Stone Cold Fox, page 29
CHAPTER
21
“YOU HAVE A lovely home,” Mother said, an unfamiliar crackle in her speech, no longer as crisp; her youth had vanished, though she was still beautiful. Many women her age would have developed a warble in their voice, like an aged bird, but Mother was always more of a lioness. She purred.
“Thank you, Mother.” It was all I could think to say. I clasped my hands under my protruding belly and pointed my chin downward, taking the standard stance of obedience in her presence. I felt so silly and so frightened. I had imagined this reunion with Mother so many times. I had dreamt about it, vividly. I dreamt of her all the time. In some dreams I was tough on her when she resurfaced. A little brat. I would tell her she got what she deserved after what she had done to me. She didn’t deserve to live; she deserved death at my hand. I should have waited and watched it happen and made absolutely sure she was eradicated from this earth.
But in other dreams all I did was apologize to her endlessly. To her face, on my knees, shouting it from far away, shouting it right into her face again, but she wouldn’t look at me. She’d never look at me, refusing to see me or hear me or acknowledge me. No longer a team. She didn’t want me anymore. I’m so sorry, Mother. Mommy, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Louder and louder, as loud as I could. Or sometimes no sound came out of my mouth but it felt like I was screaming my apologies to her. She never forgave me in those dreams. She just walked away. Far, far away from me. She didn’t like me. She didn’t love me. My own mother.
Did she forgive me? Did I even want her forgiveness? I was falling right back into the little girl I was before. All those little girls I’d had to be, never allowed to be just one, just me. I was always somebody else, but always her daughter, even now.
“Quite a score. Old money. Big money. I’m very impressed,” she said, standing up from the chaise, still maintaining a distance from me. “But it’s always risky with a large family, isn’t it? I looked for loners, but not you, apparently. The Case family. Wow, so well-known! But I think you and I had different goals we wanted to achieve. I liked keeping us on our toes, but you? You just loved knowing where your next meal was coming from. Still do, right? For now, anyway. You probably think you’d like to die in this house.”
That wasn’t a threat, it was an insult. I looked over my shoulder at the house and realized I wouldn’t mind that at all. A permanent home. I couldn’t think of a better place to go.
“Aren’t you going to invite me inside?” Mother asked.
“No,” I said out of instinct. She still felt like a dream even though I knew this was real. There was nothing hazy about her presence, it hit me like a shovel to my face, but it was difficult to reconcile that she was actually standing before me. I knew her so well and yet I didn’t know her at all. So much can happen in ten years. “Collin will be home—”
“Home late,” she finished with a grin, informing me her work into my life was far from over. “He’s out. A family emergency. By the time he gets to Connecticut and back, we’ll be gone. So why don’t you give me the grand tour and show me what a big girl you are. Don’t you want to parade around as the lady of the house? I promise to act very impressed. Make me proud.”
Logically I knew there would be no point to such a charade, but there was still that little girl inside me that wanted to make Mother proud. I still wanted to make her like me, because when she liked me, no matter how fleeting, it always felt good. I had always wanted to be on her team. I could charm anyone at will, but with her, I really had to work at it. And even when I thought I had her, it wasn’t really a win, was it? She always had the upper hand. With her, I always lost. Mother’s game against me was the only one I never figured out how to win. It drove me crazy still.
A text from Collin demanded my attention before I could muster up a response in any direction. Be home later. Mother was right.
“How far along are you?” she asked, looking my body up and down, biting the inside of her cheeks.
“Almost five months,” I told her. To hear her acknowledge my unborn child made me feel heavier with guilt. The child was so innocent and yet they had come from her, from me. Surely that would change. Wasn’t it their destiny?
“I hated being pregnant,” Mother sneered. “Both times. I don’t know why I even did it a second time.”
“You never told me about Syl,” I said to her softly, letting the insult about me roll off my back as best I could, but I knew I’d feel the effects later when I would least expect it.
“She’s not one of us.”
“She told me about the fire . . .” I trailed off intentionally. I wanted to hear the story from her, if she would tell it.
“She told you about that, hmm?” Mother chuckled to herself, like it was old family lore that was a pleasure to periodically revisit when we all got together for the holidays. “Not my best work, but I was young and wild and impulsive. No precision. Not like what I could do now. I really thought I could swing that whole thing with Giles. Be normal, like what you’re attempting here with Collin. I married the man, I had the baby, we had the house, we had money. Nothing like this, but more than enough. I had everything we were supposed to want. I think I always knew it wasn’t for me, deep down, but I felt I should try for the so-called American Dream. Maybe I could be like everyone else if I applied myself, willing myself to want what I actually had in my hands. I wanted to be like everyone else, forced it on myself, until I couldn’t take it anymore. Not physically. Not mentally. Not at all. And you’ll get there, too, if you carry on this way. You’re just like me, despite your best efforts. Look what you did to Gale.”
“I’m different from you,” I squeaked, clearly not believing it myself. It made her laugh.
