Page 109 of What the Wife Knew

“I’m keeping part of the estate but giving the majority away. Trusts for Wyatt and Portia. Donations to charities. Peter Cullen will get a check. It won’t bring back his son, but it will be something.”

Her hand fell but she kept a tight grip on the check. “Absolutely not. You’re not distributing my money to those people. I worked too hard for too long for you to hand out dollar bills on the street corner.” She eyed the checkbook. Probably toyed with the idea of taking it. “You seem to forget I have leverage.”

It took her long enough to drag that oldie out. The threat no longer carried a punch. It had turned into a whimper compared to what she’d done. “Use it. Turn me in. Go ahead. Implicating me implicates you, and I have money for attorney fees, thanks to Richmond. You still won’t get one more cent.”

The painful reality was that I let her use the defensive killingagainst me. She never could have turned me in and remained unscathed. I didn’t do it consciously, but I ignored that fact because a part of me believed that if we had this tie between us, sick as it was, I still had a mother. Her venom tethered us, and I allowed it.

There wasn’t enough therapy in the world to heal this wound.

Her tone changed. Softer. Calmer. “How could you do this to me? I just got out of the hospital. I need to stay here until I’m stronger.”

Even fifteen minutes ago that emotional manipulation might have worked. “And I just found out that the sole purpose of my life was to make my homicidal asshole of a father give you money.”

Despite all my running, over the years she’d cry out for food, money, or my time, and I’d race to her, heart and hands open because I’d confused being used with being loved. Breaking the lifetime habit and severing all ties would throw me into a hurricane of regret and remorse.

She wouldn’t spend one second missing me.

She sighed at me the way she always did. The noise was her signal that it was time to move on. “I’m done fighting about this. I’m still your mother.”

“In name only.”

She moved so fast I didn’t have time to block her. Her hand came up and she slapped me. I heard the crack a second before I felt the sting. She held her body stiff and straight. “You’re angry now but you’ll get over it. You always have these tantrums then calm down.”

She depended on my acquiescence. Thrived on her ability to betray me and laughed at the way I ran back to her, begging for another round of insults and threats. Not one day more.

The rip that started with her lie about Cooper split open whenshe told me the truth about Richmond. The shredded relationship, already flimsy, now lay in tatters. Unfixable. Today a burning hole in my gut but, hopefully, one day a distant ache. Nothing more than a slight twinge of sadness.

“Actually, this time I won’t.” I handed her the car keys. “The SUV is yours. Richmond bought it. It’s new. Let me know where you’re staying. I’ll send the rest of your things and the car title there.”

No one warned me about the price of freedom. About how much emptiness and despair I’d have to wade through to find it... if I ever did.

I punched in numbers on the keypad and the gate opened. “I’ll change the security codes and locks today.”

“You’re going to let those Dougherty kids come in and out, give them money and whatever else they need, but kick me to the street?”

“Yeah. They’re family.” Broken and messy but I might need them as much as they needed me. They couldn’t know about our blood ties, but I could play the role of concerned stepmom. Put my body in front of theirs when it came to all the news that was about to break about their parents.

Found family.I’d stumbled over the term in those self-help books. Sometimes it was better to create a family than stay with the one that raised you. The concept suddenly made sense.

I stepped through the gate and closed it behind me. Mom kept up her complaints as I walked away. Her yelling echoed off the trees and through the yard. This time I didn’t cave. I didn’t give in to the fantasy of a loving mother or the gnawing pain at the loss of an ideal that didn’t exist.

Nothing I tried was ever good enough. But I knew she’d cash the check.

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