How utterly stupid of her.
“She’s not moving,” Lane said.
Samantha sighed as she walked toward them.
As a rule Scout and Samantha weren’t close. During the divorce Samantha, who had been just starting college at the time, had stayed in touch regularly with their mother. Sam would even go so far as to try to convince Scout that there were two sides to every story.
Given that Scout believed her mother to be a traitorous bitch, that logic was unacceptable.
But during these last few months as Scout watched Samantha and Duff find their way, she’d been trying to be high-minded about the whole thing.
For Samantha’s part she would always pull Scout back to reality. To the present.
Scout could have hated her for that but she had needed Samantha’s discipline to get through these last few months so she could be the caregiver Duff needed her to be.
“I’m moving,” Scout mumbled. Words still felt funny in her mouth. Like what she thought she was saying wasn’t actually what people were hearing.
Lane gave her another push and then Samantha was walking in step beside her. A limo was waiting for them. Roy Walker was waiting for them there.
“She holding up?” he asked his wife.
Lane was Roy’s wife.
So crazy, Scout thought. They’d married...what was it...only six weeks ago? Lane always said she hated Roy Walker, but Scout had known. She’d always seen the truth between them.
“She’s moving, which is good,” Lane said to him. “Let’s get her in the car.”
“Stop talking about me like I’m not here!” Scout snapped.
She knew she wasn’t herself. Fine. But everyone was treating her as if she was somehow different from her two sisters, who had also lost their father. Different from everyone else who had been at the funeral and was grieving.
Why were they doing that?
“It’s the drugs,” Samantha explained to Roy and Lane.
Drugs. Of course. That’s why she felt this way. Numb and foggy. As if she had no power over her mind and body.
“You drugged me?” She asked the question of Samantha, but she could see Lane wince.
“Honey, you needed something,” Lane said, apparently defending what had obviously been Sam’s call. “It’s just a Valium to relax you. Now come on. Let’s get you in the car.”
They had drugged her. Her sisters had done that. Scout planned to be very angry about that as soon as she could think again.
“Was she here?” Scout asked suddenly suspicious of everything. Now that she knew she’d been drugged, who knew what kind of evil her sisters intended. “Yes,” Samantha said matter-of-factly. “I told you she would be.”
“I don’t want to see her,” Scout said.
“Too bad, Elizabeth,” a woman from inside the limo said. “I’m your mother and, whether you realize it or not, you need me right now.”
Scout shook her head. “Did someone just call me Elizabeth?”
A leg, then a body and then a head got out of the car. Suddenly Alice formerly-Baker-now-Sullivan was standing in front of Scout. The traitorous mother she didn’t want to see.
Not today of all days.
She hadn’t been able to stop her mother from calling these past few months. Not that Scout had had much to say to her. It seemed Duff had, though, because they’d spoken a lot.
“Yes, I called you Elizabeth. Because it’s what I named you. Now let’s get in the car and do this thing. You look like you could drop at any moment. Have you eaten anything in the past four days?”
Scout looked directly at Samantha. “I’m going to need more drugs.”
Samantha had the nerve to smile.
They all got into the limo and Scout made a point of sitting across from her mother so she wouldn’t have to touch her, but that made it difficult not to look at her.
She’d caught a break when Alice and Bob had been in Europe and couldn’t make it for Lane’s wedding. Scout gave her mother some credit for not causing Lane any grief over the speedy wedding, knowing it had been important to her for Duff to see his middle child marry.
As a result she hadn’t seen her mother in almost two years. Not since the last time Duff had forced her to go visit. Those visits would always end with Scout leaving early because the sad truth was, she and her mother had nothing to say to each other.
Alice was still beautiful for a woman in her sixties. Duff had married later in life, and he always said it was because he’d been waiting for Alice to grow up. He used to say he wanted to marry the prettiest girl he ever saw and it just took fate and time awhile for them to meet.
“Was she in the limo on the way to the grave site? Did I somehow miss that?” Scout asked Lane, trying to understand how she was now in a car with her mother. Her mother, who she had been hoping to avoid for as long as she could.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alice said. “Bob drove me to the funeral and will meet up with me at the stadium. I just couldn’t tolerate seeing you standing there so lost. I thought driving over to the stadium with you would be best. I’m sure I’ll say something to anger you, which might give you the jolt of energy you need. You look positively frightening, Elizabeth.”
Raging anger cleared away her drug-hazed state. Her mother was right. “Don’t call me Elizabeth,” Scout growled. “You know I hate it.”
“Yes. You do.” Her mother sighed. “I’m sorry, Scout. I’m truly not here to make this day harder for you. I’m here because you need me.”
Scout snorted. “I do not need you. I do not need anyone. Apparently all I need is some Valium.”
“Look, guys,” Sam said, “can we not do this now? We’re all grieving, and we’re all sad. Let’s just get through the rest of this day together.”
“Why is Mom sad?” Scout wanted to know. “She left Duff for Bob. Bob isn’t dead.”
Alice closed her eyes as if she were searching for inner strength. It was a look Scout knew well because she was the one who often put that expression on her mother’s face.
“I know this is hard for you to believe but I did love your father for a very long time. We just couldn’t make it work. We’re not the first couple in history to have that happen and we won’t be the last. You’re twenty-nine years old. Not a child. It’s time for you to understand that and grow up.”
Scout shook her head. “I’m sorry...was someone saying something just then? I am, like, really messed up.”
“Play your
