One Moment (The Little Hollow Series Book 1) (12 page)

By lunchtime, I was already on my fourth cup of coffee and I was starting to feel jittery when Kee said, “Okay, what do you want from the diner? I’m going to go in on my way back from seeing Lewis. I really need to know if he knew.”

I wasn’t really that hungry so I just told her to get me a chicken Caesar salad, there was no point commenting on the other part of her sentence, she would do it anyway.

She left and I got back to the phone calls I was in the middle of making to try and track down those old wooden tables I wanted for the event. I’d deliberately been putting this off, they were used at the very same event around six years ago and were the exact ones I found my mom on.

Walking with bleary eyes through the apartment me and my mom just moved into to find my cell, I stubbed my toe on the side table. “Ouch!” It had been ringing constantly for the past ten minutes so this had better be good.

“Hello?” I said, slightly more aggressively than I intended to.

“Hi, Sammy, I’m really sorry to bother you so late but, well, your mom’s causing quite the scene down at the fundraiser and I… I wanted to call you instead of the police. You’ve both been through so-”

As Mrs Gracefield went on, I tuned out. Why was I still having to do this? She was a grown ass woman; she wasn’t the only one who was hurting. What gave her the right to act like this? When I was the one going out to work, keeping a roof over our heads, paying all the bills and barely holding it together.

How does she repay me? With embarrassing me every other night. By now I couldn’t count the times I’d had to go drag her out of the bar or pick her up from somewhere in a state.

“Sorry, Mrs Gracefield, I’ll come on down and get her.” Why she wasn’t banned from every bar within a fifty-mile radius of Little Hollow I didn’t know, or perhaps I did. Ever since the accident, people seemed to treat us differently, like we were super delicate. Which, in a way, we were but I hated all the sympathetic looks people gave us.

Slipping on my sneakers and jacket, I grabbed my car keys and walked out of the apartment into the cool night breeze.

I pulled up outside the community hall, dreading what awaited me inside. It couldn’t be worse than trying to wrestle her shirt back on her in the middle of a crowded bar like I’d had to the other week, or the time I had to pick her up from the Tucks’ Farm because she’d fallen asleep in their barn, naked. At least I hoped that it wouldn’t be as bad.

Getting out the car, I wished I could just disappear and start a new life someplace that nobody knew me. Somewhere I wouldn’t be given the sympathy vote. Would anybody even notice that I was gone?

Everybody knew me as Cindy Reynolds daughter, the drunk who couldn’t take care of her kids. I’d heard the rumors of what people said about her.

I shook my head and pulled on the door handle to enter into what I was sure to be another humiliating affair.

Everyone looked to be having a good time, the band was playing ‘All summer long’, but nobody looked to be having as great of a time as my mom.

She was on top of one of the wooden tables, gyrating along to the tune with a bottle of bourbon in her hands. I took another look around and sure enough, she had an audience, in fact, so did I.

Just at that moment, I saw Mrs Gracefield finding her way over to me through the crowd.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I didn’t know what else to…” She trailed off as an obnoxious sound started coming from my mom’s mouth. She was trying to sing along with the band but sounded more like a strangled moose.

“That’s okay, I’ll take her home now.” But I knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as that.

Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the table she was on and raised my voice. “Mom. Mom. Cindy!” She stumbled around, still screeching the song out like a banshee until she locked her bloodshot eyes with mine.

“Would you look at what the cat dragged in, it’s my loving daughter coming to have a dance with her old mom. Oh no, wait, don’t tell me, you’re here to ruin the fun?” She couldn’t stop hiccupping and looking at her face, I realized she had no awareness of her surroundings at all. She took a long gulp from the bottle that she was holding and nearly fell off of the table, confirming my suspicions.

“Would you just get down before you hurt yourself please?” She was wearing my already non-existent patience down and that ‘please’ came out through gritted teeth.

I looked around me at the people who were still watching, they weren’t even trying to pretend they weren’t. How embarrassing. I looked back up at her, she was now facing the band who had started a slower song. I tried to reach for her as she swayed her hips in a clumsy rhythm but all that got me was a slap to the hand.

“Would you just leave already? You’re ruining the party!” Anger started welling in my chest.

“Would you just get down and do as I ask you for once in your life! The only person here ruining the party is you!” Swirling around again, she pointed the bottle at me.

“I think someone needs to drink and lighten the fuck up, don’t you think? Who thinks Samantha here, should-
Hey give that back!”

I did the only thing I could think of to get her down off of that table top, I took the bottle straight out of her hands and started to walk away backwards, knowing that she’d follow the only thing she actually cared about. “I am
not
a child! Give that back, you little bitch!”

I could feel the heat creep into my cheeks, she’d never called me that out in public before. I watched as she stumbled off the table and onto the straw bales; just waiting for her to fall.

Surprisingly, she made it down onto the floor and started following me in a sketchy pattern. By this point, I didn’t care much who was watching this all unfold, I just wanted out of this place. I’d seen it all, heard it all. That was until what came out of her mouth next.

