Power Play (23 page)

Jesse gave me a long and thoughtful glance, his eyes paler than usual.

“No, Deacon,” he said with a sigh. “If there's no real purpose, I'd rather not go against mother on this.”

“Ah.” I clicked my tongue. “So there it is.”

“It just doesn't seem prudent by any measure.”

And of course Jesse was always prudent, always careful. Our mother would still hand him the company. But he didn't want to risk it. Just investing in the solar company could still make the company a lot of money. That might make it harder to knock me from the CEO seat when the time came.

I stood, clapped down my jacket from the familial ash that seemed to cloud the whole company.

“Thanks for your time,” I said. “I'll find some other way.”

“Good luck,” Jesse said, as I walked out. “I really mean it. Let me know if you need anything else.”

I snorted as I left. He wouldn't give me a damn thing. What I wanted, I'd have to take myself.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Kerry

It didn't hit me until I was sitting at a shaded mesh patio table, holding my frigid coffee, listening to bland indie rock and smelling burnt beans: my mother was really going to meet me here. It'd be the first time seeing her in six years - which was about sixty less than I planned.

What insanity had possessed me to agree to this?

A bit of chilled chai tea washed down my nervous energy. It was ok. This was a public place. If I got too keyed up, I could just leave. I had that right. And I had my entourage.

Antoine sat a couple tables away watching over me extremely conspicuously. He had a paper copy of the Houston Chronicle spread open in front of him. Great cover for a 1960s era spy, not so much these days. But it was enough to hide from my mom.

Mira popped back out. She had been dropping by every five minutes now. At this rate, she was going to get fired.

“You should really-” I started.

“I think she's here,” she said, wringing her green apron. The loose strands of hair from her bun were trembling.

“Where?” I stared back behind her at the side entrance. Had she snuck in there?

“It looks like that's her at the counter.”

I looked in the same direction as Mira. A familiar, timid face hovered right over the pastry display.

“That's her,” I said breathlessly.

She hadn't aged at all. Her hair was grey, of course, her temples wrung with wrinkles, but they had always been that way. She had grown old one day, and stayed in that state. She wore a pale blue dress that covered her to her knees. It barely kept from being Amish thanks to a thin black belt.

I clenched the arms of my chair tight. My legs felt like they might run me away if I didn't.

“What should I do?” Mira asked. “Should I tell her you're out here?”

“Let her see me. Get back inside.”

I watched my mom look around inside. Figures that's where she'd search. The day was beautiful. A storm had just blown through and left Houston cooler and breezy. Yet, she still thought I'd be stuck in there.

At least she could come out of the house by herself, now. My dad hadn't completely forbidden that for her, but she rarely left when I was young.

My mom placed her order and waited by the pickup. I stared at her hard enough that the glass in between might have started to melt, but she didn't notice. Her lips looked like they were moving.

A prayer and a tall coffee; that was how she was preparing for me. Maybe she was hoping to dash me with her hot drink to cleanse me of spirits and bring me back around.

No, that was silly. Time apart had made my parents cartoonish in my head. Deacon hadn't been wrong about the horrors my father had inflicted on me, but he based them off a strict code. My mom wasn't here to punish me, even if she had the strength.

Finally, she spotted me. Her lips wobbled for a smile, but never quite reached it. Good.

She came out. Traffic rushed by on the highway kicking up wind and grind. It sounded like some raging battlefield.

My mom stopped by the table and looked me over carefully.

I had rifled through my closet to find a skirt that didn't go below the knees. For my top I had on a cherry red shirt that clung to my curves. What I'd bought these for, I couldn't remember. I'd never once worn them, but she should see that I could if I wanted.

“You look nice,” she said.

Nice...? “You look well, too.”

“May I sit?”

“That's why I'm here.”

She dropped into the chair, gripping her hot cup between her hands like a bible. She looked over my face as if it was a monument. Maybe she was marking places where time had chipped me into someone else.

“A mother shouldn't go so long without seeing her daughter,” she said.

The softness of her voice kept my rage from kicking up, but the words still annoyed me. “A mother shouldn't do a lot of things when it comes to her daughter.”

She dimmed toward her cup, and took a long, sad sip. The stone fist around my heart cracked. Why was I the one being so emotional here?

“I did many things wrong,” she said. “The good lord has shown me that in the time you were away. But I'm not here for myself. I'm here for your father.”

“I am most certainly not,” I said. “If that's your impression of what we’re here to talk about, then let's sort that out right away.”

“Kerry,” she said, more urgently. “This is serious. He's dying.”

Her face tightened with worry, as if eternal justice lay on the line. And it did, perhaps, if he really was dying.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Cancer of the pancreas. It's Lucifer's disease, truly. The speed at which it moves...” She clasped her hands tighter. “He has only a few months left.”

I dug for feeling at that. I really did try. It wasn't that there were no unkind memories of him, but they were almost always little treats or a stray kind word – the sort of thing you use to house train a dog.

My father lived by his beliefs. Obey and be rewarded. Fall short and feel his wrath. That was the best that could be said for him.

“I'm sorry to hear that,” I said. “But I can't forgive him, Mom. Not for what he did to me, or what he did to you.”

“To me?” Her head flinched back. “What in the lord's name are you talking about?”

I steadied my breath. She still couldn't see how well he'd trained her. It wasn't her fault. She had just lived under his roof too long.

