Page 57 of Fight

The sympathy and worry that had come over me just minutes ago hardened. “Your dealer cut you off. That has nothing to do with me,” I said.

Ioan either, I prayed, but I purposely didn’t say his name. She might already know who he was, but she’d never have it confirmed by me. I didn’t trust her with his name, knew she’d trade on it, on anything else, to get her drugs.

Her face twisted into a sneer, her features now the evil funhouse mirror version of my mother. “So it’s a coincidence, huh? You get shacked up with Markov’s new killer, and I can’t get my shit?”

“Ma, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, speaking as patiently as I could manage.

She scoffed. “Don’t try to act all innocent, Patricia.”

Yet again, I’d underestimated my mother. I’d been so convinced of my good mood just minutes ago, but it had evaporated completely. I tried not to let anger get the better of me because I knew this wasn’t her, not really, but whatever leftover cheer I’d had left me.

“Mama, I’m not acting anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

A lie of my own, but one I could be forgiven for.

A more pressing question was what she actually knew. My mother dissembled, exaggerated, and outright lied so much that I seldom had any real clue as to what was true, what she’d made out of whole cloth, and what she’d stitched together from gossip and eavesdropping.

But this was dangerous territory.

I was fairly certain she’d never been to one of the fights and knew with certainty she couldn’t afford the entry fee. But for someone who didn’t know her so well, she might be convincing, make them think she knew more than she did, more than she should. And that could get her dead and cause trouble for Ioan.

Neither was an acceptable outcome.

“You need to stop talking or at least think before you do,” I said.

Her thumb was working overtime now, and she snorted with disgust. “Little lady Patricia. Always ‘Don’t do that, Ma. I’d never do that, Ma.’” She shook her head, her face moving in a deeper twist of scorn. “Look at you now. Got right off that high horse and into the dirt. Say what you want about me, but I never spread my legs for a stone killer. He’d better be paying you,” she said.

I’d hardened my heart to her, but her words still got to me. They didn’t hurt, not exactly. They just made me numb, weak, too weak to handle her. “I’m not dealing with this bullshit today, Ma,” I said.

“Watch your fucking mouth, Patricia,” she said, finally slowing her thumb enough to ball her hand into a fist.

She’d never hit me, not even in her darkest moments, not even a spanking when I was a kid. Had said her own mother had hit her enough for the both of us, so I’d never worried she would. When I looked at her now, I saw she had slipped more, that the mother I loved was getting further away.

And what did I do?

The only thing I could.

“I’ll be back later,” I said as I reached into my pocket, hating myself with every second that passed.

“I need at least two hundred,” she said.

“I have forty,” I replied, the cloud of happiness that had carried me here a distant memory, displaced by exhaustion, sadness.

“You’re fucking a mobster and all you can get is forty?” she said, voice full of disappointment.

Disappointment that didn’t keep her from taking the bills in my hand.

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