She jiggles Connor, though he isn’t fussing. “What? What’s going on?”
“You want to get a milkshake or something? Or whatever. I could take you out.”
Angel shrugs, noncommittal. “I should get home. I promised my dad I’d help him today.”
Marissa shifts her weight uncertainly, wipes her palms on her pants. She nudges her chin at Connor. “How’s he doing? Can I hold him?”
“Not sure if he’ll go to you. He’s been weird about strangers lately.”
Marissa looks so hurt that Angel relents. “Sure, here.” She passes him over, and Marissa clutches him to her. Connor, the little turncoat, beams radiantly. Marissa’s face lights up, her mouth rounding to mirror his.
“How’s your grandmother? She doing okay?”
“My grandmother?” What about me? Angel wants to ask. What about how I’m doing? “She’s fine.”
“I just thought she seemed strange at the Open House. Tired. I don’t know. Just, remember when Gramma Lola—”
“Of course she’s tired. We’re all tired. There’s a little baby waking us up every five minutes.”
“Listen.” Marissa’s voice cracks a little. “What I came to say. I’m sorry I told you I smoked when I was pregnant with you. At your Open House. I didn’t actually.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“I was jealous of you.
“Jealous? Of what?” Angel is surprised by the bitterness of her tone.
“I don’t know. You belong.” Marissa waves a hand at the Family Foundations building. “You belong at this school. You belong with Yolanda and your dad. They love you. It’s obvious. I mean, you belong at home, too, obviously.”
Amazing that her mother might be envious of her. More amazing that Angel should appear to belong anywhere in the world. How can her mother not see how alone she truly is? How her teacher rejected her and her baby? Nevertheless, Angel’s heart goes out to her mother, who hadn’t had Smart Starts!, who’d had to navigate young motherhood and a GED on her own.
“I’ve always been amazed by you. When you were three you said, ‘Mama, can you tell me all the things I don’t know?’ You were so impatient to learn and make your own way.”
Angel smiles. “I don’t remember that.”
“Just—I’m sorry, Angel. It’s all been tough on me. I’m an idiot, but I really thought Mike was the one. Finally. But now that’s over, and I’m a grandmother. I’m too young to be a grandmother!” Marissa’s chin ripples and she wipes at her eyes with both palms. “But I am one.” She laughs. If this were a movie, they’d laugh together, but Angel sees nothing funny. Does she expect Angel to feel sorry for her?
Marissa clears her throat. “Would you come home, Angel? I’ve been wanting to ask you to come back home. I miss you.”
This is what Angel wants, isn’t it? Isn’t this what she’s been waiting for? For her mother to admit she was wrong, to admit she misses her, to beg her to come home? Yet she’s unmoved by her mother’s hopeful eyes. Angel wants so much to soften, to mend the rift between them, but something in her won’t allow it. Why?
“It’s a little late, isn’t it?” Angel takes back Connor, pulling more roughly than she intends. She winces at the naked hurt on her mother’s face.
Marissa stands with her empty hands out. The hurt closes over, those wires under her mother’s skin taut and vibrating. “You can be such a hard little bitch.”
Angel reels as though from a slap. As heated as their fights have been in the past, her mother has never called her a bitch. “Oh, that’s great. A sign of a real great mom.”