“We came to take care of you.”
“And I needed that,” I agree, feeling my right hand tremble around the stem of the glass. “Three years ago, Mama. But I’m ready for y’all to go on back home now.” God, please don’t let my fingers tighten up on me now. All I need is a repeat of the pizza fiasco from the other night.
“You’re not the only reason we stayed, Rebecca,” she reminds me quietly, staring out at the fountain. Booming classical accompaniment begins, and she leans close so I can hear her over the crescendo. “We love it here. You know that. That’s the great thing about Daddy’s retirement, we can live anywhere.”
“Mama, I love you and Daddy. And I love you so much for having stayed out here for me,” I say, feeling tears burn my eyes unexpectedly. “But I’ve got to make it on my own now. Because if I don’t, then I don’t think I’ll ever really get past what Ben did to me.”
My mother’s upper lip blanches, turning white as she bites it, and for a sliver of a moment I see pain in her eyes. Sometimes, her guard drops. It drops and that’s when I know that her endless duties as my Watcher aren’t nearly as joyful as she makes them out to be.
“I worry about you, Rebecca. That if we weren’t here, you wouldn’t be okay.”
“I’m thirty-three, Mom,” I remind her, my voice growing thick. “I can make it here on my own. I was fine before everything.” My chest is starting to constrict; breathing’s getting harder. Dang it all to hell. I can’t use my inhaler in front of her, because that would undermine all that I’m saying.
“Before the accident, precious,” she clarifies, and this time I feel angry at the southern propensity to euphemize blasted everything. So I clarify right back at her.
“Before the attack,” I say, trying to calm my heart rate. “Let’s call it what it was, ’cause that was no accident, Mama.”
“You’re right. It was no accident that Ben McAllister crossed paths with you. That evil man,” she mutters, her voice trailing off as she reaches for her planner, her own hands shaking. Really shaking as she stares down at the pages, flipping through them, back and forth without looking up at me. “I wanted to talk about Labor Day weekend.” A lifelong maneuver of hers: changing subjects. But funny thing is, I do want to talk about this topic for once.
“Ben’s not evil, Mama.”
“Of course he’s evil,” she says, her pale eyes widening as they meet my own. “How can you even say that he’s not?”
Reaching for the basket of bread, I deflect her question with, “What’s happening Labor Day?”
“Answer me, Rebecca. How can you defend that man?”
I give a noncommittal shrug, staring at the table. “How can you blame him?”
“Because he almost killed you, precious,” she says, squeezing my hand so tight that her wedding ring presses hard into my skin. “He planned it for months. Followed you for weeks. He set out to end your life. That is what I call evil.”
“He thought I was his girlfriend,” I counter in a hushed voice, looking around to be sure we’re not overhead even though it would be impossible for anyone to eavesdrop with the music. “The poor guy thought I spoke to him from the freaking television set.”
“That’s nonsense.” She shakes her head, adamant. There is no version of reality that will allow my mother to pardon Ben. “The courts knew that defense was ludicrous, that’s why they put him away.” She releases my hand, patting it reassuringly, and says, “Ben McAllister was responsible for his actions.”
“Mama, if you think about it,” I answer, sucking in a slightly wheezing breath, “if I hadn’t come out here, Ben never would’ve hurt me.”
Color floods her fair cheeks—Irish cheeks much like my own—as she stares at me in shocked disbelief. That’s when I retrieve my rescue inhaler from my purse and use it right at the table, my chest rattling, the sound of husk-like leaves brushing together as I suck in the medicine.
“Rebecca Ann O’Neill, are you saying it was your fault?” She watches me use the inhaler without commentary.
Feeling the fist-like tightness lessen its grip around my lungs, I answer, “Mama, it’s just that I made my choices. They were my choices, and I knew the risks going in. World’s full of Ben McAllisters, and I knew that too.”
My mother bows her head, flipping through her date book without speaking. This time she’s really upset. She’s so different from my father, a lawyer who loves a good battle of wills; Mom only wants to make peace, to build bridges. And she can’t stand it when I won’t cooperate with that plan.
“Mama, you’re the one who always taught me to forgive. That’s what the Bible says, and that’s what I always try to do. You taught me that.”