AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I step out onto the porch and shut the door behind me. “Mom?”
“You’re having an affair with Cash, aren’t you?”
“An affair ?” I frown. “I work for him. You know that.”
“Well,” my mother sighs, “I hope that’s all that it is because I don’t want a hussy for a daughter. Besides, what would Olivia say about this?”
I open my mouth to tell her that Olivia abandoned her only daughter, but my mother is already on a roll and talks right over me.
“I know you’ve got it in that head of yours to go to college and study, but this is not the way you do it. Taking advantage of friends,” she says.
“I’m not.”
“Listen, honey.” Mom’s voice softens, and she grabs hold of my arm and squeezes it. “Listen, I know you’re hurting over Braydon, but things will get better. You don’t have to sell yourself out to—”
“I’m the nanny,” I say. “I told you that.”
My mother purses her lips. “The nanny. That’s not what I heard in town.”
“It doesn’t matter what you heard,” I say, trying to be stern, “I’m working to earn money for the future.” Heck, my mom was the one who asked for help with extra cash around the house.
“Good,” she says, releasing my forearm. “As long as that’s all it is.”
I want to tell her to leave, but it’s like I’m frozen when I think about it, paralyzed by guilt because she’s lived here alone for years, and even though she’s treated me like a passenger rather than a daughter, I feel like I owe her. Because that’s what she’s always claimed.
I owe her for ruining her relationship with my father.
I owe her for telling him, as a little girl, that I saw her with her boss at the restaurant.
I owe her because he left us.
“Listen, June, honey,” she says, “this is all going to pass.” She strokes my cheek, and it takes all of me not to flinch away. She takes a drag of her cigarette, stepping back and spilling ash on the porch. “And I’m glad to hear you’re earning money for our family. It’s been a real struggle for me lately, you know? I had to take out a loan to pay the bills. That Billy Walsh has been coming around asking for me to pay him back.”
“Mom.” I breathe it out like a curse.
Billy is trouble. Marci’s brother has always skirted the law or gotten on the wrong side of it, and hearing that my mother has had dealings with him makes me sick.
“Mom, why would you ask Billy for money?”
She shrugs. “What was I supposed to do? Ask you? Graves won’t give me an advance on my salary, so here we are. So, honey, I’m thinking that we should talk about how much money you owe for rent and board for—”
The front door opens and Cash steps out onto the porch.
My mother looks him up and down, then puts up a special simpering smile that she reserves for men or bosses. “Cash,” she says, in a purr. “Honey, hi. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, neighbor.”
Cash stares her down, expressionless. “There a reason you’re on my porch, Patricia?”
“Goodness, I’m just paying my June a visit, isn’t that right, June?”
Cash doesn’t afford me the opportunity to respond. He removes his wallet from his back pocket and takes out a stack of bills. “How much?”
“What’s that, Cash darlin’?”
“Don’t act the fool, Patricia. How much?”
My mother wets her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Five hundred.”
He leafs out the money and hands it to her. “You give that to Billy. Don’t come back around here again. June’s money is June’s, not yours, you understand?”
