swirled tattoo etched across his arm. “And this weekend will be fine. New memories to replace the old, remember?”
Dinner was an event. Not just an event, a spectacle. Ran and I opted to skip “cocktail hour” and played a game of gin in the bonus room instead, while Kinsey and Jefferson, who didn’t look up once from their handheld electronic devices, occupied the other two chairs in the room. From our position on the couch we had a bird’s eye view of the pre-party downstairs, and by 5:00 p.m. all guests had consumed more alcohol than I would expect to see at a college frat party. But what was more disturbing than the copious amounts of liquor in their systems was the fact that no one seemed even the slightest bit buzzed, as though their tolerance was unusually high from many past nights similar to this one.
We ate at a long, wood planked banquet table and I was sure to snag the chair furthest from my mother in an effort to avoid any possible interaction. But apparently that wasn’t even necessary. I think my mother must be one of those drunks that gets really quiet as opposed to loud and obnoxious, because she just sat in her seat next to Sterling the entire evening, smiling when appropriate, nodding her head where needed, and engaging in polite conversation when she was spoken to.
The mix of country club friends was an odd one. Two couples could have easily been swapped out for one another and no one would have known the difference: both consisted of men in their 50’s with silver as opposed to gray hair, both with a distinguished, handsome charm about them, and their much younger, much blonder, counterparts could have been clones of each other. The other couple looked a lot like my mom and Sterling and made mention a few times of their three children back at their chalet with the babysitter, so something about them seemed warmer than the others, though I’m not sure why. Mom and Sterling currently have five children in their mountain home, dining at the same table, but nothing about this family situation feels warm.
After dinner Ran offered to help with the dishes, but Sterling waved him off, saying something about a housekeeper that would arrive before dawn to clean up the aftermath. So instead we hid out in my room, waiting for the chatter downstairs to die off as today turned into tomorrow. But by midnight, the extra couples were still present and the party was still going. It felt like an extravagant scene out of The Great Gatsby more than a Friday evening dinner.
“How are you?” Ran asks, sitting cross-legged in front of me on the bed.
“How am I?” I play with the hem on my black yoga pants and roll it over and under my fingers. “I’m fine.”
“She’s not a good mom, Maggie.” The moonlight and the reflected white of the snow outside filters through the upstairs window and skims across Ran’s face. His strong features look more pronounced when the light hits the chiseled curves of it and I find it hard not to stare at him, because as silly as it sounds, he looks like a work of art.
“Great job cracking the case on that one, Detective.”
“I’m not joking. I never doubted you, but now that I’ve seen it for myself, I totally agree. I hope that helps a little.”
I look straight at him. “How is that supposed to help?”
“Because now you have some outside confirmation that it’s her, not you. So you can stop second guessing yourself.” Ran walks his fingers across the bed and pulls my hand from its mindless pant-leg fiddling. He delicately rubs the back of it, tracing over the ridge of knuckles with his index finger. “She didn’t leave your family because she didn’t want to be your mother anymore, Maggie. Hell, she doesn’t want to be their mother, either.”
I arch my head back and push out the air that’s been trapped inside my chest all evening. The air that’s ironically been suffocating me, hardening my lungs, and making it impossible to breathe. “And you know how that makes me feel?” I ask, my voice erratic and uneven. “Seeing my mom just as uninterested in her current family as she was in ours—do you know how that makes me feel?”
“No.” His finger continues to glide across the back of my hand.
“It makes me feel good. It makes me feel good, Ran.”
He doesn’t break