Page 104 of Deja New
“I don’t trust her,” he said simply. She couldn’t fault him for that.
•••
ANGELA MARCHED PASTthe newer graves, past the tombs, past the statue of Inez Clarke, pastEternal Silence, and stopped. She took a few seconds to glare at the thing in its cold stone face.“You want a piece? Let’s go!” she snapped and, when she wasn’t struck by lightning, marched on.
She found her mother at her uncle’s grave, as she’d known she would the moment Jason told them about the letter(s) and visit(s).
“Ah-ha! Look who’s returned to the scene of the crime.”Okay, I already need a do-over. “Ah-ha” sounded great until I said it out loud.
Her mother sat cross-legged in front of the stone and now looked up, squinting, so walking with the sun at her back was definitely the way to go. “Iruinedmy blouse that day.”
“Because of course you did. But don’t blame yourself. These things happen when you talk your dead husband into serving a life sentence for his own murder and later decide to desecrate his grave.”
“It wasn’t a decision. It’s not like the second thing was part of any big plan,” she said with... was that... reproach? “It was a reaction to stress.”
Angela came a few steps closer. “Are you seriously tossing me attitude right now?”
“Ask.”
Did she just call me an—oh. “Ask,” with a “k.” Not the other thing.“What?”
Her mother sighed. She was still in the outfit Angela had last seen her in half an hour earlier (red slacks, short-sleeved black blouse, black flats... business casual wear as opposed to grave-desecrating wear), her graying brown hair needed a good brushing, and she had her keys in one hand and nothing else.
“Left in such a hurry you forgot your purse,” she observed. “I ought to have Jason arrest your ass. He might anyway. Obstruction of justice, for starters. Fraud.”Breaking your children’s hearts. Consuming selfishness. That last one should be a felony.
“‘Fraud’?” Her mother’s head jerked up. “I never stole from anyone.”
“You’ve been collecting a dead man’s pension!Andscrewing up your family like you were getting paid.”
“That. Was.Him.” Emma Drake was uncoiling as she rose to her feet.Kind of like a cobra, Angela thought, fascinated.And me without my lidded basket. Or a snake-charming flute.“You can lay this entire debacle at your father’s feet.”
“‘The entire debacle,’ huh? Not just part of the debacle? Most of the debacle?”
“Yes.”
“How did I never notice you were a sociopath?”
“Oh, please. People toss that word around too much. You know better.”
“So let’s talk about what I know.” Angela started to pace around the stone. “Donald Drake is alive and well, or as well as anyone serving a life sentence can be. And he went out of his way to arrange his own life imprisonment for his own murder. Which you condoned and possibly planned.” When her mom started to say something, Angela added, “And don’t say ‘Anything sounds bad when you put it like that.’ There is literally no way to put that where it sounds anything but deeply,deeplyfucked up.”
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Make me understand. Break it down.”
Emma studied her for a few seconds and said the last thingAngela expected: “I really did love him. And never more than when he went to prison. It’s how I finally knew.”
“Knew what?
“That he valued our lives more than Dennis’s lifestyle.”
“Uh. ‘Lifestyle’?”
“It was like your father was caught in a spell. It was always like that. The family myth was that Dennis was a no-good pothead who couldn’t keep out of trouble, while Donald was a good and responsible man who deplored his brother’s lifestyle. But it was always bullshit.”
Angela rolled her eyes so hard her temples throbbed. “You pretended to be a widow for ten years and you’re gonna bitch about family myths?”
“Do you want the story or not?” her mother snapped. “Less editorializing, more listening.”
