AllFreeNovel
Share Us
3
Addilyn
Mother set me straight on my behavior over breakfast, and I took it without comment, hoping a contrite look and a “yes, ma’am” or two would earn me back my cell phone quicker. Once she finished letting me know how deep her disappointment ran, she settled in with her coffee, glancing at my stooped shoulders.
“Proper poise,” she stated, her own chin lifting.
I straightened, wishing I could live up to her high expectations and knowing I never would.
“So, what do you think of him?” she asked before sipping, leaving a half ring of orange-red lipstick on her dainty china teacup.
Honesty or continue with the bullshit, hiding my true thoughts and feelings to keep on her good side?
I hesitated.
“Addilyn. Tell the truth, please.” She ordered her usual command while setting her coffee aside when I didn’t answer in a timely fashion.
“I don’t like him.”
“Why ever not?” She sat straighter if that were even possible, her groomed eyebrows rising. “He’s well put together. Has class and impeccable manners. Yes, his son is certainly lacking in many areas, but Lloyd said he’s sending him back to California after graduation so his time beneath my roof will be short.”
Herroof—not ours. Not the first time I’d made the distinction.
“He gives me the creeps,” I continued with the truth as she expected.
“He’s seventeen. Harmless.”
“I meant the elder one. Lloyd,” I muttered, telling myself I ought to just zip my lips and not stir the wasp nest.
“Mr. Destil?”
I nodded, feeling her disappointment keenly, but she had asked.
“You said that about the last two men I brought home to meet you.” Displeasure pinched her features, her lips, and I knew I’d gone too far—again.
Great. I let out a quiet huff of breath, readying myself for her usual speech about judging people before giving them a chance, calling her lover by his first name, blah, blah, blah.
“You’re fifteen, Addilyn Jane,” she chided, her voice like nails on a chalkboard. “Old enough to recognize the fact that I’ve laid down my life, my desires, to raise the child your father wanted. It’s my time now,” her voice rose, causing me to wince.
Well, shit and good morning to me. The child Father had wanted… Not her.
That was a new one, and it stung. Badly enough that I cringed.
“It’s time for me to move on,” she continued, ignoring my reaction. “I need to find love again and be happy!”
I stared at my plate, processing. Her words shouldn’t have surprised me—everything else was always about her. What made me think our unhappy life of two couldn’t possibly get worse?
What made me think she’d care about my opinion enough to listen for a change?
Swallowing, I glanced out the panel of windows overlooking Anchorage in the distance, a city Mother had told me Father once had under his thumb. Doing what, I couldn’t be bothered with, since shimmering eyeshadow held my interest more than properties and the stock market.
Father had been one of the very few millionaires in Alaska, killed in a boating accident when I’d been four.
I couldn’t remember much more than his smile and that I’d adored sitting atop his shoulders, pretending I was the queen of the world.
But Mother didn’t keep any pictures of him around, not that I needed to see them to recognize I didn’t look anything like him. A spitting image of my blonde-haired mother with her heart-shaped face, pointed chin, and plump enough lips to never need Botox.
She still had hers done though. Puffed to the point they looked ridiculous, she kept them smeared with an orange-red that did nothing for her pale skin.
