Part 23 (1/2)
Her voice sounded wooden as she said, ”Mother.”
”Don't you call me that,” her mother sneered, and Emma saw that familiar ugliness in her brown eyes, in the dark shadows beneath, in the pasty sheen of her skin and the spittle at the side of her mouth.
”All right.” Sick dread churned in her belly. She knew her mother would humiliate them both. What she didn't know was how to deal with it. As a child, she'd begged, hidden, run away. But she wasn't a child any longer, and her mother was now her responsibility.
”A daughter would have come to see me by now. You know I'm all alone. You know I needed you. But no. You're too good for that, aren't you?”
”You have my number,” Emma reasoned. ”You could have-” No. Emma stopped herself. She knew from long experience that there was no reasoning with her mother in this condition. It would be a waste of breath to even try, and would only prolong the uncomfortable confrontation. ”Why don't I take you home?”
”Oh no, missy. I don't d.a.m.n well wanna go home now.” She took an unsteady step forward. ”I want you to take me to the store, and then we're goin' to the hospital to see Dell.”
Emma's heart nearly stopped. Take her mother to the hospital? Not while she was drunk. ”I won't buy you alcohol.” She didn't bother to reply to her other request.
Her mother looked stunned at that direct refusal. Her eyes widened, her mouth moved. Finally, she yelled, ”You just get me there and I'll buy it myself. I'm worried about your father and sick at heart and G.o.d knows my only daughter doesn't give a d.a.m.n.” As she spoke, she tottered around the table toward Emma. Ashes fell from the cigarette, which was now little more than a b.u.t.t.
Just as she'd done so many times in the past, Emma braced herself, emotionally, physically. Even so, she had a hard time staying upright when her mother's free hand knotted in the front of her s.h.i.+rt and she stumbled into her. ”You'll take me,” she hissed, her breath tainted with the sickly sweet scent of booze and the thickness of smoke, ”or I'll tell everyone what you did.”
A layer of ice fell over Emma's heart. It was now or never, and she simply couldn't take it anymore. ”What you did, you mean.”
The shock at her defiance only lasted a moment. ”No one will believe that.” Her mother laughed, and tugged harder on Emma's s.h.i.+rt. ”You, with your d.a.m.n reputation. You don't have any friends around here. Even that nosy sheriff was always checking up on you. He'll believe whatever I tell him. And you'll go to jail-”
”I'll take my chances.”
Enraged, her mother drew back to strike Emma, but her hand was still in the air when Casey pulled Emma back and into his side. Her mother's swing, which would have left a bruise, given the force she'd put behind it, missed the mark by over a foot and threw her off balance. She turned a half circle and landed hard on her hands and knees in the rough gravel. Her cigarette fell to the side, still smoldering.
Emma had automatically reached out to break her fall, but she pulled back. She could feel Casey breathing hard beside her, knew he was disgusted and shocked at the scene a a scene he'd probably never witnessed in his entire life, but that was all too familiar to Emma.
B.B. went berserk, barking and snarling, and Emma, feeling numb, caught his collar to restrain him. She whispered, to the dog, soothing him while staring down at the woman who'd birthed her. She waited to see what else she'd do. Her mother could be so unpredictable at times like this.
But she stayed there, her head drooping forward while she gathered herself. Eight years had apparently taken a toll on her too. When she twisted around to look up at Casey, it was with confusion and anger. ”Who the h.e.l.l are you?”
Thinking to protect Casey, Emma said, ”He's the sheriff's nephew.”
”And,” Casey added, his own anger barely under control, ”I heard everything you just said.”
Slumping back on her behind, slack-jawed, her mother stared from Casey to Emma and back again. Slowly, her lips curled and she pointed at Emma. ”Did she tell you what she did? Do you know?” She hunted for her cigarette, picking it up and using it to light another that she fetched from her pocket. She took a long draw, looking at Casey through a stream of smoke. ”She tried to burn down the diner.”
Emma closed her eyes on a wave of stark pain. She'd held a faint, ridiculous hope that her mother wouldn't take it that far, that she'd only been bl.u.s.tering. That somehow she'd care just a little about her only child.
