Chapter 31

31

"Sophie, you should sit down," my mother said from behind me. "Let me finish up lunch."

It had only been three weeks. I was not used to this mother who was more of a mom than a mother. Albeit a bossy mom, but not overbearingly so.

And she was right. So I pulled up my maturity and didn't fight it.

"Okay, Mom."

I caught her startled gaze before I slowly—since that was the only speed I had—walked out of the kitchen to the couch.

"Does Valentine like mustard on his turkey sandwiches?" she called from the kitchen.

"Yes. But no tomatoes for him."

"Got it."

My eyes caught on the mountain of legal forms on the coffee table then slid to my closed laptop.

A miracle of all miracles had happened and while I was in the hospital my mother had emailed my clients for me and explained I'd been in an accident and would be in the hospital recovering for a week. She'd also replied to the returned emails of well wishes and concern. Then she took it a step further and took over my phone, fielding calls and taking messages. Those were all miracles, but when I heard her on the phone with my new bowling alley client I listened to her reassuring him I was the best in the business and it would behoove him to be patient and wait for me to send him my marketing plan. Further from that, she offered to go to the bowling alley and personally record the footage I needed of the lanes that had been redone.

This freaked me out. And when she left the hospital to go home I asked Valentine if he was sure I wasn't dying.

"I think you being taken woke her shit up, baby," he explained.

"More like shook the devil out," I snarked.

"No doubt she loves you, Soph. Just somewhere along the way it got twisted in her head. She's untwisted it now."

And that was it.

My mother had untwisted it and become my mom.

She also loved Valentine.

Hayden was a work in progress, mostly because he had years of experience with Lorelai and it would take a lot for her to prove to him she wasn't going to turn back into a harpy. But also because Hayden had closed himself off in a way that worried me. Valentine promised he was working on Hayden and he wasn't going to allow him to sink too far into his guilt. But I hated he felt guilt at all.

My sister had played him.

I hadn't learned about the fullness of what Khloe had done until day three after I woke up. More of my memory came back and I remembered what she'd said about the mushrooms. It was then Valentine filled me in on what his friend Brady had found on her computer. She'd done a lot of research on deadly mushrooms, rat poisons, how to make arsenic, tasteless poisons. The bitch was insane and I no longer felt bad about calling her a bitch. First, she tried to kill me for our father's money. Second, she was my sister and sisters are allowed to call their sisters a bitch.

Our father.

The man who abandoned me and my mom when I was two. He'd started another family after he left us. I wasn't surprised—he'd been gone from us for over thirty years—but it was strange knowing about it now. Brady had given Valentine a whole workup on my father's life, everything he could find to build a timeline of the years he'd been gone. I hadn't read it and I didn't know if I ever would. I was curious but it just didn't matter enough for me to tear open old wounds that would have no impact on my future happiness. I offered the report to my mom to look at but she felt the same as me. Which shocked me, because I knew she still had some love for the man who was once her husband.

"Onward from here, Sophie Lynn. No looking back, my sweet daughter."

I nearly choked when she'd called me sweet daughter.

This new mom was freaking me the hell out. Valentine told me I'd get used to it. He was probably right, I would. In about sixty years.

"Have you thought about the furniture I showed you?" My mom's question pulled me out of my thoughts. "Nathan said the dark wood would suit Valentine. It was more manly than the whitewash, but if your bedclothes are dark it would still be manly."

Furniture again.

This topic was going to be the death of me.

"I don't think the nightstands will work, Mom, they're too bulky."

"You might be right. The room is spacious but the bulk of the furniture could close it in."

She was freaking me out again. Not only because she was considering my opinion but also agreeing with me. The furniture was a housewarming gift from her and Nathan, something she insisted on and wouldn't budge about. But since it was a nice gesture and something a mom would want to give her daughter, I hadn't balked. However, I hadn't known the process of finding a bedroom suite would be such a pain in the ass.

"We'll keep looking until you find something you like," she said as she sat in the chair cattycorner to the couch.

It was time.

Before the guys got back from the store, I needed to tell her.

"I love you, Mom."

Long moments of silence passed with her just staring at me.

"I don't deserve?—"

"Mom, please don't do that. You said we're going forward from here. Let's do that. Let's not rehash the past. Let's just be grateful we have this now, and keep it."

"I never told you how proud I am of you."

No, she hadn't, but that was looking back.

"You have now."

She gave me a soft, nervous smile I didn't understand.

"I'd like to work for you."

Say what?

Um. No .

There could only be one boss at Sophie Huxley Marketing and that was Sophie Huxley.

"Hear me out," she rushed on. "Your admin. I can answer emails, organize your client files, whatever you need so you can create. As little or as much help as you need."

I wasn't ready for an assistant yet, but hopefully in the near future I would be. And those were all tasks my mom had taken over while I was recuperating and she handled all of it with little input from me .

"Why? You don't need to work."

"Because I believe in you and I want to support you."

