Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“Okay,” she says at last. Softer. “What do you want, Henry?”
A hundred questions fly through me and crash into each other. Nothing. Everything. Why did you leave me? Thank you for leaving me. Do I laugh like you? Do I want the wrong things the way you did? Do you have a birthmark like I do? Did you ever…kill another person?
But all that comes out is—
“I wanted to hear your voice,” I say.
She laughs, not unkindly. “You and every man who ever bought a ticket, sugar.”
“Yeah.” I exhale. “I deserved that.”
“You don’t deserve anything yet,” she says. “And I don’t owe you anything.” A beat. “But no one calls me on a Friday night unless they’re either a scammer or a ghost, and you don’t sound like either.”
“I’m not,” I say. “I’m just a guy with a lot of questions.”
“And a concussion, from the way you’re talking.”
How the hell does she know? “I just had brain surgery, but I’m okay.”
“Fuck. Brain surgery? Not a tumor or something?”
“No, no. I got hit on the head. I had a bleed.”
“Thank God.” A soft sigh. “You want to know if I’m your mother.”
I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath until I have to drag a new one in. “Yes.”
“Francine was never a name I used,” she says. “Everyone called me—calls me—Frankie. And once upon a time, I did what I thought was best for everyone. I had nothing to give you, and your father did. I was an idiot. I should have stayed with him. My life would have been a hell of a lot better.”
“He says you cheated on him with a pizza delivery guy.”
She laughs then, a laugh hardened by life. “I did. Biggest mistake I ever made. After your father left, the pizza guy busted my jaw. I couldn’t work while it healed. No one wants to look at a showgirl with her mouth wired shut. So when your grandfather…” Pause. “Uh…maybe I shouldn’t say any more.”
“It’s okay. I know. I know he paid you off.”
“Then you know it was the best thing I could do for both of us at the time.”
I grip the phone harder. A hot pressure burns behind my eyes. I blink it back before it can go anywhere. She’s right. I’ve had a better life than she could have given me for sure.
Including a mother who loves me. A mother who would be devastated if she knew I was on this phone call right now. Guilt arrows into my chest.
“I love my parents,” I tell her. “Marjorie—she’s my mom—married Bryce when I was about two or so. She’s the only mom I’ve ever known.”
“Then why call me?”
“Truthfully?” I let out a humorless chuckle. “Hell if I know.”
That’s not exactly true. But I’m not going to tell this woman who’s a virtual stranger that one, I shot a man; two, I’m in love with a woman who chose a seminar over me; and three, I’m recovering from a head wound, though I guess I already told her that one. And that, in some weird way, I thought that dredging up the past would somehow fix all of this. Even though I knew it wouldn’t.
But it’s a distraction. So I continue talking to her.
“I was just curious, I guess.”
“Good.” The word comes out on a breath. “That means you didn’t call to give me some kind of guilt trip.”
“Of course not. I don’t want anything from you. I just want to… I don’t know. Get to know you, maybe?”
She sighs. “Do you…have a picture? Now. Of you. Or do I only get your voice tonight?”
I glance at the mirror across the room. I look a little pale, but my hair has grown in a bit on the bald spot. Doesn’t cover the stitches, though. Not only no, but hell no.
But I have photos from the wedding a couple of weeks ago. I look good in those. I send her one of me with my father. Maybe she’ll recognize him.
“Just sent it,” I say.
Silence for a beat. Until—
“You’re a dead ringer for your father. He was a looker for sure. I’m not sure I see anything of me in you.” She pauses. I imagine she’s squinting, zooming in on the details. “Except the nose. It looks like mine. Like my father’s.”
“Dad told me that once,” I say, though it’s a lie. Dad never talks about her.
She laughs, and this time there’s warmth in it. “Your dad was trouble,” she says. “And I love trouble. I loved him, in my way. But hell, I knew he’d leave me eventually anyway. A Vegas showgirl isn’t much higher than a prostitute. Hell, a lot of the time the two jobs aren’t mutually exclusive. Your father was the son of a lawyer. Who was also a mayor, I think.”
Right. My grandfather was a high-powered attorney. And mayor of Snow Creek. Also a rapist, kidnapper, and pedophile who took his own life rather than face the consequences of his actions. Does Francine know that?