprised when I returned, but not happy. Not sad. Not angry. I think back to that Thanksgiving where she left me in the diner, disappearing into a truck for a quick holiday trick. “They pay extra on days like these,” is what she said after, mussed and unaffected. I realize now that my mom’s always been exceptionally good at bartering with people's loneliness. And that’s exactly what she gave me, with long nights spent alone in hotel bathrooms. Holidays at truck stops, watching happy families on fuzzy TVs. Mornings spent fending for myself while she slept off another rough John. My mother, through years of carefully balanced affection and neglect, created such a loneliness inside me.
And then she exploited it.
I see that now, as I stand in the door to her hospital room. Her hair is ratty and limp, skin sallow, lips dry and tense—a far cry from the sleek, elegant woman I’m used to being awed by. She’s cuffed to the bed, which has a uniformed officer parked in the chair beside it. The room is meant for two patients, but the other side is vacant. A television in the corner is running an old soap opera that the officer is paying more attention to than my mom.
I gather up the steel in my bones and clear my throat, getting their attention. “Officer Maddox?” I ask, clutching my bag close. “I’m Story. Story Austin. Killian spoke to you earlier?”
His shrewd eyes sweep over me, losing some of the glazed boredom as he stands. “Five minutes,” he says, adjusting his belt. I step inside as he leaves, relieved that Killian has this sort of pull now. All it took was one phone call to secure me an unsupervised visit with my mother.
Her laugh makes my gaze whip to hers. “You’re hot shit now, aren’t you? The King’s little concubine.” The smile she gives me is bitter enough to choke me. “I never knew you were so easily bought.”
I place my bag on the chair the officer just vacated, remaining standing. “Why not?” I ask, holding her stare. “You were.” I spent all morning anxious about this, worried this would be difficult. Looking her in the eye. Facing her down. Reconciling my sweet, misguided mother with the ruthless cruelty of Ted. The reality is a lot more simple than I’m expecting.
She looks frayed and tattered, her glare as toxic as her heart. “So this is how you repay your mother?” She yanks at the cuff binding her to the bed, metal rattling. “After all, I’ve done for you?”
I look at her bound wrist, fighting the urge to touch the cuff covering my own. “You forced me into a family with a man who wanted to sell me. You terrorized me for years. You watched me cower and subject myself to cruelty, all because of a fear you caused.” I meet her gaze, voice hardening. “I’d say you got off light.”
She looks up at me, her expression filling with an acrid-edged wonder. “What have they done to you?”
I shrug, walking nonchalantly to the end of the bed. “Nothing you didn’t know about and willingly let happen.” Her leg is elevated, and all wrapped up. Curious about the damage, I pick up her chart and start flipping through. “I suppose I see now how you knew so much. Access to Daniel’s security gave you access to ours. I’d be disappointed in myself for not seeing it sooner, except you were such a non-factor to me.” I slide her a look. “It must have been so easy.”
She erupts with an indignant, “Easy?!”
“Well, it’s just that I had this idea of Ted.” My eyes skim over the writing, but it’s all gibberish to me. Vitals, medical history, pain medication, all signed off by a doctor who bears the sloppy initials ‘RM’。 I put the clipboard back on the hook. “Like he was some unbeatable, omnipotent mastermind. That’s how it felt, you know. Like I was truly helpless.” I turn to her, feigning casualness. “But it turns out everything just fell into your lap.”
I didn’t get into trouble much as a child. There was the usual stuff, of course. Being too messy. Being too loud. I stole a candy bar once, which up until high school had been my greatest crime. But whenever she was angry at me, she threw it around, unable or unwilling to hold in her frustration, even for the sake of a confused little girl.