AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This was unexpected—and certainly not a welcome surprise. Mom emailed me? Why?
We hadn’t spoken in years, not since her final, harsh demand that I leave her house and never come back.
Request granted.
Why did she end our unspoken agreement to pretend the other didn’t exist?
Maybe the email was a fluke. Servers got hacked all the time, didn’t they? I’d be the last one to admit that suspicion, considering the flak I often gave Rosabel on that subject. She insisted on keeping physical copies of important paperwork in case my system was ever infiltrated.
I told her she needed to keep records of her obsessive tendencies. That had earned me a glare that still made me smile.
Shaking the thought away, I turned my attention back to the sender line. The letters forming her name seemed to grow in size.
I both dreaded and itched to open the email, but I wasn’t about to do so with anyone else in the room. Not even Rosie.
“Get out,” I said.
Rosabel turned and placed one hand on her hip. “Excuse me?”
“Out. I’ve got something to do.”
She settled into that adorable pout before stalking to my desk and slamming the papers down. A paper clip and the pen I was using skittered to the floor.
My hands trembled. I kept them in my lap, not wanting her to see.
She stared me down. “You know, ‘please’ goes a long way.”
“I’m sure it does. Get out. Close the door behind you.”
With an obvious scoff, Rosabel rolled her eyes and did as I asked.
TWO
duncan
The instant she was gone,I didn’t hesitate. I clicked on the email and devoured the words on the screen.
Duncan,
It seems fitting to let you know that your grandmother is turning ninety-five in a week’s time. She requests you attend her birthday party on Friday, August twenty-seventh, at the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville. Please let us know if you can make it.
Your Mother, Beverly Hawthorne
That was it?
My heart sank. I wasn’t sure what I was hoping for. Words of apology for the harsh accusations the last time I’d been in Eureka Springs? Expressed desire to make amends?
Memories of that awful day dragged on me from the minute I woke up every morning. I’d done what I could to brush them off, but how could I forget the fact that my family blamedmefor my grandfather’s heart attack?
Now, Grandmother wanted me to come home?
Mom hadn’t said a word about wanting to see me, but she’d always been a tough woman to read. She buried her feelings deeper than the Mariana Trench.
I’d thought about going home so many times, but the idea made me want to get KO’d at my next match. Going back to Arkansas now would open a wound that had healed with gangrene on the inside. Besides, how could I genuinely know she wanted me at her party, and that this wasn’t just some ploy Mom had in place for something else?
Ignoring the email was a definite option. The infection would linger, but I’d outlived it for years now. The rest of my life wouldn’t hurt any worse than it already did.
Maybe that was why Mom emailed instead of calling. She was probably as unaccepting of me coming home as I was.
