Page 191 of Smooth Sailing

“Of course not,” Mom returned, not quite meeting Gram’s eyes.

“Dear Lord,” Gram gasped, and now the color was draining from her face. “You did.”

“I didn’t,” Mom bit off.

But Gram’s attention was slowly moving toward Dad.

“Nolan,” she whispered, and it hurt like hell to hear the utter disappointment, regret and sadness in her voice.

Mom turned again to the room. “So now everyone is against me? As usual. My ex-husband takes my daughter from me when she was just a baby and then he does it again?—”

Fuck that noise.

I cut her off, “I wasn’t a baby. I was cognizant at the time, Mom, speaking full sentences, reading, doing math. I remember you didn’t fight for me.”

“I didn’t have the means,” Mom retorted.

“Excuse me, Margaret Ann, your father and I offered you those means,” Gram stated.

This was news.

Interesting.

“I couldn’t ask you for money, Mom,” my mother replied.

“Why not? You did it a lot while you were growing up,” Gram shot back. “And this particular time, it would have been for something important. My granddaughter.”

Mom put her hand to her chest. “It was me who was destroyed by what Nolan did to me.”

“You got over that quickly, marrying that sonuvabitch,” Gram retorted.

Whoa.

I felt my eyes get big.

Gram never cursed.

She also never stood up to Mom.

Maybe she was pissed she had to get up early to play chauffeur.

Or maybe she was fed up, like me.

“You can’t help when you fall in love,” Mom said.

“Hogwash,” Gram hissed, and God bless him, I didn’t know how he did it, but Big Petey sidled in and took the coffee and Danishes from Gram even as Gram ranted on. “I cannot believe you’re standing there, humiliating yourself, and me, again. Twice in one morning. Rude to Di’s young man. Rude to Di, your own child. Rude when you returned after I spent forty-five minutes talking to you at the coffee place.”

Mom pointed at me. “Well she lied about some poor girl who was gang-raped in order to spend more time with her new boyfriend.”

“Watch it,” Hugger warned.

Mom whirled on him. “You are not in this.”

“Her name is Madison,” Big Petey said, and Mom whirled again, this time on Pete, where he was standing at the kitchen bar, the coffees and Danish bag on the counter in front of him. Gram turned to him too. “She was abducted from her home in Texas, sold to traffickers, and assaulted by three men. Your daughter provided her safe harbor, found a way in to get her talking to the police and FBI, and got her into protective custody.”

“That’s preposterous,” Mom decreed.

“Perhaps you’d allow me to escort you to the police station to talk to Detective Rayne Scott,” Dad offered. “He can corroborate Pete’s story.”

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