Barely aware of Casey taking her hand, Emma sorted through her hurt, pus.h.i.+ng aside what she could to deal with the situation at hand. Mrs. Reider didn't deserve this scene. She ran a respectable business in a dry county. Having a drunken argument in her lot would probably go down as one of the worst things imaginable.
Slowly, Ceily came up to Emma's other side. She wasn't looking at Mrs. Clark, but at Emma. ”You're the one who called and reported the fire that night, aren't you?”
It was so d.a.m.n difficult, but Emma forced herself to face Ceily. When she spoke, she was pleased that she sounded strong, despite her suffocating guilt. ”Yes. I'm sorry. It's all very complicated and I didn't mean for any of it to happen...”
”Your mother started it?”
Amazed that Ceily had come to that conclusion without further explanation, it took Emma a few moments to finally nod.
”That's a lie!”
Ceily ignored her mother's loud denials, speaking only to Emma. ”Why? I barely knew your folks.”
It would help, Emma thought, if she had a good solid reason to give, some explanation that would make sense. She didn't have one. ”You weren't a target, Ceily. The diner is just the first place she came to where she thought she might find either a drink or money to go get a drink.”
Ceily shook her head. ”But I don't serve alcohol, and I cash out every night before closing up.”
”I know. And if she'd been thinking straight, she might have realized it too. But alcoholism...it's a sickness and when you want to drink, nothing else matters...”
Her mother began protesting again, her every word sc.r.a.ping along Emma's nerves until she wanted to cover her ears, run away again. But she no longer had that luxury. She had to deal with this. ”She broke in, and things went from bad to worse...I didn't know what to do.”
Damon stepped up and looped his arms around Ceily so that she leaned into his chest. It dawned on Emma that Ceily didn't look accusatory as much as curious. Of course, her reaction would have been vastly different eight years ago, the night it had all happened. The shock, the anger and hurt had likely been blunted by time.
”How did you find her?” Ominous overtones clouded Casey's softly asked question.
Emma winced. Because the fire and Emma's visit to his house had happened on the same night, Casey had a right to his suspicions. ”Earlier that day, I'd convinced my father that we had to stand together, to get her help. It was the worst argument we'd ever had. She was furious, and...I couldn't take it. So I went out. But I always cut through town coming home.” Here Emma gave an apologetic shrug to Casey. ”Your uncle had warned me that he'd run me into juvenile if he caught me out so late again.”
”He worried about you,” Casey told her with a frown.
”I know.” Emma smiled, though she felt very sad that only a stranger had worried, and only because it had been his job. ”I came home behind the businesses, as usual, because that way I was less likely to be seen from the street. I found my mom coming out of the back of the diner, and I realized what she was doing. Then I smelled the smoke.”
”She'd already started the fire?”
”Not on purpose. It was her cigarette, but...” Wanting to finish it, Emma rushed through the rest of her words. ”The fire was small at first and I tried to put it out. But she kept fighting me, wanting us to leave before we got caught.”
”Dear G.o.d,” Casey muttered, and he glared at her mother, who gave him a mutinous look back.
Emma spoke to Ceily. ”I knew I couldn't do that. I told her she needed help and that I thought you might let her just pay for the damages if she agreed to go to the hospital for treatment. But she didn't believe me and when I finally got the call through, she...”
”She threatened to blame you?” Casey asked.
Emma turned to him. ”Yes. She said she'd tell everyone that I did it. I was...scared. I wasn't sure who might believe her.”
”No one would have.”
”You might not have blamed me, but-”
”I wouldn't have either,” Ceily said.
Damon leaned around to look at Ceily, slowly smiled at her, then gave her a tight squeeze.
Emma couldn't believe they were being so nice. In so many ways, it might have been easier for her if they'd hated her and what she'd done. ”I'm doubly sorry then, because I was a coward. The fire was already out of control. I made the call anonymously, went home with my mother and...things got out of control.”
”That's how you got beat up that night, isn't it?” He sounded furious and pained and...hurt? Because she'd been hurt? She glanced at him, but didn't reply because she didn't want to involve him further. ”I made plans to leave.”
”You came to me.”
She shook her head at Casey. He couldn't seem to get beyond that, and she was beginning to think he put far too much emphasis on that one small fact. ”With the intent of only staying one night.”
”If I'd known that, you never would have gotten away.”