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“Riley?” she said.
“Hello, Mom,” Riley said.
* * *
Riley
I watched my mother flit around the kitchen. She washed her hands, opened and closed a cupboard, put a big bowl of potato salad in the fridge, poured a glass of wine, drank it in three large gulps, and wiped compulsively at a non-existent stain on the counter.
My father came in from the backyard. He held a half-cooked plate of steaks and set them on the counter. “I sent everyone home, Bethany.”
“Right, okay,” my mother smiled faintly at him.
Beside me, Deacon’s steady presence comforted me more than I could admit. I hadn’t let go of his hand once, and more often than not, I was squeezing it so hard that my knuckles were white. He hadn’t complained or tried to free his hand. In fact, he scraped his chair even closer to mine and put his arm around me, tucking me against his body as we stared silently at my parents.
My father turned to us, an uneasy smile playing on his lips. “You really should have called us before coming, Riley.”
“Why? So you could tell me not to come?” I asked.
My mother looked apprehensive. “Honey, I just didn’t want you to see me when I was -”
“Don’t,” I said, holding up my hand before giving them a weary look. I was exhausted, and my entire body felt trapped beneath a thousand-pound weight.
I studied my mother before, my voice breaking, I said, “Did you even have cancer?”
“Yes,” she said quickly. She sat across from us and reached for my hand. I pulled it away, gripping Deacon’s arm instead.
“I had uterine cancer, Riley,” she said. “I had to have a hysterectomy.”
“And chemo?” I asked.
She hesitated, and my father said, “When we told you she might need chemo, that was true. But then the tests came back, and she was in the clear. The hysterectomy removed all of the cancer.”
“So, why did you tell me she needed chemo and that you needed help paying for it?” I asked.
My father pressed his lips together and looked away. I turned to my mother. “Tell me the truth right now.”
My mother gave me a guilty smile. “Honey, it was so sweet of you to offer to help us pay for it when we thought I might need chemo. We appreciated it because we would have needed help paying for it.”
“Except you didn’t get chemo,” I said. “What have you been using my money for?”
Mom gave Dad another anxious look. “Your father… well, he made a few bad investments, and we lost all our savings. And then, he took out a loan to invest in a sure thing that would get us our money back, but he was given bad advice, and it… it didn’t work out either.”
I stared silently at her, and she cleared her throat. “We needed the money to pay back the loan. The money you gave us was helping toward that loan.”
“You lied,” I said dully. “You lied about everything.”
“We didn’t have a choice,” she said. “We have to pay back that loan, okay? If we don’t…”
“What? You lose the house? Your car?” I said. “I gave you everything I had, Mom. I moved out of a place I loved into a shitty apartment in a bad neighbourhood. I drive a car that is constantly on the verge of dying, and I’ve given you every single penny of my savings. I took a second job so I could send you money. And it was never enough, was it? You were constantly calling and asking for more, suggesting I take the bus so I’d have more money to give you, telling me to walk because I was fat and needed the exercise.”
“I never said you were fat,” my mother said. “I never once said that, Riley.”
I rubbed my forehead. “I did all of this, and for what? Because you didn’t want to lose the house or… or declare bankruptcy?”
“It’s more than that,” my father snapped. “God, you have no idea what’s at stake here.”
“Then tell me,” I said.
