Page 65 of The Toy Maker

The doorbell rang as I hurried to the door.

“Calm your tits, I’m com?—”

My mom’s brooding stare met mine as soon as I opened the door. She was older, with new wrinkles in the center of her eyebrows as they drew together, disapproving of me already.

I immediately froze, all the blood draining from my face, my stomach in one big knot. “What are you doing here?”

She flashed her most convincing smile. “A mother can’t come visit her daughter?” Luggage filled her hands as she pushed past me and into my safe space. “Such a lovely little apartment. I never would have guessed because of the neighborhood.”

Her dark eyes wandered over my life, scanning for a reason to nag.

“Why are you here?” I still had months before her annual Christmas lecture. She often compared living in the city to rolling around in a pigsty.

“I missed my angel, and after you said you don’t want to come down for Thanksgiving, I decided to come up.” She shrugged. She looked old and tired. Her eyes darted behind me, sizing up my messy apartment.

And then, before I could stop her, she dropped her bags by my kitchen counter and started wandering.

I rubbed my forehead and watched her tornado into every room.

“I do want to come, but I have to work,” I tried to explain, like I had already, five other unsuccessful times.

“Work at the job you refuse to tell me about.” She waved her acrylic claws in my face.

The temptation to blurt out my job title and watch her explode almost took over. Her expression would have been one for the books, but after the small sense of satisfaction, I would have to deal with hours of unsolicited life lessons.

I didn’t want to subject myself to that, or her habit of throwing dishes at our heads.

“Well…” I gave up on trying to send her away. She put on a pot of coffee, and I knew my mom wouldn’t leave if there was coffee in her grasp. “I made plans for tonight.”

She stopped in her tracks. “Male plans?” My mom wanted grandchildren more than she wanted children. I had known that for a painfully long time.

“No,” I sighed, my jaw ticking slightly. “Girl plans.”

“Oh.” She frowned in distaste. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. You did have your eyes on that one girl, Susie, from down the street. You always wanted her to come out and play with you an?—”

“Not like that,” I cut off the anecdote before she could make it more awkward. “Friends from work.”

She gave me a sidelong look. “Well, if you think leaving your mother alone after she drove up to see you is appropriate, then you go right ahead.”

I froze for a moment, my hand twitching toward my bag. My heart raced, caught between the suffocating guilt she knew how to wield so well and the instinct to flee while I still could.

Before another word could leave her pursed lips, I slipped on my shoes and grabbed my purse, moving fast like someone escaping a burning building.

“Thanks, I’ll be home late,” I called over my shoulder.

The door shut behind me and sealed off the nightmare waiting for me whenever I came home. I had started a new life,several new lives, trying to avoid her, and there she was, waiting on my couch.

I ran into Kitty halfway down the stairs, her figure appearing suddenly as I steadied myself against the handrail. Her sharp, appraising gaze swept over me, taking in my slightly wrinkled dress and the hurriedly applied makeup I hadn’t had time to perfect.

“I didn’t expect you to be ready yet,” she said warily.

“Sarah told me to get dressed,” I replied with a shrug, adjusting the strap on my heels as I leaned into the handrail for balance.

Kitty’s lips curled into a grin. “She said I would need to drag you out of bed.”

She had no clue how close that came to being true.

“I was sort of smoked out of my apartment,” I said with a sigh, glancing at her to gauge her reaction. Kitty’s brow furrowed as she stared at me with a funny expression. “Forget it,” I added quickly, brushing it off with a wave of my hand. “Sarah will have my head if we’re late.”