Page 202 of Time Stops With You

Mom clicks Josiah’s phone off and stares him down. “We are going to sit down and have a nice family dinner without any mention of irrelevant people.”

Josiah’s face crumples. “Cullen isn’t irrelevant. He’s my friend.”

“He’s a friend you best forget.” Mom shakes her head. “We’re all going to forget about him and we’re all going to move on! And that starts right now!”

My brother’s chest heaves as he glares mom down.

Mom’s eyes widen. “How dare you look at me like that! You think you’re too big to get whupped!”

“Mom,” I slide in front of Josiah. “This is America. You can’t spank kids here.”

Josiah steps out from behind me, his little fingers forming angry fists. “I’m sending Cullen that video before he leaves and you can’t stop me.”

“Oh? So you think you’re big?” Mom taps a few times on Josiah’s phone and then turns the screen to us.

My brother’s eyes widen when he sees mom’s finger hover on the delete button.

“No!” He shrieks.

“Mom, no!” I yell.

But it’s too late.

Mom’s thumb slams on the ‘delete’ button and all of Josiah’s hard work goes down the drain.

“I hate you!” Josiah screams at her.

Mom’s eyes bulge. “How dare you act that way with your mother?—”

“You’re not my mom! Nardi’s more my mom than you are!”

The color drains from mom’s face.

I gasp.

My brother storms away and slams his bedroom door shut.

“That ungrateful little…” Mom shakes her head and paces. “America has turned him into something else. He wouldnevertry that in Belize. If I’d talked to my mother like that….” She flings her hands wide. “I’d be laid out on the floor.”

I try to speak in a calm voice. “Why are you being so hard on him?”

“You know that man is going to die,” mom hisses. Her words fly at me like fists. “There’s nothing any of us can do to change that. So from now on, we’re all going to consider him dead.” She fans her face with a hand. “The faster we’re rid of him the better.”

I go very still. “Mom, what do you mean by ‘rid of him’?”

She stops pacing, her back to me.

I walk around to face her. “Did you say something to Cullen?”

Mom pins her lips together, avoiding my gaze.

I move right into her, refusing to back up. “Mom, what did you do?”

“I told him to get out of your life,” she blurts loudly. Her eyes rise to meet mine and I see the determination there. “I told him you’d lost too much already and he wasn’t allowed to add to your pain.”

A deep groan rises in me and I press a hand to my stomach, right above the scar. “Did you tell him… about my hysterectomy?”

Her jaw muscles clench and she stares at the ground.

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