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“No, baby. I love you. You’re my only son, my child, and…Nash was going to take you away. I couldn’t staythere. You saw the ranch. It’s horrible. There is no culture there.” She sat back and pouted like she was a teenager.
“You’re not talking about culture, Mama; you’re talking about your vapid social life.”
“It’snotvapid,” she choked out. “Everyone is out to hurt me. Even my own flesh and blood. I don’t know why.”
I was losing my patience. “Can it, Mama. You’re not the victim here.”
She let out a sharp breath, her fingers curling against the silk of her robe. “I am your mother, Duke. Everything I have done, I have done for you.”
The warmth of the sunroom felt suffocating now; being with her felt like being deprived of oxygen. “For me? Is that what you tell yourself?”
She sniffed, shaking her head. “This is about that awful woman filling your head with lies, isn’t it? Tansy was always like that. Turning Nash and Silas against me. You always were so easily influenced.”
“And you should know since you did it so damn well,” I muttered.
“I love you. I’m your mother,” she said sternly. “Everything I did, I did to keep you safe and away from that horrible place.”
“Christ, Mama, you don’t even try to lie well.”And how was it that I had not seen it before?“You did all this so you could live the way you do, have access to Nash’s money, and fuck with his life.”
Her face twisted. Then she inhaled sharply like she was pulling herself together, gathering her pieces, ready to change tactics.
"I just don't understand why you're doing this to me." Her voice wobbled convincingly.
And the Oscar for acting like she’s human and not a complete sociopath goes to….
“I’m doingnothingto you. I’m here asking you to tell me the truth.”
“I have given you everything. A good life. A future. And now, you’re turning against me.”
I stared at her in bewilderment. She was a piece of work.
“When did you find out about Elena and me?” I asked.
Her eyes went nasty again. “That mother and daughter were seducing the men in my life—whores.”
“When did you find out, Mama?”
“Why does it?—”
“Mama, don’t test my fuckin’ patience,” I snapped coldly.
She swallowed. Manipulative as she was, she wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly how far she could push—how to strike just hard enough to get what she wanted without breaking the illusion. That was her gift. She could guide aconversation like a horse on a lead, steering it where she wanted, when she wanted.
And she knew, just as clearly, when someone wasn’t ready to be led.
“I knew before you came back,” she revealed. “Mindy heard some rumors and let me know. And when you wanted to talk to me about meeting someone, I knew for sure.”
“And that’s why you told me about Maria? Said that you wanted to die because of her?”
“Ididwant to die,” Mama claimed. “How can you…Duke, you were there when it happened?”
“No doubt you made sure I was.” I marveled at how well she’d hidden this side of her, or maybe she hadn’t; I had just wanted to be blind to it, not wanting to believe my mother was a devious bitch.
“I knew this would happen,” she wailed. “You wentthere,and now you’ve becomehim. Sleeping with that slut, breaking up with Fiona, and?—"
"You used me." The words settled between us like a stone dropping into water, causing ripple after ripple. “You used my love for you, my anger at Nash, my pain over Elena—all of it. You twisted everything so I would be exactly what you needed me to be.”
She gasped, a hand flying to her chest. “That is a horrible thing to say.”