Well, fuck a duck .

"I could use your help. But, Mom?—"

"You're the boss and my opinion isn't welcome."

That didn't freak me out. That, I didn't like.

"Okay, Mom, we need to have this out," I started and she sat up straight. I didn't like that either. "You're my mom, your opinion is welcome, and it's needed. But, Mom, I don't want you telling me how to live my life and when I don't follow your plan, you getting mad with me."

"I was very wrong to do that."

"It's not about being wrong." I hated to have to lay it out but it had to be said. "I want a mom who loves me. I want my happiness to matter."

Lorelai Stevens finally gave me something I'd been missing my whole life.

The truth.

"When I found out I was pregnant with you it was the happiest day of my life. The first time I held you, I felt real fear for the first time. I had no idea how to be a good mother. My mother wasn't…well, she wasn't nice. She always told me it was important to never depend on anyone but myself. Men come and go and if you can't support yourself you'd be destitute. I met your father and fell head over heels. I forgot everything my mother had taught me. I stayed in the US, followed him to Georgia, relied on him to take care of us, and then he left.

"And when he did, I realized my mother was right. But it was too late. I had you and I needed to find a way to support you, so I did. But I promised myself you would never forget. You would never be in the position I was in. I was overbearing and imperious in my lessons. And even when I realized what I was doing and how damaging they were, I continued because I never forgot what it was like to be so poor I couldn't feed you and pay the bills at the same time. I never forgot what it was like to have the electricity shut off and come home from work only to find an eviction notice on the front door. Nathan warned me. For years, we've had disagreements regarding my continuing poor treatment of you. He thinks the world of you and has never agreed how I've mothered you.

"That said, he's stayed with me. And still I didn't see it. Or I did, I just didn't have the courage to apologize to you and do better. Be a better mother to you. Tell you I was proud of everything you've accomplished. The woman you've become. I stayed stuck in the past, in a time when I was a scared, young girl with a baby and no way to feed her. But at no time did I not love you. Sophie Lynn, you are my world. I love you more than I love myself and I'm truly beyond measure sorry for making you feel like I didn't."

Scalding tears burned down my cheeks. My stomach ached, and for the first time since I'd woken up in a hospital bed, it had nothing to do with the six stab wounds.

"I didn't know. "

"I never wanted you to know." Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"Why not?"

"Because poverty and my failures aren't something I'm proud of."

Was she serious?

"I needed to know that."

"Why would?—"

"Mom," I snapped. "I needed to know. I needed to know how strong my mother is. You didn't fail, you overcame. Those were the lessons I needed; how to fall down, get back up, and how to best any obstacle in my path. But beyond that, I needed it so I could share in that with you. So I could tell you how much I appreciate your sacrifice and hard work."

"You were never a sacrifice."

Okay, so maybe she had a point with that.

"Are you happy?" I asked.

"Happy?"

"Yes, are you happy? In general, with Nathan, are you happy, Mom?"

She relaxed back in her chair and looked around the living room.

"I'm happy with Nathan. He's always made me feel loved and safe and well taken care of. In general, outside of my marriage I was content but never happy. Not until I heard you call me mom again. You stopped calling me mom around the age of ten and started calling me mother. Having mom back, that made me happy. "

I'd also told her I'd loved her but I understood. There was a difference; she'd been a mother to me up until that point.

"Are you happy?" she asked.

No hesitation.

"Blissfully, deliriously, crazy happy."

"Then that is what I am." She nodded. "Blissfully happy my daughter is crazy happy. Now, shall we continue to wait for the men to get home or would you like to eat your lunch? You need to take your pills and you cannot do that on an empty stomach."

There she was.

Our heart-to-heart was over. Not that I minded; I finally got everything I needed from her.

"I'm starving, so as rude as it is, I'm eating without them. I'm also eating on the couch. Sitting at the table feels like I'm being stabbed in the stomach. Oh, wait, my crazy bitch sister already did that."

"Sophie!" she gasped.

"This is me, Mom. Welcome to the crazy world of Sophie Huxley. It's drama-filled but amusing."

"You get that from me, you know," she huffed and stood. "Ask Nathan. I died twice yesterday because there was a spider on the ceiling."

"Only twice?" I gasped. "A spider on the ceiling is grounds for burning the house down."

"Yes, well, I did suggest that but Nathan informed me arson isn't covered under our policy. He felt it would be safer to get a ladder and kill it. Of course that meant I witnessed his kiss with death as he climbed on the death contraption. It was an ordeal I'd rather not re-live."

I watch my mom flounce out of the living room.

I did this with a newfound respect. The woman could flounce; I was totally adding that to my dramatic exit repertoire.

The unfortunate result of my mom being amusing meant I forgot I was still recovering from six stab wounds and my stomach muscles weren't ready for strenuous activity which most definitely consisted of me busting out a laugh.

Something I did right then.

And I didn't regret a moment of the pain it caused.