“No, I guess I don’t. I imagine you’ll bring whiskey too, so I won’t need to stock up for us.”
This comment launches an exaggerated eye roll. “You never need to buy another bottle of Seven Sinners. You know that.”
The taste of the whiskey is still on my tongue from Mount’s office. “Much appreciated.” When Aurora reaches out to grab some puffed cereal and shoves it in her mouth, I say, “Well, I should let you get back to what you’re doing. I’ve gotta make a pass at Bernadette’s before I head back to meet with the contractor about the punch list for the finish work.”
“Already? But you just got here.” Keira catches Aurora’s hand before she flips her container of cereal onto the ground.
“You know me. I never stay still for long.”
A gentle and warm expression crosses her face. “Whatever it is that’s really going on with you . . . I can handle it, Mags. When you’re ready to tell me, I’ll be ready to listen.”
The memory of Moses’s glowing eyes flashes through my brain, and it takes everything I have to offer her a thin smile. “I’ll let you know.”
“Take care. We love you.”
“And I love you right back.” I lean in and press a kiss to Aurora’s wild hair. “I’ll see you two later.”
As I turn to where V stands at the doorway, Aurora yells, “Yeeee!”
A pang of longing stabs me in my chest, where my heart should be. I’ll never have that. I’ll never know what it feels like to bring life into this world.
Then again, it’s a fucked-up place, and God knows I’m not fit to be a mother anyway.
V shows me out of the inner sanctum a different way than we came in. Shockingly, he doesn’t blindfold me so I can’t see where we’re going. I must have passed some kind of trust test since the last time I was here. He proves that further by handing my pink revolver and knife back to me before he opens the huge metal door.
The exit he takes me out leads to a different street than the one the bar is on. Sunshine beats down on my face, and I take a deep breath.
Moses is in that building, and I don’t care. I won’t let myself care.
As I walk past a shiny black Rolls Royce parked at the curb, I remind myself I’m an emotional fucking fortress. I only feel what I want to feel, and not a damn thing more.
Put that man out of your mind, Mags. He’s got no business taking up your time or your thoughts.
Even though I know it’s true, I struggle to not look back.
Four
Magnolia
“I don’t know why you keep coming here.” Bitchy Bernadette spits words at me from her recliner across the room, where she sits with a blanket over her lap as she watches her stories on TV.
“Glutton for punishment, I suppose. But then again, I really enjoy seeing how many new wrinkles you’ve gotten since the last time I stopped by. Run out of night cream, Aunt Bernie?”
She hisses, as in actually hisses like a snake. Considering she’s as mean as one, it doesn’t surprise me. “You were an ungrateful child, and now you’re a perfectly awful woman. Get your whore ass out of my house.”
That knocks loose the first real laugh I’ve had all day. “Bitch, I own this house, so my whore ass can come and go as I please.”
She bares her teeth at me as Norma, the former maid who Bernadette treated horribly when she worked for her, comes to bring the bag of bones a tray for lunch. Or maybe dinner. Who the hell knows what schedule old people eat on anyway?
Bernadette’s face pinches as she looks at the food and then back up at Norma. “Did you poison it? Is that why she’s here? To finally watch me die? Because I’m ready. Been ready for years.”
“Not today, Bernie,” Norma says with a genuine smile. “Maybe tomorrow.” The tables have turned, and Norma and I both find it fucking hilarious.
Bernadette had a fancy house and high standards. So high that she kicked me out when I was sixteen and got expelled from school after getting caught giving the history teacher a blowie in the supply closet. Not that anyone ever asked me why I did it or thought maybe he was the one in the wrong. I was out on my ass as soon as Bernadette got the call from the school.
She told me all along I was going to end up a whore like my mother, and I proved her right. What else was a homeless teenage girl going to do to support herself on the streets?
Fast forward nearly twenty years, and Bernadette got sucked into a series of phone scams that preyed on the elderly. She lost everything.
It must have been the worst day of her life when she had to call and ask me for money.
Bernadette glares at Norma’s retreating back. “You love to torture me. Both of you.”
I glance around the room of the house where she lives. “Yes, so much that I make sure you have everything you need and you never go hungry. You’re lucky I don’t restrict your food like you did mine when you thought I was getting fat at fourteen.”
She grabs a carrot stick and crunches down hard on the end. “You should thank me for that. Look at you now.”
I run my hands down my sides, letting them curve over my hips. “You’re right. No thanks to you, I look fucking great.”
“Get out of here with your filthy language. I shouldn’t have to listen to this. It has to be elder abuse. I’m gonna get a lawyer and tell them everything. Just you wait.”
I pluck a cherry tomato from her plate and pop it into my mouth. “Yeah, and what’re you gonna pay him with? Your Social Security check barely keeps the lights on or buys groceries.”
She shakes her head and hovers over her food so I can’t steal more.
“It’s good to see you’re still kicking, Bernie. Just like the stubborn mule you are. I’ll be back next week to check on you. Let Norma know if you need anything.”
She ignores me as I strut out of the living room and into the small kitchen where Norma is washing silverware.
I cut the shit and get right to it. “How’s she doing?”
Norma’s frail shoulders rise and fall. “She’s lonely, whether she’ll admit it or not. She makes up reasons to complain so she’ll have something to say to me. So . . . pretty much the same as always.” She turns the water off and places the last spoon in the dish rack. “She’s always full of energy after you come to visit, though. She doesn’t mean what she says, you know?”
My eyebrows lift to my hairline. “Oh yes, she does. She was born mean, and she’ll stay mean until the day she dies.”
“You two best not be talking about me!” Bernadette calls from the other room. Being wheelchair bound after the last fall that broke her hip, she can’t come find out.
I poke my head through the doorway. “Of course we’re talking about you. Norma’s telling me that there’s hope of you being a decent human yet. I don’t buy it.”
“Go to hell.” My great-aunt’s slender middle finger flips me the bird.
“Already been there, Bernie. Try not to choke. No need to add ambulance bills to your upkeep.”
I move back into the kitchen and give Norma a kiss on her papery cheek. “Thank you for taking such good care of her. You’re a saint.”