“Yes,” she’d replied anger burning through her stomach. How old had she been? Ten? Twelve? “And he hates me!”
“Maybe you should try a little harder. He doesn’t hate you. That’s not a nice word, honey.”
She’d turned her eyes upward, caught a glimpse of desperation on her mother’s worn features. “He hates you, too.”
That woman had not been Victoria Amhurst. Marla would have bet her life on it.
“Mom?” Cissy’s voice brought Marla up short.
“What? Oh, hi,” she said, still shaken. She was certain she’d seen her mother in that inward vision, was convinced that she’d been raised by the thin woman in the shabby cotton skirt and sandals. “Cissy, I’m sorry, I—I guess I was daydreaming.”
Her daughter’s face was drawn in concern. Her hair was dripping wet and a huge yellow bath sheet was wrapped around her torso. She held it tight in one fist clutched to her chest. “About something awful.”
“Just . . . just a memory, I think,” she said, attempting to slough off the painful image. “From a long, long time ago. But it’s gone now and I wanted to talk to you.”
“Can’t it wait until I’m dressed? Jeez, Mom, this is my room, don’t I have any privacy?” She grabbed a pair of Capri pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt from a drawer, then turning on a bare heel, hiked in a huff back into the bathroom.
Marla waited. Carmen rapped gently on the door, announced dinner, and disappeared again. By the time Cissy emerged she was dressed, her hair combed, her face scrubbed. “What do you want to talk about?” she asked suspiciously.
“First I want to apologize for my actions that night I got sick. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Cissy lifted a dismissive shoulder.
“And I’m really sorry that I’ve been so out of it. Dr. Robertson changed my medication and I feel a lot better.”
“Great,” Cissy mumbled.
“It is. I want to go riding with you.”
“You said that before.”
“I mean it.” Somehow she had to connect with her daughter. “This weekend.”
“Isn’t that when the big party is?”
“Party?” Marla said, then remembered. “That’s the next weekend, I think. I’ll double check with Nana.”
“I thought you were supposed to be planning it,” Cissy said slyly, as if she had caught her mother in some sort of lie. The chasm between them was wider than Marla had imagined and she wondered if it would ever be spanned.
“I am. I mean, I will. I’ve been sick . . . well, you know.”
“Yeah, Mom, I do,” she said, rolling her eyes dramatically and scrunching up her features as if she was trying to figure out how she could possibly be related to this freak of a woman. “Okay, why not? But I’m gonna tell you, you’re scared to death of horses.”
“Maybe you’ll be surprised,” Marla said, and Cissy’s long-suffering sigh indicated that nothing her weird mother did these days would amaze her.
“Listen, Cissy, I know everything around here has been hard. Really hard. Especially for you and I want you to know that if I can make things easier I will.”
“Yeah, right.”
“I mean it.” Marla sighed and lifted her hands in the air. “I love you, honey.”
“Well, that’s a switch,” the girl said angrily, but her chin wobbled slightly.
“I always have.”
“You think so. But you can’t remember squat, can you?” Cissy sniffed and looked away quickly. “You were always more interested in everything else, everything but me. I mean, sure you bought me tons of stuff, but big deal. Who cares?” She kicked at a CD that was lying on the floor, sending it flying toward the bookcase.
“Cissy, I—”