“When I got pregnant the second time, with you, I had to get out at any cost. It was stifling and boring and I wanted no part of it anymore, but I admit that I didn’t want them hurt. It was sloppy. I secured the cash and hatched a harebrained plan. They weren’t even supposed to be home. Anyway, it wasn’t my intention for him to end up where he did, or the girl for that matter. I just wanted them to think I was dead so they would never come looking for me. For us. I wanted them to think that we were dead.”
“I don’t believe you. You didn’t care about them.”
“I cared enough, didn’t I? They’re alive.” She took a few steps toward me, but I took a few steps back. She snickered, but stopped moving, keeping her distance.
“Why did you keep me? You must have considered other options.”
“Of course I did,” she said coldly.
“So why did you?” I had always wanted to ask her, but I’d been so afraid to ask her anything when I was young. I was still afraid, with much more to lose, but if not now, when?
“I thought you would be a useful tool,” she said matter-of-factly. “Something to make it more fun. More exciting. An interesting variable in the inevitable monotony of life. And we had fun, didn’t we? I know we did. You can’t say it was boring.”
“No,” I said, surprised by the conviction in my voice, but I didn’t believe her. I believed that’s what she would tell me, but I thought the answer was much darker. I wanted her to admit it to my face. “That’s not it.”
“Oh?” Mother was amused, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “What’s your hypothesis then?”
“Syl told me that she wasn’t close to you at all. The way other girls can be with their mothers. She found you frightening. Almost repellent. And I think that hurt your feelings, Mother. She hurt your feelings.”
“She wouldn’t remember anything about th—”
“She sees Giles. He remembers. And she remembers. Little girls remember their feelings. I do, too.”
“Go on.” Mother smirked, mocking me. “Say what you want to say. This is your moment, isn’t it? How long have you been wanting to say all this to me?”
“She was his. And I think you wanted to see if you got one for yourself,” I replied. She wanted her very own daughter. A little plaything that she pushed away and pulled in at will, thinking only of her own feelings, her own sick feelings, and never mine or what she was doing to me. But was that how she loved me? The only way she knew how? She left everyone and everything else but she never left me.
She kept me.
I was hers and she kept me.
She wanted to keep me.
I was always going to be the one who had to leave.
Run away.
I waited for her response, taking a deep breath in the silent moments that passed.
“If that’s what you need to tell yourself, I won’t argue with you,” she said, looking above my head and at the house, refusing to connect with me on any honest level. The window to the past, open briefly, had been shut. It only confirmed my theory. It wasn’t normal love from Mother, but it was something, like I suspected. She had always known exactly where I was, even after I did what I did to her. Watching and waiting. Playing and plotting. And here we were. Finally together again. Mother and daughter.
“We have a lot to discuss about your dilemma with Gale,” Mother said, strolling past me toward the door to the house. “Why don’t we go inside?”
I didn’t protest, because she was right, and I followed her inside my own home. We sat on the stools in the kitchen around the island and I immediately offered her something to drink out of habit.
“I think I’ll make my own drinks around you from now on,” Mother sniped. I held my breath. I knew she’d bring it up, but what did I have to say for myself? It was unforgivable, wasn’t it? “You almost had me. One more pill might have done it. Just one more.” I was quiet and unresponsive, thinking it best to be nonconfrontational. Don’t panic. But around Mother, I was falling back into an old habit, waiting for her to take the lead because I wasn’t yet sure of her plans for me. “Aren’t you going to apologize to your mother?” she hissed.
“But you wouldn’t have let me go,” I uttered quickly, no time for logic to enter my brain, talking back and justifying the unjustifiable. I was going to make myself say all the things I’d been wanting and waiting to say to her. I was about to lose everything anyway. The time was now. “I didn’t have another choice. You didn’t give me another choice.”
“I’d say you had an alternative—”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” I barked at her, admitting defeat. “You won. You bested me, as always. You always beat me, Mother. You win. How? I really need you to tell me, because you got involved with Gale and now look at the mess we’re in together. All so you could get your revenge on me instead of just letting me go. You had to keep me, the whole time, but now she knows all of it. She knows everything because of you. She has us, Mother, don’t you get it? She has us because of what you’ve done to me.”
“No, because you couldn’t finish the job.”
“If you hadn’t orchestrated any of this with Gale and Syl and—”
“Don’t you see that I was trying to help you?” Mother raised her voice and stood up out of her seat, edging closer to me with every word, believing all of it. “You don’t belong with Collin or his awful family, stuck in a palatial prison of your own making. You’ll hate it. Trust me, you will get bored and then you’ll do something completely destructive, which you’ve proven you absolutely cannot handle on your own. You’re better off with me, despite your best efforts. Aren’t you exhausted living this way? Aren’t you tired of pretending to be something you’re not? You must be so tired, bunny.”
“I am Bea Case, Mother.”
“Sure.” She laughed at me. The cruelest sound I knew. It used to make me wilt, but now it lit a fire. Mother had never seen me with the fire of my own so I would show her. Again, if not now, when?
“I am, Mother. And now I’m about to lose everything I’ve worked so hard for because of your foolish actions and trusting the wrong person when you could have just let me go. Why couldn’t you just let me go?”
