Page 62 of Wild and Bright

As usual, that familiar rage starts as a small flame, making my skin prickle and my stomach flip. If I’m not careful, it will grow like a wildfire. I want to lash out. I want to say something that will hurt her back, but something stops me. Maybe it’s that Cadence is sitting right across the room, and she understands so much more than she can articulate. Maybe it’s that I’ve been brought so low after making myself vulnerable recently, that I don’t feel like I have anything left to lose.

I try my best to sound reasonable when I speak. “How do you not see the irony of telling me what it means to be a good mother when you’re trying to make me feel shitty about myself? You are trying to make your daughter feel shitty.”

The phone goes quiet for a moment, and then she sighs. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel shitty.”

“Then why would you say that?”

She pauses for a beat. “I just want to see my granddaughter.”

I ought to applaud her for her honesty, because manipulation and shame are tools Helen Henderson uses to get what she wants. Even when what she wants is love.

“And I tried to arrange it so you can see her. It’s not my fault you’re busy.”

“I don’t like any of this, Lauren.”

Ah, now we’ve gotten to it. The real reason she’s upset. Her loss of control over my life.

“I don’t like this…relationship you have with Cam. I don’t think it’s healthy for Cadence, but I especially don’t think it’s healthy for you.”

I grit my teeth, heat washing over my face. “You know literally nothing about it. I haven’t talked to you about it for a reason.”

“Honey, I know more about it than you think.”

Her tone is full of hidden meaning, and it makes my spine go rigid. “If you use my relationship with Cam as an excuse to tell me about some eighties celebrity who hit on you once at a bar, I will literally throw up in the sink right now.”

“He didn’t hit on me once. We had a much longer relationship than that. Very similar to the one you have with Cam. He was a very wealthy man.”

I grimace. “Oh my God, are you talking about the news anchor guy? Mom, I’m sorry, but a San Diego weather reporter is not a celebrity. And there’s no way he was wealthy. He lied to you. There’s literally an entire movie about how pathetic those guys are, and every time you mention him, I picture Will Farrell with a mustache.”

She sighs heavily. “I’m not talking about Dan. I’m talking about a man I’ve never told you about.”

My eyelids flutter at the smugness in her tone. She thinks she’s titillating me with these oblique references to her past. “Either way, I don’t want to hear about him. I’m not going to be impressed.”

“Goodness, Lauren. You think I’m trying to impress my own daughter with my sexual conquests? This man rejected me. It was nothing to brag about. I was heartbroken, and it took me years to get over it. I think that’s probably why I’ve never told you about it. Even after thirty years, the wound is still fresh.”

My shoulders relax a little at her uncharacteristic vulnerability. Still, I don’t want to hear about it.

“Well, I don’t need any details. I’ve heard enough of your stories to last me a lifetime.”

“And I don’t want to tell you about it.” Her tone is defensive. “But I will tell you one thing. That experience taught me a lot of life lessons, especially about men. Men of a certain status are all the same, and Cam is one of them. Just because we’ve known him his whole life doesn’t change it. When men achieve a certain level of power, and Camden has with his fame and wealth—”

“Moderate fame,” I cut in, my cheeks growing hot. “And moderate wealth.”

“Compared to whom? Justin Bieber? You can minimize it all you want, but it doesn’t make it any less true, and I know men like that. I know them better than you do, because of…what I used to look like.”

I roll my eyes at her not-so-humble brag.

“They’re a product of our patriarchal society,” she says. “And they feel like they can have whatever they want. Even good boys like Camden. Having that kind of power changes them. They feel entitled to a certain type of woman.”

My heart jumps into my throat at the implication, my hands growing cold and numb.

A certain type of woman.

I take a deep breath, an unsteady breath. “And I’m not that type of woman.”

“Honey, you know you aren’t.”

The answer comes so quickly, and I’m ill prepared for it. I shut my eyes tightly, my chest seizing with an ache so acute it takes effort to breathe.

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