Chapter 3: More Lies

I looked at Dad, who shrugged and looked at Gordon. Gordon looked at me passively because it wasn’t his decision. He was here to support Dad and me, not make our choices for us. I stood and followed Mum to her room. I briefly stopped by my room to get her a nightie and a change of underwear for tomorrow, then joined her. She’d already taken off her dress when I entered her room and was under the covers. But she got out and changed into the nightie before returning to bed.

I was struck again by how emaciated she was. For her body to have consumed the fat in her breasts, leaving them hollowed-out and sagging, meant she’d been hungry for a long time. I wondered if they’d fill back out again. I doubted it and realised that I was considering getting her implants to return them to their former glory when she was healthier. ‘Does that mean you’ve decided to let her stay?’ My recalcitrant mind asked itself.

The thing was that Mum and I had gotten along great when she lived with us. Sure, I could have hoped she was more assertive instead of wishy-washy like she was, and I certainly didn’t miss the screaming arguments she had with Dad, but she was a caring mum who looked after me and was proud of my academic achievements. So, assuming she genuinely wanted to return, I’d accept her back. So long as she understood this was my home now. I was The Mistress, and all who were under its roof were under me.

“What did you want to talk to me about, Mandy?” I asked briskly once she’d laid under the sheets again.

“I’m your mother, Carina,” Mum said. “Please don’t call me by my first name; it’s disrespectful.”

“You abrogated your right to that title when you left, Mandy,” I told her icily. “I was just sixteen, discovering boys, becoming a woman. I needed my mother. Where were you, Mandy? Off fucking some guy who beat you and turned you into a whore. And did you return? No! Even though you knew Dad would take you back in an instant, you stayed away rather than return to those who loved you.”

“I had no choice,” Mandy protested. “Sam took my credit cards, my phone, all of my IDs, then he locked me in a bedroom and sold me to other men.”

“Why didn’t you say anything or leave him when you were here for the court cases over Dad’s money?” I sneered.

Mum began crying, “Because he said he had someone waiting to abduct you if I didn’t. He said he’d kidnap you and turn you into his whore, too.”

“You expect me to believe that, Mandy?” I disbelievingly said. “This is Australia, Mandy. That shit might happen in the fevered minds of Hollywood writers or the fantasies of the deviates who write and read porn stories. They don’t happen in real life!”

Mum sighed but didn’t try to insist she was telling the truth. Instead, she asked, “You and your father?”