Stunned by what had just happened, the dazzling strangeness of it all, Lia could only stand there in her room basking in utter astonishment. She felt like she’d been staring straight at the sun for an hour and it was going to take a long time before her vision cleared. She leaned back against the door, pressed her hand into her stomach and breathed and breathed.
She nearly jumped two feet into the air when someone knocked on her bedroom door. She turned and threw the door open. Her mother stood across the threshold.
“Mummy,” Lia said. “It’s you.” She slapped a hand over her heart in relief.
“The craziest thing just happened,” her mother said.
“What?” Lia asked, panicking again.
“A police officer showed up and arrested David.”
“Arrested David?” She nearly shouted the words.
“I know.” Her mother raised her hands in surrender to fate. “Insane. Said David hadn’t paid his taxes on some paintings he sold a few years ago.”
“A police officer. Tonight. Arrested David. For evading tax.”
“That. Is. Correct.”
God, her mother was a wisearse.
“You didn’t get the cop’s name, did you?” Lia asked.
“Officer Arren, I think. Officer Ariss? Something like that. Why?”
“No reason.”
Arren? Ariss?
Ares?
“I guess we won’t be going to his art show tomorrow night,” her mother said.
“I didn’t really want to go, anyway. His new work looks like a bunch of wank.”
Mum laughed, nodded. “It really does. Past his prime already. My mural was his best work.”
“And it wasn’t even his idea. It was mine.”
Lia hoped it would stay like this, just casual conversation, nothing deep, nothing serious. But she should have known better.
Her mother suddenly reached for her and pulled her into an embrace.
“Why didn’t you tell me, sweetheart?” she asked, holding Lia so tight it almost hurt. “You know you can tell me anything.”
“Because I love you?” Lia said. “And I know you. I know you’d blame yourself. I know you’d... I know it would have broken your heart to know you and David broke my heart. I guess there were enough broken hearts lying around.”
“It does break my heart,” her mother said. “If I had thought for one single second... I mean, he was old enough to be your father... Never occurred to me you’d have feelings for him. I should have known. I should have asked you. I should have—”
“Been psychic?” Lia pulled back to face her. “See? You’re doing it. You’re blaming yourself when none of it’s your fault. Even when I was angry at you I knew I shouldn’t be. All David had to do was not come to my room. Or tell me to back off. Or tell you I’d been flirting with him when you and Daddy weren’t looking and you all needed to have a talk with me. But there you are, standing there, blaming yourself, and this is exactly why I didn’t tell you.”
“I’m a mother. This is what we do. We blame ourselves. You could trip over Gogo tonight on your way to the toilet and break your nose, and I’d tell myself it was my fault for letting you have a dog.”
“If I couldn’t have Gogo, I would have moved out of the house and lived with him on the street and then you would blame yourself when I got myself murdered in a knife fight. ‘Damn. That’s what I get for not letting Lia have a dog.’”
There. Her mother laughed a genuine laugh. Finally.
“He told me I was crap in bed,” Lia said. Now that she’d confessed a little, she needed to get it all out. “And you were a goddess in comparison.”
Her mother took her by the shoulders and stared at her.
“David didn’t care about me. He used me for your father’s money and connections. You have to know that.”
“He did?” Lia asked in a small hopeful voice.
“He said as much downstairs. I knew it then and I know it now. I just didn’t care.” Her mother exhaled heavily. “Please don’t believe his lies for another second. Please?”
“Okay,” Lia said, smiling through tears. “August told me to tell you a week ago. I should have listened to him.”
“Why didn’t you? And don’t say it’s because you didn’t want to hurt me. You know there’s more than that to it.”
“I...” Lia looked down at the floor. “I never told anybody. Not until August. It was just too humiliating.”
“My poor baby.”
She collapsed into her mother’s arms and cried.
Mum stroked Lia’s hair like she had a million times before. The daughter did the crying-her-heart-out and the mother did the comforting-with-all-her-might. The whole thing was horrible and awful and sad, but Lia thought it was almost worth it. She’d told her mother all her secrets and when Mum now said, “I love you, my darling,” Lia could believe—because now her mother knew the real her. And Lia knew who her mother was, too. A weird, half-wild, wonderful woman.
“I love you, too, Mummy.”
“You forgive me?” she asked.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Lia said.
“You forgive me, anyway?”
“Yes,” she said. “If you’ll forgive me.”
“For what? Not telling me when you should have four years ago? Or running an escort agency with your friends under our noses?”
“Um...both.”
“All right,” her mother said softly. “I will, however, have to ask you to kindly cease and desist all illegal activities. If you end up in prison for pandering, I’m going to age very quickly overnight, and then I really will never forgive you.”
Lia laughed between her sobs.
“No more crying now,” her mother said. “David’s not worth it.”
“He was crap in bed, wasn’t he?”
“Total crap. Or are these tears for August?”
“August,” Lia whispered.
“What happened? He seemed mad about you.”
“He’s, ah, going back to Greece.”
“That’s what planes are for.”
“It’s family stuff,” she said. “I can’t be part of it. He’s gone for good.”
“I’m so sorry, my darling,” Mum said, wiping the tears off Lia’s face with her own bare hands.
“Now, that’s what I want to see.” Those words were spoken by her father, standing in the doorway of Lia’s suite. “Genuine remorse and tearful contrition. Ashes and sackcloth would also be appreciated.”
Gogo trotted into her room then and sat at Lia’s feet. He didn’t care if she was in trouble. He knew who put the kibble in his bowl every day.
“Sorry, Daddy,” Lia said.
“Sorry? You’re saying sorry? You’ve been running an escort agency with your friends for the past three years and I get a ‘sorry’?”
“I’m very sorry?”
“When I said there was nothing you could do to disappoint me but die, did you have to take me literally?” he asked. He pulled her pink business card with her tennis racquet and rose logo out and tossed it on the coffee table. “Young Ladies’ Gardening & Tennis Club, my arse. I should have known when you never played any bloody tennis.”
“A little suspicious, I admit,” Lia said.
“I thought it was a drinking club,” her mother said.
“What?” Lia asked. Where on earth had Mum gotten that idea?
“Gardening & Tennis? G&T? Gin & Tonic?”
“Close,” Lia said. “But no cigar.”
Her father pointed at her face. “No more gardening. No more tennis. You understand me?”
“Yes,” Lia said.
He pointed at her bedroom.
“Bedroom, madam. Stay there. Forever,” he said. “At least a week. Meals will be brought to you. Otherwise do not step foot one out of your suite until we’ve figured out what to do with you. I don’t care if you’re an adult. You still live under my roof, and I will send you to your room if I want.”
A week?
“Mum?”
“Don’t look at me,” her mother said. “He sends me to my bedroom all the time, whether I’m in trouble or not.”
“Mother, now is not the time for that.”
“Do as your father says. And don’t worry. It’s going to be all right. We won’t let anything happen to you.”
“I know,” Lia said.
“Are you all right, darling?” her father asked, anger momentarily put away. She gave him a small smile, a little nod.
“Yes, Daddy.”
Mum kissed her forehead and patted her cheek. “Get some sleep.” Her mother crooked her finger at her father. “Take me to bed, spouse. I was very impressed with how you handled that asshole painter.”
“You liked that, did you?” He wagged his eyebrows at her.
“Parents, go away, please.”
“Ungrateful child,” her father said. But her mother blew her a kiss. He put an arm around her mum’s waist and ushered her into the hallway. As they left Lia heard Daddy saying, “She takes after her great-grandfather.”
Her mother replied with unconcealed pride, “No, darling, she takes after me.”