And then she leans back, too, the best she can, chained to the table. Those tears are gone in a blink, and the smile that curves around her lips?
That’s my mother.
“The wig’s good,” she tells me as her smirk deepens. “You cut your hair, I hear.”
She’s trying to unsettle me, so I let the silence drag. It’s the simplest trick in the book: Make the mark fill the silence. But it’s also the easiest when it comes to her, after this long. I know she has questions.
But I’m not willing to provide answers. They’ll just become weapons in her hands. Everything always does.
“You never divorced him.” It’s a statement. No, it’s not. I want it to be; I want to be that strong. But it comes out like the accusation it is.
“I love him,” she says, and truer words, I don’t think they’ve ever been spoken. Because goddamn, she really does, doesn’t she? It’s twisted and it’s broken—a fun-house mirror reflection of what I know love is. But what she feels, it’s real. It’s so real, she barreled forward into the gator’s mouth, knowing he might bite down. And when he did, she dragged me into the water with them. Chum for the taking.
“He was going to kill you.”
“But he didn’t,” she says, her voice softening. “It was a misunderstanding. Then you had to go and put yourself in the middle . . .”
“I put myself in front of the gun.”
Her lips press together, the lines around her mouth deepening. There’s no filler in here.
“You’re alive because of me,” I tell her. I want to say it one time. Have it acknowledged.
“I’m in here because of you,” she says, flipping it, making it cut, because it’s just as true.
I shrug, determined to be equally cruel. “I did what you told me to do, Abby. I was a viper.”
“You bit the wrong man, baby.”
“Because he’s your man?”
“Because you’re being foolish. You came here knowing full well that as soon as you walk out of this room, I’ll be letting him know you paid me a visit. I’ll give you a head start, baby, because I love you. But I have to tell him.”
I hang my head, staring at my feet. The feeling inside me isn’t resignation or hurt. It’s a kind of click that locks away any hope forever.
She doesn’t want her husband to kill me. But she also doesn’t want to be on his bad side.
Can’t have both, Abby.
“What are you doing here?” she asks again, and this time, the question is real, there’s true confusion behind it.
I lean forward, and my eyes are wet and my mouth is vulnerable when I finally look up again. Her eyebrows scrunch, that flash of anger gone, replaced by the concern that I know is almost real.
“Do me a favor.” And I wait a beat, so she can hover on hope just a little longer. So it hurts when I deliver the words to crush her. “And actually think for once. You taught me everything you knew. Everything.”
I want to lick my lips. They’re dry, but it’s a sign of nerves. “You’ve been trying to piece together what happened that night and right after. And this whole time you’ve been asking yourself: What would Natalie do? But that’s not the right question.”
She swallows. Her throat bobs a little—weakness. My eyes flick, and she knows I’ve seen. Her mouth flattens. Mommy’s angry.
So I go in for the kill.
“What would you have done?” I ask her. “If he’d been a mark, and not the love of your life? What would you have done, with all your tricks and sparkle, if your mother let a man put his hands on you? Not in the name of the con. Not for money. Not for any of the things that you taught me were important. No. You did it for the love of an abusive man who tried to kill you and wants to kill me. So don’t ask yourself what Natalie would’ve done. Ask what Abby would have done. What would the woman who raised me to bite back do?”
She shudders, and God, I want to be the kind of person who smiles. I want to be that hard. I want to feel triumphant.
But I’m just sad.
I’m just trying to survive. Her. Him. Myself, whoever that is.
“What would you have done?” I ask her again.
And this time, she finally gives me the answer.
“I would have made a plan and allies. And I would have found my way out of it.”
I can see it clicking together in her head; dominoes falling down, leading her farther into the tunnel I dug with bare hands.
“Keep going.”