“It doesn’t surprise me, you taking away my drink like this, ruining my fun. You’ve already taken away everything I ever cared about anyway, why not go for a home run.” I stopped dead in my tracks, the gasps around me sounded ten times louder than they actually were.

“What did you say?”

She smirked. She knew she’d hit me where it hurt. “You heard me, you took Tommy away from me and now you want to ruin my fun tonight.”

The room started spinning. Was she really insinuating that what happened to Tommy was my fault? I did this to him, I already knew that, but hearing it come out of her mouth was another thing altogether. I couldn’t breathe, I needed air.

“You don’t mean-” She ran at me with surprising speed and I felt a hard slap across my face, bringing me back to reality. Tears were starting to roll down my face as I looked into my mother’s eyes, they were lifeless. There was no remorse, no concern, not even a recollection of what had just happened. She looked down at the bottle in my hands, grabbed it and stumbled her way out the front door.

I couldn’t move, I stared at the door she just left through until a hand touched my shoulder, bringing me back in the room. Not turning to see who it was, I stormed out of the building.

She was pressed up against my car, chugging down what was left of the bottle and a sudden rage took over me. I walked towards her with purpose and knocked the bottle clean out of her hands. “What the fu-”

“No! You don’t get to play the victim this time. I’ve let it go on for far too long now, clearing up your messes, looking after you as if the roles were reversed and taking all the abuse that you throw at me day after day. Enough is enough, I won’t cover for you anymore, you’re on your own. Tommy would be ashamed of you!”

That sparked something in her. Her head snapped up from the broken bottle on the sidewalk and she screamed at me. “You think this is easy for me? Being like this, you seeing me like this?”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’ve got to be kidding me, easy for you? I’ve lived for the past twelve years of my life with you this way, I hardly know any different. I had to quit school at fifteen-years-old and get a job because of you. I lost out on all the normal teenage year’s kids have; sleepovers, boyfriends, parties and so on. So don’t you dare try and talk to me about this situation not being easy because I’m living it, I’m living it every single day. Not a day goes by that I don’t wake up and wish I was somebody else!”

Tears were streaming down my face and I had to try and get my breathing under control before peering back at her. I was wasting my time, the blank look she had on her face proved that.

“No matter what I say to you, you won’t change, will you?” I waited for a reaction from her, anything, but there was nothing. “Just get in the car, I’m taking you home and then I’m done with you.”

With no complaints, she managed to open up the passenger door and slot herself into the seat. I took a few calming breaths and wiped my face with the sleeve of my sweater before getting into the car myself. By the time I’d pulled out of my parking space, she was asleep. I felt beyond angry at both her and myself. Why I’d ever let it get this far, I didn’t know but I did know it was time for a change.

Getting her into our apartment wasn’t a small feat, I managed to get her as far as the sofa, and made sure she was on her side before making my way to my room with plans to look for another apartment. I refused to go through this torment time after time, when I said she was on her own, I meant it.

I hated letting myself think back to the past, my hands were shaking and I wasn’t sure all the coffee I’d drank was to blame. That night changed my life, in more ways than I could count, it was freeing and frightening all in one. I could live my own life without having to look after anybody but myself, or so I’d thought.

I rubbed at my eyes before picking up my cell to call Mrs Gracefield, the one person who hadn’t really spoken to me properly ever since that night. After that night, we were the talk of the town for a very long time, which was nothing new really. There were just more judgemental and sympathetic looks than usual. I stared at my cell before finally deciding to just put on my big girl pants and dial the number, it rung and I waited for her to answer.

“Gracefield’s Floral Arrangements, Avery speaking, how can I help you?”

“Hey, Avery, it’s Sam, Sam Reynolds. Your mom wouldn’t happen to be there, would she?” Avery was four years below me in school so I didn’t really know her but she seemed like a nice enough girl. She’d just finished college for the summer and was helping out at her mom’s shop.

“Sorry, Sam, you’ve actually just missed her. Can I take a message? Or do you want me to just get her to call you back?” Great.

“Could you just tell her I’ll drop by a little later please? It’s regarding the fundraiser.” The last thing I wanted to do was drop by but I didn’t want to screw this up, I needed those tables.

“Sure thing.” I thanked her before I hung up, feeling a little deflated. I looked down at my expanding list, it felt like nothing was getting done and I started to feel a little overwhelmed.

I cursed myself for taking all this on but no one can say no to Nora, I didn’t even have a choice in the matter really. The conversation went something along the lines of talking about the fundraiser, me saying it sounded like fun and the next thing I knew we were hired.

I stood up, leaving the list where it was to go and sit in the window seat. The sun was beating down and I was quite looking forward to mine and Kee’s walk. Thinking about it now, I wondered where Kee was. She’d been gone nearly forty-five minutes already, we only had another fifteen before lunch was over.