AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’ll always be my little guy,” Ramona said as she tousled his hair. “Why don’t you go into the bedroom to watch so I can talk to your auntie Jenn.”
“Okay.” He got up, but stopped at the hallway. “When do I get my own room?” He’d lodged the complaint before, but it was becoming more frequent.
“When we can afford it. Not just yet,” Ramona answered.
Financially, things were tight, even with this two-bedroom place, and when we’d last looked, getting a place with a room for him would have meant a neighborhood neither of us felt comfortable with, and Billy wouldn’t have been able to stay at his current school either.
He shrugged, retreated to their bedroom, and closed the door behind him.
Ramona shut the dishwasher after loading the last dish. “I know pretty soon sleeping in the same room as Mom is going to be a giant embarrassment for him, but it’s scary out there, and I feel safe here.”
True to form, she hadn’t addressed the crimp it put inherlife to not have a room of her own, but rather how it affected herlittle guy.
“He won’t stay this age forever, you know.”
She shrugged. “Doesn’t make it any easier.” She walked to the couch and sat. “So what’s the big news you couldn’t tell me?”
I brought my glass of water and also took a seat on the couch. “Did you see the news today?”
“No, did you and your sick accomplice put out another hit piece?”
Ramona hadn’t embraced my desire for revenge against Dennis Benson and his family.
I smiled. “This morning.” I felt for Mom’s ring on my finger.
She shook her head. “This isn’t healthy. You know there’s a name for what you’re doing, and it’s not a pretty one.”
“I’m avenging Mom and Dad,” I shot back.
“No, you’re getting pleasure from hurting someone else, and that’s not right. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and none of this will bring him back.” She’d long ago made her opinion of my crusade clear. “And Mom killed herself.”
“It was Dad’s accident that caused her drinking.”
Mom had taken to the bottle and driven drunk, going off the road into a telephone pole. At least she hadn’t taken anyone else with her.
Ramona huffed. “It was her drinking that killed her.”
“And that was because of Dad’s accident.”
Ramona shook her finger at me. “She was a drinker before, and you know it.”
She had me there, because Dad had always been on her about it, and his persistence had kept it to a minimum.
It wasn’t worth the argument. I’d given up trying to convince Ramona to see it my way. “That’s not what I wanted to talk about.”
She glared across the space between us. She wasn’t giving up. “When is enough going to be enough?”
It wasn’t a question I’d spent much time thinking about. “I don’t know yet.”
“Then you’re just doing it for spite.”
“Can we drop it? I have a problem.”
She waited for me to explain.
“The company is shifting me to a new job. Actually, it’s sort of a choice between two jobs.”
She sat up. “That sounds interesting.”
