Between Sisters - Kristin Hannah [95]
You get swept away more often than a muddy riverbank. Meghann kept her lips sealed and her smile tacked in place. She didn't remind Mama that the marriage to Sam had lasted less than six months, or that Mama had run out on him in the middle of the night, after sending him to the store for tampons. For years, Meghann had had a mental picture of Sam, returning to the Chief Sealth Trailer Park in Concrete, Washington, on that rainy night, standing at the empty site, holding a box of tampons. He hadn't known for almost ten years—until Meghann called—that his marriage had produced a daughter. “That's the way, Mama. Pour it on. But,” she stepped closer, looked up into her mother's surgically wrinkle-less face, “you may bring one photographer. One. No bodyguards and no dog. These rules are not negotiable.”
“You are a pain in the ass, Meghann,” Mama said. Her accent was so thick only a trained ear could understand it. “No wonder you can't keep a man for long.”
“This from the woman whose been married what—six times? Pretty soon you and Elizabeth Taylor will have to start swapping husbands or you'll run out.”
“You have no romance in your soul.”
“I can't imagine why, growing up as I did with so much love.”
They stood there, inches apart, staring at each other.
Then Mama laughed. The real thing this time, not that sexy kitten-laugh she used in Hollywood, but the deep, tavern sound she'd been born with. “Meggy, darlin', you always did bust my ass. You flipped me off when you were eight months old—did I ever tell you that?”
Meghann smiled in spite of herself. It was always this way between them. How could you stay angry with a woman as shallow as Mama? In the end, sometimes there was nothing to do but laugh and go on. “I don't think so, Mama.”
She put her arm around Meghann and pulled her close. It reminded Meghann of so many childhood and adolescent times. She and Mama had always fought like cats and dogs, and then ended up laughing. Probably because both of them would rather laugh than cry. “No. You looked right up, smiled, and flipped me off. It was the funniest damn thing ever.”
“I've done it a few times since.”
“I imagine you have. It's the nature of the beast. You'd know this if you'd had children.”
“Don't go there, Mama.”
“Oh, fiddle-dee-dee. You don't tell me what to do or say, Missy. It takes guts to be a mother. You just don't have 'em, that's all. Look at the way you pawned off your sister. Nothin' to be ashamed of.”
“Mama, I don't think you ought to tell me what it takes to be a mother. I might have to remind you of a few things you pretend to forget. Like how it was your job to raise Claire, not mine.”
“So, are we goin' to this reception or not? I have a midnight flight home. But don't worry, there's none of that two-hours-ahead stuff for stars like me. I need to be at SeaTac by eleven.”
“That means you need to leave here about eight-thirty. So let's go. And I mean it, Mama, best behavior.”
“Now, darlin', you know that social etiquette is bred into us Southern girls.”
“Oh, please. You're as Southern as Tony Soprano.”
Mama sniffed. “I swear, I should have left you by the side of the road in Wheeling, West Virginia.”
“You did leave me there.”
“You always were a hard and unforgiving person. It's a flaw, Meggy. Truly. So I miscounted my children. It happens. My mistake was in comin' back for you.”
Meghann sighed. There was no way to get the last word with Mama. “Come on, Mama. Claire probably thinks I killed you.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
CLAIRE REFUSED TO THINK ABOUT THE DEBACLE WITH Mama. She clung to Bobby's arm and let herself be carried away. She was the center of a laughing, talking, congratulatory crowd. She had never felt so special, so completely loved in her life. Most of the town had turned out for this wedding, and everyone stopped Claire to tell her that she was the prettiest bride ever.
It went straight to a woman's head, that kind of thing. You forgot sometimes, in the middle of a hectic, single-mother