“Maybe you’ll understand when you become a mother.” She smiled, mocking me again, enjoying my pain and desperation.
“Gale has probably already alerted the police or the FBI or who knows what, some sort of private investi—”
“Oh, please!” Mother guffawed. “Gale’s bound and gagged in her bathroom.”
Mother delivered this news like a comedian delivering a punch line, awaiting my applause, my laughter, my delight.
“See? Mother always has your back. You need a push from me, I suppose. I’m happy to assist, but you’re going to finish the job. You’re my daughter. Always will be. So we can do it together.”
She was correct that I hadn’t been able to finish the job. It only proved I wasn’t like her, right? I wasn’t able to take someone’s life after all. A sweet relief on a cellular level, a new awareness in my bones that I couldn’t actually go through with it. I didn’t take Gale’s or Mother’s. I was not a killer. I never was. But if I couldn’t do it now, then what would this all be for? I didn’t want to lose Bea Case, and it appeared the only way I could keep her was to kill Gale Wallace-Leicester.
“Together?” I asked Mother. “And then what?”
“And then you’ll see how good it feels! To embrace the chaos, take risks, go wild. LIVE. And we’ll be back together again. You’re just like me, bunny. You can’t run away. We’re two of a kind. She’ll be like us, too.” Mother motioned to my belly, reaching out to touch it, but I stepped away to grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator.
“We don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy yet,” I said to her, before downing the entire thing. My thirst was unquenchable. A sign of my own nerves.
“It’s a girl,” Mother declared. There was no way for her to know, but I had a feeling she was right.
“I don’t want to leave Collin,” I said. “That’s the only reason I’m even entertaining this—”
“No, it isn’t,” she interrupted me. “You still want Mother’s stamp of approval, don’t you?”
“Mother, I don’t think I can do what you’re asking me to do. I’m not like—”
“Maybe you were right,” she interrupted me again, even faster, in a moment that felt honest, but also manipulative. The sweet spot in our performances for each other. “That other girl never felt like mine, but you? You’re mine. You’re all mine.”
That was all I ever wanted to hear from Mother. When she said things like that to me, I would always do whatever she asked. She knew that, too. That was just the kind of woman she was. A monster. My monster. My mother.
“Oh, we used to have fun,” Mother continued, laughing. “Don’t pretend like we didn’t. We were good-time girls and that familiar feeling never goes away, no matter how old we get. Despite what you may think, I know you will tire of this life. I wish you would just realize that and stop fighting it. You won’t be able to get out of this unscathed, you know. I don’t care what you two agreed on when you got married, but the house always wins, and the house of Case is very powerful. It’s intoxicating, isn’t it? The challenge it would be to take them on from the inside? We could do it together. I’ll even let you take the lead, since it’s your husband this time, but you have to let me in. We can take our time. Enjoy ourselves a little bit while we secure our treasure. You’ll have the baby. You’ll introduce me to the family. You’ll remember how to play. It’s our favorite game, bunny. The long game. Just like old times. You can even pick the ending. I know you’re softer than me, no one else has to die. But first things first, whether you like it or not.”
“Gale,” I said, hushed, sitting in the gravity of the situation at hand.
“And it has to be tonight.”
If it were any other time, before Collin, before Syl, before everything, I might have taken a bite of her apple, just to be closer to her, but now? I was repulsed by the thought. Letting her into the fold I had cultivated, allowing her to be a part of my child’s life, working with her to con the Cases, as if we could? I found it so preposterous that I was relieved. I had changed, I wasn’t like her and I made my life for me all on my own.
But Mother was absolutely right about Gale and it was torturing me. It was the only way to preserve the life I built. We had to do it. I had to do it, but I couldn’t. I could do a lot of things, I had done a lot of dark and terrible and awful things in the name of self-preservation, but murder? That wasn’t me after all.
Was it?
“What time?” I asked her, wanting to hear her plan as I made up my mind. If anyone could convince me, it was her, whether I wanted to or not.
“Wait until Collin comes home. Have a normal evening together. Ask him if everything’s all right. Make everything all right. And wait until he’s asleep. Should we say midnight? Behind her building, do not go inside. Wait for me and we’ll go together. Remember, it doesn’t get done unless we’re together. Understand?”
She would not let me off easy. She never did.
Mother got up to leave, heading for the back door. She was ready to slip away the same way she’d slipped inside. She issued her orders and I was to obey them, just like old times. And of course, she always got the last word.
But not this time.
“Wait,” I blurted out. She looked back at me with her pursed lips, still pretty and full and bright red. She was curious and amused at my defiance, throwing up her hands, awaiting what I would say next. “I want an apology. I deserve one.”
She went quiet for what felt like a full minute, stoic and still, weighing not what would be best for me, but for her. So rarely were they the same, but in this moment they happened to be in alignment. Mother’s eyes softened as they’d done in the past, only once in a great while, her sharp edges falling away. Her shoulders released, rolling down her back. She walked closer to me and slowly her arms reached out. I let her touch me; she gingerly placed her hands on either side of my waist, then she slid them to my stomach and finally up my body, brushing the hair along my face, sweeping it over my ears.
