Double Cross (7 page)
Her gray eyes met mine for only the briefest instant before flitting away to continue their survey of the house’s furniture and fixtures. “You don’t have a clue who I am, do you, honey?” she said.
“No, I don’t.”
She reached in the pocket of her coat and began to pull something out. Instinctively I took a step sideways. It’s crazy, I know, but Dad had drilled into me that when I wasn’t sure what was happening, I should always move—harder to hit that way. She followed me with her eyes as she pulled from her pocket a shiny digital camera. She held up the camera and peered into it. “Honey, hold still, I want to make sure I get this one.”
Just before she pressed the button, she said, “Smile, baby, I’m your mother!”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
THERE IS NO WAY to plan for the reappearance of a mother after twenty years—especially a mother who bolted without even saying good-bye. I had struggled since I was nine to understand why she left and how she could have forgotten us so completely. No calls, no letters, no nothing.
The saga had moved from sad to surreal, though, when I was twenty-nine and Simon Mason told me he had known my mother years before he and I met. “Known her” in the biblical sense, that is. Although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, that was why he had hired me—as opposed to the hundred other security professionals who would have leaped at the chance to take charge of security for a religious leader as well known as the pope.
As she clicked away at me with her digital camera, I had no idea what to say or how to feel. I had mentally pictured this reunion a thousand times and in a variety of settings. No matter where or how we came together in these fantasies, one thing was consistent: She always threw her arms around me, cried, and asked me to forgive her, begged me to let her be my mother again.
Now it was happening, right here in the foyer of Simon’s house, but she wasn’t holding me, or crying, or demonstrating any obvious interest at all in being my mother again. Instead, she was checking the price tags on Simon’s pottery and flashing away with a camera, like a tourist whose bus had just stopped in front of a decorative fountain.
I waved at the black spots that flickered in my eyes. Before I could do anything else, she dropped the camera into her purse. “I just had to get a picture of your reaction the first time you saw me!” She held her arms out. “C’mon now and give your mother a hug.”
After a twenty-year absence, she was asking me to run to her. That struck me as something a real mother would never have done—certainly not the mother of my fantasies. Blood rushed into my neck and cheeks, and something else rushed up behind my eyes. I was not going to allow it to happen. I was not going to cry, not here in front of her. Not until she earned it.
My body moved forward and hugged her, but felt nothing warm or caring—or motherly—about her touch. It was a social hug, or a business hug, but not a mother’s hug. It was over in an instant. My shoulders sagged, but I forced them back and stood up tall.
She loosened her grip. “I was so excited to see you that I took two wrong turns on the way over here. Had to stop at a Seven-Eleven for directions.”
My effort to keep my lip from trembling seemed to trip a switch that transferred the unwanted motion to my knees. My legs wobbled. I felt for the stair rail behind me and sat on the second step.
“Is there something wrong, baby?” Her eyes fixed on me for the briefest instant, then moved up and around to the stairway, then to the living room to her left, and finally to the dining room to her right. She was surrounded by unfamiliar architecture, unfamiliar furniture, and an unfamiliar daughter, and her glance made it clear that she had prioritized her interests in that order.
Just then, Kacey came around the corner, a dribble of barbecue sauce clinging to the corner of her mouth. “What’s the ruckus? Did you win the publishers’ sweepstakes?”
I realized my hands were clenched. I relaxed my fingers and pointed. “Kacey, meet my mother.”
Kacey did a double take.
“It’s true.”
Kacey took a step forward and held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. . . .” She looked at me again.
“You’ll have to ask her. I don’t even know her name.”
My mother took Kacey’s hand in both of hers and shook vigorously. “Hillary Venable. You can call me Hil. By the way, honey, you’ve got something on your mouth.” She pulled a wadded tissue out of her coat pocket and reached for Kacey’s mouth. Kacey took a quick step back and wiped her mouth with her hand.
My mother shrugged and wiped her nose with the tissue. Kacey’s eyes followed it all the way back into the pocket, and I knew she was wondering if it had been used before.
“Barbecue?” my mother said. “I’m the worst with that. Always end up with it all over me.”
“We had wings for dinner.” Kacey let her arms fall to her sides. They stood looking at each other.
I usually can’t bear an awkward silence, but I was willing to ride this one out. I had plenty to occupy my mind.
My mother put both hands in her pockets. “So, are you two a couple?”
Kacey laughed out loud. “A couple of what?”
“It’s all right, honey. Live and let live, I always say.”
“Kacey is Simon Mason’s daughter. I’ve been living here for the past few months, since her father was killed.”
Kacey turned to look at me as I spoke. Her inattention cost her. My mother stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Kacey’s neck. “Oh, you poor dear. I read all about your father and you. It was awful.”
Kacey’s eyes widened, and she looked at me as if to say,
She’s your mother, aren’t you going to get her off of me?
She’s your mother, aren’t you going to get her off of me?
“Simon was a great man,” I said. “And his daughter is pretty great, too.”
When my mother finally released her grip, Kacey backed away slowly, like a hiker who has stumbled onto a bear in the woods. She spoke rapidly. “Well, I’ve got to go study—test tomorrow. I’m sure you two have a lot to catch up on. It was nice to meet you, Ms. Venable.”
“Call me Hil.”
“Yes. It was nice to meet you, Hil.”
“The pleasure was all mine. You’re a real sweetheart.” Before my mother finished the sentence, she had already moved her eyes away from Kacey and was looking at the dining room chandelier.
As Kacey walked out of the room, her shoulders shook, and I knew she was stifling a laugh. We would have a lot to talk about before bedtime.
