Page 62 of Tarnished Queen

My mom tips her head back and cackles maniacally, though it’s clear she doesn’t think any of this is funny. “Always so damn dramatic. This isn’t a war, Belle. There are no traitors.”

“Whatever you want to call it, you and I aren’t on the same side. We never were.”

“Giving you life means nothing, then?” she snaps.

“You gave birth to me, but you didn’t give me a life. You weren’t a mother to me.”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t realize it was a crime to be poor. Sorry I couldn’t spend all my time baking pies and… and gardening or some shit like that.”

“No, you were too busy searching for your next fix and being passed out drunk by noon. Your schedule was all full.”

Her eyes narrow. “I lost my husband, you know. I was mourning.”

“And I lost my dad!” I can feel other people in the diner watching us now, but I can’t bring myself to care. All of this baggage with my mom has been tucked out of sight for too long. It’s time to air it out. “I lost the only parent who even halfway cared about me, but you were too focused on yourself to see that I was mourning, too.”

“Kids always bounce back. You were fine.”

“Because I had to be!” I scream. “Because I was always the adult in our house. Even when I was a little kid.”

She purses her lips. I notice a slew of new wrinkles around her mouth. Time and drugs are leeching the life from her. “You’ve always been impossible to talk to. So hysterical. So much like your father. Elise was my girl, but you poisoned her against me, too.”

“You did that yourself. I wasn’t even there.”

I should have been there, though. I was so young when I left, but I should have taken Elise with me. I should have figured it out and gotten us both out of that house sooner.

“That’s why she liked you. Because you weren’t around. Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” she says. “After you ran off, she forgot how miserable you could be.”

At one time, my mom had the ability to hurt me. I cared what she thought.

Now, I just want her gone.

“You’re not getting her back.”

Her eyes narrow. “I’m her mother. You can’t keep her from me.”

“Then call the police,” I tell her flatly. “File a missing person report or list her as a runaway. Get the authorities involved.”

Her jaw tightens. “Why should I? The person responsible is right in front of me."

“I think the question you should actually be asking is, ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ And lucky me, I know the answer. It’s because you’re afraid the cops will care more about the nasty, shady stuff you’re up to than finding Elise.”

All the ease has left my mother. She is tense now, pulled taut and ready to spring at me. “I’m not ‘up to’ anything.”

“Is that right?” I arch an eyebrow. “Open your purse. Let me see what’s inside.”

Her hand closes around her bag in a possessive claw. That’s all the answer I needed.

Howard sighs. “Girls, come on. Can’t we be civil?”

I have a sudden, jarring flashback to when he and my mom were dating. When I wanted to leave the house with them, but my mom wanted me to stay.“Girls,”he’d said, as if my mom and I were on the same level. As if she was as immature as I was, and he was above it all.“Let’s not do this.”

It hurt then, too. I hoped Howard would be on my side, but at the end of the day, he’d rather stay out of it. It was me against the world, like always.

“You shouldn’t even be here,” I seethe at him. “The moment she showed up, you should have left. You know where Nikolai lives. Leave a fucking note. But don’t ambush me with her.”

“‘Her’?” my mom hisses. “That’s the kind of respect I get? Like it or not, I’m your mother. You can’t cut me out.”

“Wrong.” I face her, my expression hard as steel. “You aren’t my mother. You’re just the bitch I lived with for sixteen years.”

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