Page 58 of Dodge

Her nose wrinkled as she turned to face me. “He’s a biker? Really, Fauna, I thought you had better taste than that.”

“He’s a good man. He spent a lot of hours helping me revamp this place.” That was an understatement for all the work he and I poured into the renovations.

My mother gave a dismissive“Hmph” as she turned back to my dining room. I saw the clean booths, refinished floors, my snazzy custom-built bar, cute tables and chairs, fine artwork on the brick walls, and hanging Tiffany-style lamp shades adding their colors.

Apparently, my mother saw shit. “Rather generic.”

I steeled my spine. Our last conversation didn’t end well, and I expected this one wouldn’t either. “I got most of the stuff used from a chain place.”

“Secondhand?” I didn’t have to see the eye roll to know she’d done it. “Surely you could have done better than that.”

I ground my molars together in an effort to keep my mouth closed. “It fits the area, and I’m on a strict budget.”Need I remind you about your statement of not helping me get a business loan from dear old dad’s bank?

“Your menu looks nice, at least.”

I wanted to scream. Katie Grace was at the hospital, the police were sorting through food samples and other stuff they collected earlier, Macie was at the station, and Mallory was in ICU. But I guess my menu was nice, and that made it all better. “Thanks. Mom, I have a lot going on right now. Why are you here?”

She turned to face me. “A few of the ladies at the club asked me about your place. I couldn’t tell them much and didn’t want to lie in case they ever came here.”

What?“Your timing sucks.”

She raised a perfectly formed eyebrow. “I gathered. What was it? Food poisoning?”

Rage flamed through me at her words, but somehow I managed not to lose it. I wanted to, but I held on to my control with my fingernails. “Not exactly. Local news is there’s a serial rapist who’s been drugging and assaulting women in bars. They’ve been trying to catch him for a while. So far, he’d stayed away from Bryson City, but apparently that’s over. One of my servers was roofied this evening—or allegedly roofied. She’s at the hospital. The police were here investigating.” A now-familiar burn started in my sinuses.

Another“Hmph” was her only comment. It pissed me off.

“My kitchen sanitation is excellent. Always has been. Food poisoning will never be a possibility in my restaurant.” My words came out like bullets, fast and spitting shells. I should have expected her to go there before all other possibilities. Everything in life was my fault, right?

She paused in front of a local artist’s painting. The scene was from a popular overhang somewhere in the Smokies. A sea of black-and-gray mountains rose like cold sentinels as they guarded a rising sun. A thin line of bursting colors shone through a foggy covering, revealing the faint greens of pine trees. One of my favorites. I hadn’t seen that particular place, but I hoped Dodge knew where it was and would take me sometime. My furnishings might be generic, but my artwork was kickass.

My mother regarded the painting before moving on to a display of local pottery. Some hermit guy who seldom if ever came down from his hideaway. I was getting more and more irritated. “Again, Mom, why are you here? Inspection? Been there, done that. Making sure I don’t embarrass you further?”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Fauna. Can you please cut the drama?”

Fuck me, how many times had I heard that exact phrase?“Cut the drama. Stop acting out. Why can’t you be like your brother?”

I wasn’t proud to say it, but I lost my shit.

“Cut the drama? How can I do that, Mom? My whole fucking life has been drama. My grades were never quite good enough for you. You made a big deal of my friends back then because they weren’t rich white-collar people. I never got to wear braids. You’ve hated my profession, something I’m passionate about. Any mistake or slipup you consider criminal. And now you come here, to my restaurant,myrestaurant, on a night when I have a shit ton of stuff to handle to tell me it’s generic and that I’ve poisoned someone. How the fuck am I supposed to react to that? As far as I can tell, I’ll never be good enough for you or your fucking space shuttle high standards.”

“How dare you speak to me that way? I’m your mother!”

“Biologically. I’m not really sure why you even had me.”

“Because of your father!”

That shut me up. I’d never seen or heard my mother scream in that banshee voice before. Her main goal was keeping herself under strict control, tight and unrelenting. She could filet someone to the bone with precise, razor-sharp words. Not in ear-shattering shrieks. This woman in front of me had no resemblance to the one I grew up with.

My father? He and I had never had a close relationship and probably never would. He doted on his proud surgeon son but pretty much ignored his daughter. Resented me even, although as I kid, I never understood why. Did my mom push me so hard to get him to love me?

I might have had some sympathy for her, but she kept talking, and as she did, my heart grew cold.

“I met your father in college when he was in his rebellious stage. I had to go to Durham Tech because my parents were blue-collar workers and couldn’t afford anything else. I waited tables at a wings and bar joint just to afford books. I wanted to go to Duke. That wasmydream.” She thumped her chest. “Finding a rich man to take care of me so I wouldn’t have to wipe up crumbs, congealed hot sauce, and beer spills ever again. I met him when his fraternity brothers came to the wings place. He liked me well enough, but the big attraction was the thrill he got showing me off to his family. They hated the thought of him being with a Black woman as much as my family hated me being with a White man. The more they did to keep us apart, the more he was determined to parade me in front of them like a trophy. They tolerated me for the most part, saying it was just a phase, but then I got pregnant with your brother.”

Her smile turned nasty. “He wanted me to abort, but I refused. An illegitimate child is worse than a mixed child in the eyes of the Somers family. He went through with the marriage, even though he was already catting around. When your brother was born, it was a relief to see him look more like his father than me.”

This was true. My brother had more of Dad’s DNA than I did.

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