He didn’t like the direction this was going. “Work where? Like as a waitress?”
She took a hard swallow of wine. “No. Not as a waitress. She’d get jobs at nightclubs as a stripper. When she got too worn down and haggard-looking from the drugs to do that, she’d just whore herself out on the streets.”
His stomach dropped. “Jesus, Savannah.”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze, instead stared at her hands. “Yeah.”
“How did you survive?”
“I stayed out of her way. She was mostly stoned all the time, so she didn’t bother with me. She’d get high and play classical music. She loved classical. And she’d play Beethoven, especially that music—the one in the music box—over and over again. She’d dance around the house—sometimes she was even fun. She’d grab me and we’d dance together. When I was little, I never knew she was high. I just thought she was fun. Until I got older and realized there was something terribly wrong about her.”
That’s why the song triggered the memories tonight. That’s why it was both a sweet and awful memory for her.
“The welfare and food stamps brought in enough food—when she remembered to go buy it. When I was old enough, I’d go get it, but I had to steal enough money from her purse to get groceries. She didn’t like to part with the cash because that was her drug money.”
“The state—”
“Did nothing. She made sure the state couldn’t take me away. I was a meal ticket for her.”
He frowned. “In what way?”
“Not the way you think. I mean I was a dependent, so the state paid her for me. She might have been a lot of things, but she never used me other than to get money from the state. She never brought guys to the apartment. She always did her…‘work’ on the streets. She kept men away from me. Always told me to never be like her. She told me to make sure to go to school every day and stay away from boys. She wanted better for me than she had.”
She paused, caught her breath. “I guess, in her own way, she tried her best.”
Cole couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Savannah as a child, to grow up with a drug-addicted whore of a mother who was likely too addled to care for her daughter. He wasn’t big on emotion, but Christ, his heart hurt for her.
“So what happened to her?”
“She left when I was thirteen.”
“What do you mean…left?”
“I mean she left. Decided she didn’t want to be a mother anymore. Or maybe she was so high she simply forgot she was a mother. I have no idea. When she didn’t come home for a week I finally ran out of food and there was no money to buy more. I got hungry, so I had to tell the school. Social services took me in after that.”
Cole was stunned. A child of that age left all alone. He couldn’t fathom the loneliness and fear, what that must have been like for her, wondering when or if her mother would be back. “Did they look for her?”
“So they told me. I’m sure they didn’t look hard. Where were they going to look? They knew her history. I figure she hooked up with someone and left town. Or maybe she figured I was better off without her. That’s what I’d like to think, anyway. They never told me she was dead, so…”
He was sure she wanted to think her mother was still out there somewhere. Still alive. Better than the alternative of dying of a drug overdose in an alley somewhere.
“So you ended up in foster care.”
“Yes.”
She was so calm. He wanted her to rage or cry, or hit something, to let out the emotion he knew she held in. But this was her story and she had the right to tell it—and to feel it—however she wanted to.
“How were the families you lived with?”
She lifted her gaze to his and offered a smile, but it wasn’t her normal, happy one. “Pretty good, actually. I got shifted in and out of a few at first, then ended up with a solid family. I had siblings—two younger sisters, which was nice, and attentive parents, which was even better. I had always loved school, and without having to worry or care for my mother, I could finally focus more on my studies. I wasn’t a problem child, so my foster parents didn’t have issues with me. We all got along great, I was an A student, and I ended up getting a scholarship to the University of Georgia.”
Yeah, just one big fucking happy family. Only she left out the love part. He bet she wouldn’t have done anything to make waves just so she wouldn’t be abandoned again.
“Did you miss your mom?”
“She dumped me,” she said with a shrug. “No point in missing her.”
“But you did miss her.”
She frowned. “Don’t push this, Cole.”
She tried to jerk her hand away, but he held firm, refusing to let her run this time. “Why hold it inside, Peaches? Isn’t it better to get all the hurt and anger out?”