“I suppose that would be my mother,” she quietly admitted.
“Your mother?” he asked in disbelief.
She nodded and he had never hated someone he’d never met, but he felt an instant animosity toward the woman who’d supplied Mia with half her chromosomes.
“You mean the drunk.” As soon as those four words left his mouth, he heard how crude they sounded together, especially when accompanied by his skunk eye. He backtracked. “Sorry. That was rude. Addiction is a soul-crushing sickness and I shouldn’t—”
“Believe me,” she interrupted. “There’s no need to apologize. I doubt you could say anything about Mom that I haven’t thought myself.”
I don’t know about that, he thought bitterly. He had some pretty choice words for the woman, a few of which he figured Mia had never even heard before.
But, of course, he kept them to himself. Talk of family was a tricky business, with vague and moving lines that an outsider had to tread carefully or risk crossing one.
“Have you ever met someone who, no matter how much they have, they always want more?” Her question was rhetorical, so he remained quiet. “That’s my mom,” she said with a downward jerk of her chin. “She always thinks the grass is greener on the other side. But then once she gets to the other side, she kills the grass.”
She winced. “I shouldn’t be talking about her this way. It’s unkind and ungenerous of me.”
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face to give himself time to swallow the words perched on the tip of his tongue. Words like, Screw that witch for what she did to her own daughter or Sounds to me like she doesn’t deserve your kindness or generosity.
Instead, he said, “Look, I get it. When it’s family, we try hella hard to give them the benefit of the doubt. But sometimes the people who share our blood are rotten at their core. And it’s okay to admit that.”
He finally had. Because there’d only been so many excuses he could make for his mother and his brother, so many times he could tell himself they were simply a product of their environment, before he’d had to admit they’d made their choices. And their choices had been bad ones. And enough bad choices eventually made a bad person.
Mia sighed and stopped messing with her earring. Now both of her delicate hands fiddled with the edge of the mat.
A mat that was looking better than his.
She’d picked up the technique as if she’d been born to it. And maybe it was all the years she’d been pulling priceless artifacts out of the seabed that made her so good with her hands or—
An unbidden vision of exactly what he’d like her to use her talented little hands for suddenly popped into his head. It was so carnal and erotic, he was surprised he didn’t spontaneously combust.
Not that spontaneous combustion would be all bad, he thought. At least the others would be able to keep warm tonight beside my smoldering corpse.
“I’ve always wondered which came first?” she pondered aloud, and he gave himself an imaginary slap across the face while silently berating himself to get his head out of the gutter. She was baring her soul and he was fantasying about a handy.
She’s right. I am such an asshole!
“Did the addiction make her hateful and unhappy?” She cocked her head. “Or was she hateful and unhappy and turned to the pills and the booze to make herself feel better?”
“It’s a classic chicken/egg scenario.” He hoped she didn’t hear how hoarse his voice had become. “But the real question is, does it even matter? Whichever one came first doesn’t change the fact that she was a terrible mother to you.”
“I used to think it mattered.” She made a face. “I used to think if it was the addiction making her so mean, then she could be loving and supportive if she could just get sober.” One rounded shoulder moved up and down inside her blouse and he had the oddest urge to pull her collar aside and press his lips to that graceful curve of bone and muscle. “But she’s been in and out of rehabs my whole life, and it never seemed to matter if she was drunk or sober. She’s always been...her. I’ve given up hope she’ll ever be the mother I want or need.”
“Or deserve,” he was quick to add.
Her gaze shot to his face at the same time her hand shot to her ear to twist on her earring. He saw something dark and heavy move behind her eyes. “I don’t know about that part,” she whispered.
He turned his head slightly. “You don’t think you deserved a loving and supportive mother?”
“Do any of us truly deserve anything? Isn’t thinking we deserve things just entitlement in disguise?”
“No,” he declared staunchly. “Bad people deserve to suffer the consequences of their bad choices and actions just like good people deserve good things to happen to them.”
“That’s the rub, though, isn’t it? How much bad does someone have to do before they’re a bad person? And is it possible one or two awful acts can obliterate a lifetime of good deeds?”
“Are you talking about something in particular?” He raised his eyebrows in question.
Her smile was tight when she shook her head. “Just getting philosophical, I guess.”
He got the impression there was more to it than that, but he feared she’d clam up if he kept at her. He said carefully, “There’s no one right answer to your question. It all comes down to circumstances and how good or bad certain acts or deeds are. Also, how many bad acts or deeds there are. Like, if a person can learn from their mistakes and never make them again, then there’s room for redemption. But if they just keep doing the same bad shit over and over again? No.” He shook his head. “I think it’s safe to label them as a lost cause.”
She sighed. “Like I said, the no one right answer is the rub.”
He desperately wanted to ask her what she meant. But again, he felt like he was treading precariously close to an invisible line. He asked instead, “Is your mother’s addiction what made your dad move you and your brother out of the family home?”
That dark, heavy thing crawling behind her eyes grew darker and heavier still.
Shit.
By trying to avoid stepping over one line, he’d inadvertently jumped over another.
Before he could apologize and tell her she didn’t need to answer if she didn’t want to, she surprised him by nodding. “Yes. He never came out and said it, but I know he blamed her, at least partially, for what happened to me and Andy.”