I put my hand on the step beneath me and pushed to my feet. “After all these years I don’t know what to say.”
“Why, you don’t have to say anything. I’ve just got so much to tell you about what I’ve been doing.”
I shook my head. “What you’ve been doing? How about what I’ve been doing? Since I was nine, remember?”
She took off her overcoat and draped it over her arm. “Of course, I want to hear all about that, too. Is there somewhere I can hang my coat? You keep it warm in here, don’t you?”
I took her coat and hung it in the entryway closet. “By the way, how did you find me?” I said.
“You were the one who found me. Your investigator friend called and told me you were looking for me. I asked him where you lived and decided to come see you.”
“Where do you live?”
“Southlake.”
“Southlake, Texas? You mean that you’ve been living twenty miles from me all this time?”
She waved a hand in the air. “Don’t be silly. I just moved to Southlake about a year ago. I married a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington.” She winked. “I hooked myself a good one this time, honey. He’s a chemical engineering genius and a real big shot. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
“You’re married?”
“Yes, and why I keep doing that, I don’t know. There just aren’t many men as good as your father, God rest his soul. Believe me, I’ve found that out the hard way.”
“So, you knew Dad was dead?”
“How could I not? It was all over the news. What a terrible thing. You were a real hero, though, shooting those men who killed your father. I was proud of you.”
“Those men tried to rape me, you know. Did you ever think it might be a good idea to come to the funeral, or to call me up and see how I was doing?”
She pulled a lipstick out of her purse. “My life was such a mess at the time. I wouldn’t have been any help to you. I had my hands full just taking care of myself.”
“Taking care of yourself? I was seventeen—and you were taking care of yourself?”
“I was going through a divorce, and everything was falling apart.” I watched her closely, unable to believe that she would actually apply lipstick while we were talking about this. She lifted the lipstick, but when our eyes met, her hand stopped halfway to her mouth. She lowered it again and dropped the lipstick back into her purse.
“How did you marry someone else when you were still married to Dad? He never told me you two had divorced.”
“Let’s not dwell on that. It’s water under the bridge.” She dug in her purse again and pulled out a pack of Salems.
“You can’t smoke in here.”
“Oh, you’re part of that crowd.”
My hands clenched again. “I’m not part of any crowd. This is not my house, and I don’t think you should smoke in it.”
She nodded toward the hallway that led to the back of the house. “Have you got a back porch? How about we go sit outside for a bit?”
“It’s forty-five degrees outside.”
“Gracious, are you that thin-blooded? Why, up north they would consider this a balmy day.”
“How do you know what they would think up north?”
“I lived in Chicago for three years with my second husband.”
“What number are you on now?”
“Stanley is number three.”
I shook my head. “Let me get your coat.”
“I don’t need it. I’ve got this sweater. That should be fine.” She smoothed the front of her white turtleneck.
“Well, I’m wearing a coat.” I opened the closet and pulled out my ski jacket. Then I led her down the hallway, through the family room, and out the back door.
The Masons’ porch was Southern all the way: white wood floorboards, white rail, and white rocking chairs. We sat side by side in the rockers and looked out over the rectangular pool toward the stand of cedar elms by the back fence. She pulled a silver-plated lighter out of her purse and lit her cigarette. She threw her head back and inhaled. Then she puffed smoke out of her mouth in three short bursts. “Whew, I needed that. This is so stressful for me.”
I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees. “Did it occur to you that I’ve had some stress, too?”
“Why, of course you have, honey. Who hasn’t? But until you’ve had a marriage go south on you, you don’t know what stress is, believe me.” She stuck the cigarette back in her mouth.
The sky had turned gray since the morning, and the wind had picked up. It cut across the porch and from time to time gusted enough to puff my hair off the top of my shoulders and set it back down again. I pulled the collar of my coat tight. “Why did you come here?”
She flicked the ash off her cigarette. I watched it fall to the wood floor and wondered whether it would leave a burn mark.
“You were looking for me, remember?” She reached over and gave my arm a squeeze. “I’m glad you found me, though. Now we can get to know each other again.”
“So, is that it? You just walk through my door one day and it’s as if you never walked out on Dad and me? You think we can just pick up as if nothing happened?”
She flicked another ash. “Wait a minute. Don’t think I’m going to let you hold that against me. I was sick. At one point I was living in the streets in downtown Houston. I ate out of a few garbage cans, too.” She looked at me for an instant but turned away. “Does that make you proud of your mother?”
I leaned back in my rocker. “What happened?”
“Back then, even the street people said I was crazy; and, believe me, when that crowd’s calling you crazy, you’ve got a problem.” She laughed, but her eyes weren’t smiling. She studied the back of her hand. “The Lord took care of me, even when I was in hell. He got me some help. Some medication, that’s all. It doesn’t seem like much of a miracle, but it was.”
This was my first glimpse of my mother’s incongruous relationship with God. I blew right past it, and who could blame me? She had run out on her family, was on her third husband, and still had not shown a lick of interest in me, her only daughter. Not exactly the type of person I would turn to for theological advice, even if I were looking for it. But faith and theology are two different things. I understand that now. My mother had figured out something worth knowing, something practical that a troubled life had taught her. Dad had hinted at it the night he died, but I didn’t understand him then, and I didn’t care about her ramblings as we sat there on the back porch. I just wanted her to be a real mom.
“How long ago was it that you got treatment?” I thought I had spotted a flaw in her version of events, and I was wasting no time drilling down on it.
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