“Mia, calm down. You know I get anxious when people yell at me.”
Every muscle on her face froze in a mask of shock and fury. She wanted to whip the phone across the room and watch it shatter into a million pieces. No, she wanted to reach into the goddamn phone and strangle her mother through the telephone line. The woman was unbelievable. A despicable piece of work.
“Well, I get anxious when someone rearranges my entire life without asking me!” she yelled. “You left Danny, Mom. You just left him and expected me to take care of him.”
“It’s not like he’s ever been a handful,” Brenda argued. “Your brother is a wonderful, well-behaved kid.”
“How the fuck would you know? You were never around when he was growing up, and you haven’t been around these last two years.”
“Well, I’m going to be around soon.”
Horror slammed into her chest. “What are you talking about?”
“Danny emailed me last week begging to see me. I was swamped with work so I couldn’t make it then, but I’ve been shuffling my schedule around. I’m going to try to drive up to San Diego in the next week or two. I can’t wait to see you guys.”
“Since when? You fucking abandoned us!”
“Watch your language, young lady.”
“Don’t you fucking ‘young lady’ me!” Mia struggled to regain her composure. “And don’t bother coming here. Neither one of us wants to see you.”
“Your brother’s email says otherwise. He wants to see me, Mia.”
“Danny is a naive kid. He doesn’t know what he wants.”
“He needs his mother.”
“He needed you two years ago.”
“Mia—”
“I mean it, Mom, don’t come to San Diego. There’s nothing for you here.”
With that, she ended the call, then let out an infuriated roar that bounced off the apartment walls. The fucking nerve of that woman! She disappeared from their lives for two years and now she wanted to waltz back for a visit as if nothing happened?
Breathing hard, Mia stormed into the living room and threw her phone on the couch in a fit of anger. She was going to slam the door in her mother’s face. Yep, that’s exactly what she would do if the woman followed through on her visit threat.
Brenda Weldrick-Jordan-Davis-Schwartz-Parker-Hassan-Reilly-Diaz-Reynolds had no place in their lives. Not anymore.
And not ever.
An hour later, Mia had calmed down drastically, thanks to a long shower and nonstop self-reassurances that her mother was full of shit. There would be no visit. Nope, because Brenda’s ADD rivaled that of a preteen in math class. She’d get distracted by something shiny and forget all about her kids again, just like she always did.
Mia didn’t know what had inspired the phone call in the first place, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. No doubt another divorce. Or maybe there’d been a family-centered episode on one of her mother’s favorite talk shows and the woman had felt guilty or something.
It didn’t matter. If there was one thing Brenda could be counted on, it was not being counted on. She hadn’t kept a single promise in her miserable, self-absorbed life, so there was really no reason to believe she’d actually show up in San Diego.
When Mia stepped into the living room, freshly showered and feeling centered again, she found her brother huddled over the coffee table with an open textbook, scribbling in his notebook.
“Hey,” she greeted him. “When did you get home?”
“While you were in the shower,” he answered absently, his gaze glued to his homework. “Practice ended early.”
“You hungry?” She drifted toward the kitchen. “I can heat up that leftover lasagna.”
“Actually, is it cool if I go over to Angie’s for dinner?”
“Sure, but only if you finish all your homework first.”
“What does it look like I’m doing, dum-dum?” He promptly buried his nose in the textbook and proceeded to ignore her.
Mia smiled and inwardly praised herself for bringing up such a good kid, but along with the joy came a pang of bitterness. How dare their mother ring her up out of the blue and announce a visit? The woman had deserted her son. She didn’t deserve to see Danny again.
Swallowing her resentment, she focused on nuking yesterday’s dinner. A part of her was tempted to tell Danny about their mother’s call, just so she’d have someone to vent to, but she fought the urge. For some fucked-up reason Danny had a soft spot when it came to their mom, and Mia feared that the news might actually make him happy.
She couldn’t tell him. And not just because she didn’t want to see that flicker of excitement in his eyes. She refused to get his hopes up only to watch them splinter to pieces when their mother didn’t show up.
“Oh, Mia, I forgot,” Danny called out. “Can we stop at the bank tomorrow before school so I can deposit my check?”
“No problem,” she called back, pulling the warmed-up lasagna out of the microwave. “Leon finally paid you, huh?”