“I mean all the times he made you weak,” I said. “How he made you stand aside as he abused me for stepping out of line.”

“Weak?” She shook her head. “Your father didn't make me weak.”

“What are you talking about?” I shoved aside my tea. “You tried to feed me once that weekend when I was ten. You remember? He flogged you for that. He hurt you so much that you never even tried to help me again.”

Her chin dipped, her eyes shrouded in pain. I sat back. I didn't want to crucify her. But she should see who she'd become. I needed to know she'd seen it coming all along, that it hadn't snuck up on her.

“The Lord's plan had always been so clear to me,” she said. “ I knew it was hard for a child to understand, but that didn't make His Word wrong. You were such a quiet girl. A studious one. It just seemed useless to put you in the darkness for a small sin. I thought it was better to show you the light instead, so that you could learn for yourself of the Lord's glory.”

I waited rapt as she took another infuriating sip of coffee. Even her rebellion was wrapped up in faith. My father's claws must have sunk into her from the beginning.

“But I did not show you the light,” she said. “I simply freed you from your punishment. I disobeyed your father. The good book itself is clear on how you deal with that. I earned what you saw that day.”

“No you didn't,” I said. “How could you say that? It wasn't a book that beat you. It was your husband.”

“He was only following what the Lord told him.”

“Is that how he justifies it? Is that what he made you believe?”

“Kerry, stop. He didn't make me believe anything. I trusted the Lord's judgment even before he brought your father into my life.”

“So it was your own choice to stop getting in the way of his punishments,” I said. “You weren't afraid. You chose to let him hurt me.”

Newspaper ruffled nosily at my back. My voice was too high. I held up a hand to let Antoine know to hold back. This was going completely off track, but I didn't want it over yet.

My mom’s flashing eyes dulled again. “I went back to the book whenever you were sinful after that. I tried to find ways to show your father reasons for temperance. But he was already tempering the punishments that the Lord commands. I couldn't find reason for my beliefs, at least not back then.”

“But you can now?” It was the only thread to grasp onto anymore.

“There are...other ways to read the Lord’s messages,” she said, softly. “I had nothing but scripture after you left, and with the help of some groups online, I found the proofs I had always been searching for.”

“Did you tell my father that?” I said. “You tell me he's sick, that I owe it to you to see him. Did you make him understand how horribly he had treated me?”

My mom crumpled deeper. “Your father argued my points. He might not have stayed his hand even if I showed him then. I don't know. But I know he would have at least listened. He certainly did not silence me if I argued with the words of our Lord.”

I had never heard these arguments, but of course they wouldn't reveal them to me. A child's only biblical purpose was to obey their father's commands. Did my mom actually protest those commands? She looked awfully in control of herself now.

“You two are regular religious scholars,” I said, grumpily.

“What your father did was wrong. I believe that now. It drove you away from us, and it may have put your soul at peril.”

“My soul is fantastic,” I said. “There's lots of ways to see the light.”

My mom's mouth tightened, but she didn't spout scripture at me. She took calm breaths - as if she had any reason to be as angry as me.

“We did what we could based on what we knew. That's all any of us flawed by the sin of mankind can do.”

Lord and sin, light and dark. My mom had uttered more religion in a dozen minutes than I'd heard total since I left. My dad had done a number on her, but apparently not without her permission. He hadn't been the one that drove her to a strict reading of the Bible. The idea itself had gripped her. Maybe it even brought her to my dad to begin with.

We choose the things we chain ourselves to,
Deacon echoed in my head.

If I took Deacon's offer, my mom and I would be exactly on the same path. Our lives would be devoted to an idea of how what it was worth spending on.

But we believed in different things. As long as that held true, it made all the difference.

My mom sat, oblivious to the gears nearly coming loose inside my head. She was waiting for my judgment now.

“I can't forget what happened,” I said. “And I don't ever plan on going back to it or talking to my father. Do you understand?”

Her shoulders sagged. “I had to try. He didn't ask, but I had to try for him.”

She looked so diminished and sad and weak. I couldn't stop the next words out of my mouth.

“But if you’re truly sorry and you can accept who I am now, then maybe we don't have to go six years before we see each other again.”

Her light eyes, so unlike mine, lit up.

“I suppose I should take what blessings I can.”

“That would be a start.”

I managed a smile back at her. Mira stood pressed against the door, blocking guests from leaving, hand cupped over her heart.

What did she see? Forgiveness?

It wasn't my past I saw in my mom though. It was my future.

And the craziest thing of all was that it didn't seem nuts to reach for it.

****

I was trying to unlock the door to Deacon’s penthouse by the galleria, when he thrust it back open. He scooped me up, keys and all, and smothered my shrieks with a kiss as he brought me over to the white leather couch.

I was so dizzy by the time he set me down.

“You didn’t shut the door,” I said.

“It’s a penthouse, darlin’. You needed your keycard just to get up here. Who are you afraid is gonna follow.” His powerful mouth erupted into an equally mighty smile. “My mother?”

“I guess not.” It was why we were meeting here these days.

I stood and looked out the massive tinted windows. Houston and Abu Dhabi weren't so far apart. The skyline here was pretty nonexistent, but I was getting awfully used to being in the tallest building around.

Deacon shut the door and plopped back down, pulling me into the lap of his jeans. They bulged with promise of what the night held, but he kept grinning at me instead of sinking straight into our lust.

“You look like you’re hiding something big,” I said, rubbing his crotch.