“You know, Emily,” Mom continued as if I wasn’t in a terrible mood already. “If you tried to make a couple of friends here, you wouldn’t be as lonely when you visited.”
“I’m not in high school, Ma. I’m thirty-three.”
“Yes, and friendless.”
“I have lots of friends back in Los Angeles, which is where I’ll be next week. There’s really no point making an effort.”
A flash of sadness crossed her eyes, and I immediately felt awful. Mom was digging in her heels. We were both jockeying for the same outcome. She wanted me to stay, and I wanted her to go.
“I love being with you, but you know I have to go back. My life is there. I’m a city girl. Besides, it pays the bills.” I raised a brow, hoping she wouldn’t make me point out that my income helped her too. It paid the medical bills her insurance didn’t cover and put a new roof over her head when the old one leaked.
My mom laughed. “If the weather keeps up like this, you won’t be going anywhere until spring, Miss Flanagan.”
There were some things that would make the list of my worst nightmares. Walking into a room full of spiders was one. Having to eat lentils for the rest of my life would be another. Getting snowed in was the worst. Talking about it almost made it possible, so I shifted the conversation.
The lights flickered but stayed on. “I’m worried the power is going to cut out at any moment. I don’t want that happening when I leave next week. Is there anyone you can get to come over and make sure the backup generator is running when I’m gone?”
“Sweetheart”—the oxygen tank whirred and hissed with each breath—“there’s no backup generator. If the power goes out, I’ll have to rely on candles and firewood until it comes back on.”
“Ma.” This information didn’t ease my worry. Candles and firewood would never cut it. I needed to add a backup generator to my list of things to buy.
“What?”
“This is why you’re not recovering. If you have no backup generator then—”
My mom raised her hands in the air. “Although this may be the worst winter to hit Colorado in 30 years, I have never been without power from a snowstorm for longer than an hour.”Global warming, my arse.”
“You say that like global warming is a conspiracy instead of an actual thing.”
“God. You and your geography.”
“Well, it is what I studied for years.”
“I thought you were a city planner or something.”
“Which is a pretty standard geography career.”
She frowned. “I thought geography was about rocks?”
“That’s geology. Geography covers more than capital cities and global warming.”
Mom waved a hand. “As long as you like it.”
When I was growing up, I dreamed of being a ballerina. Turned out, I lacked rhythm, and I liked Jaffa cakes too much. I had aspirations of being a meteorologist for a while, but that didn’t pan out either. City planning paid the bills and bought me great shoes. “I like it.”
Mom sighed. “I wish you had kept on trying to become a weather girl—”
“A meteorologist—”
“Your red hair would look pretty on camera, Emily.”
“Sure, that’s the only reason I wanted to do it. To look pretty on camera.”
“Being on the telly could be a perk. I’m sure you’d have found a boyfriend much faster if you—”
I held up my hand. “Don’t start.”
“I never meet any of your boyfriends anymore. Do you ever plan to settle down?”
“It’s not my number one priority.”
“But you’re thirty-three.”
I arched my right brow. “And?”
“I don’t get it. With your beautiful hair, and your lovely accent—you know they all go mad for an Irish accent over here—I don’t understand why a man hasn’t tried to marry you.”
“Who’s saying a man hasn’t?”
Mom immediately perked up. “Who?”
“Remember Kyle?”
“I do. What ever happened there? All you said was you’d outgrown him, but you never mentioned a proposal.”
“It was five years ago, and when I got the job in Los Angeles. Kyle and I were living in that apartment near Berkeley. He gave me an ultimatum. I had to choose between him or the job.” She saw the wistful look of a woman who wanted grandchildren. “You can put away that look of hope and stop generating a guest list in your head.”
She tutted as if my being single was a true tragedy, and a more pressing matter than her ailing health.
“Sometimes, I blame myself, sweetheart. If your da—”
“Da left when I was twelve, and it wasn’t your fault. Leave it alone.”
“He left because I wouldn’t go with him.”
“He left because he was a philanderer and was on the kill list of most men and women in Ardmore. You knew if you had gone with him, it would have been more of the same.” She growled. “Men and their ultimatums. Da backed you into a corner, and you made the right choice. I’ll never allow a man to influence my choices.”
I knew I’d come across as short-tempered, but I was fed up with her thinking that if the son of a bitch she’d called her husband had only stuck around, then I’d be well-rounded.
The last thing I’d needed in my life was a womanizing drunk sticking around during my teen years. Ma moving the two of us to the United States was the best decision she’d ever made. Although, it would have been nice to see him once more, to prove that we didn’t need a man in our life to make it perfect. I was grateful he’d left us, and grateful we’d left the small-town. I now lived in the land of opportunity, and I was taking the proverbial bull by the horns—or at least trying to.
The living room filled with silence for a few moments. Both of us obviously reflecting on the people from our past.
“I wish Mary was here,” I finally said.
“You and me both, sweetheart.”
Mary had been my mother’s best friend. She’d moved to California five years before my mom had moved us. She’d been half the reason we left Ireland. The two of them were thick as thieves and lived three glorious years in Northern California before seeking out a quieter life in Frazier Falls.
“I’d always thought she’d outlive me,” Mom said with a sad voice. She stared out the window at the snow, which was barely visible behind the condensation-clouded glass. “I mean, I smoked twenty a day. She never touched a cigarette. I put down a pint a night. She never drank. Mary was the pinnacle of health.”
“Healthy people have heart attacks too.”
“But it … it isn’t fair. Sometimes, I wish I’d hurry up and—”
My heart sank into the pit of my stomach. “Don’t. Don’t even think of finishing that sentence.”
“Look at me, Emily,” she said bleakly, gesturing toward the oxygen tank by the side of the sofa. A bad case of pneumonia had sucked the energy from her lungs. When we thought she’d kicked the virus, it came back with a vengeance.
The cold weather didn’t help any. It scratched and clawed inside of her, making breathing difficult. She could barely leave the house with the weather this bad.