She sighed, as if I were the one being melodramatic today. “Try to think of it as Susan saved you from years of anger and frustration, possibly even divorce.”
My gaze narrowed, red clouding the outer edges of my vision. “Mom, has Susan been slipping drops of LSD into your morning coffee?”
“Don’t be silly, Violet. All I’m saying is that you’ve been working hard to provide for your family ever since the twins were born. Your doctor fellow is a good egg. Don’t break him.”
She’d met Doc once while she was drunk, and already he rated higher in her esteem than I did. “His name is ‘Doc,’ Mom, which is short for ‘D’ and ‘R,’ his first two initials. He’s not an actual doctor, you know.”
“Of course, but doctor or not, he knows how to hold onto his money. That’s a skill you could stand to learn with the way dollar bills have always slipped through your fingers.”
I kicked my back tire. Twice.
What dollar bills? Hell, I’d been scraping by on spare change for the last decade. “Was there a purpose for this call, Mother?” Something besides reminding me of my shortcomings when it came to my finances, along with my multiple calamities with the opposite sex?
“Yes. Addy wants you to bring Buck when you come down this afternoon.”
Buck was my daughter’s stuffed white unicorn with a pink horn that she cuddled with most nights. “She slept without Buck last night. Why does she need him now?”
“She insists Christmas will be miserable without him.”
I rolled my eyes. I translated that to mean Addy would make my Christmas miserable if I didn’t take her that dang unicorn. “Fine, I’ll grab Buck. Anything else?”
A snowflake drifted down in front of me.
Then another.
Then several more.
“She also wants you to bring the game Twister.”
“Who’s going to want to play that game after stuffing ourselves to the gills with meat and pie? If I bend over, something will probably come back up the pipe.”
“Really, Violet? That’s disgusting.”
Maybe so, but it was the truth. “What’s wrong with the games you have there?”
“We don’t have Twister.”
“Fine, Twister and Buck.” I crawled inside my SUV and closed the door. “Anything else?”
“Did I just hear a car door shut?”
“Yes, I’m leaving work and going home to grab the bag of gifts from Santa.”
Plus I needed to make sure Addy’s cat, gerbil, and chicken were taken care of with food and water for the night. My self-appointed bodyguard, Old Man Harvey, would be stopping by at some point each day while we were down with my parents to check on Addy’s pets until we returned home.
“Good. Then you’ll be on your way down here soon. Your father is looking forward to visiting with your handsome doctor.”
I didn’t even bother wasting breath on correcting her again. Knowing my father, “interrogating” was a more fitting description of how their conversations would go. Doc was the first man I’d brought home since my son was born, and Layne didn’t really count since he was related to my father by blood and couldn’t really talk for the first year of questioning.
“I have to swing by Natalie’s place before we leave,” I told Mom.
My best friend was staying in Deadwood this holiday instead of spending it with her parents, who were traveling to see Natalie’s younger brother. She planned to hang out with her landlady in the Galena House, an old boarding house located one block up from Deadwood’s Main Street.
“What? Why?” Mom asked.
“Nat and I haven’t had a chance to exchange gifts yet. It will only take a few minutes.”
“Sweetheart, you’re running out of time!”
I was running out of patience with my dear mother, too. Honestly, what was the rush to put Susan and me in the ring together? Did my parents have a bet going on who’d score the first piledriver?
“Mom, it only takes forty-five minutes to get to your house.”
“Sure, if the roads are clear and dry. Haven’t you been watching the forecast?”
I stuck the keys in the ignition. “I thought we’d established that I was working this morning.”
“The news channels are all calling for a terrible blizzard.”
“The news channels are exaggerating.” I started my engine, shivering in the cold air blowing out the vents. “They’re trying to scare people into staying off the roads. Besides, you know my theory.”
“Violet Lynn, don’t be absurd. The local weather folks do not consult a Magic 8 ball to determine the forecast. They use computers now instead.” The sound of glass breaking came through the line, followed by my dad shouting, “Layne, get the broom!”
I cringed, hoping my kids hadn’t broken anything I’d need to apologize for with dollars as well as words. “Listen, Mom, I need to go so we get there before dark, and you need to clean up whatever just broke.”
“Be careful, dear. It’s getting scary outside.”
Who was she kidding? Satan’s concubine and I were going to be spending the holiday together under one roof. It was going to be absolutely terrifying inside before long, too.
Chapter Three
My mother, loving flower child that she was, didn’t understand the depths of Susan’s depravity. Hell, the Titanic hadn’t sunk as deep as that bitch. She didn’t just kick ass and take names. Oh no, Susan always made sure to shoot the wounded, too.
Five minutes after I hung up with my love-blinded mom, I pulled into Aunt Zoe’s driveway. Inside, I grabbed the garbage bag full of Santa’s gifts for the kids and set it by the front door. Another smaller bag with other gifts, including Natalie’s, was already in the back seat of my SUV.
I took the stairs two at a time, swinging by my bedroom to change into jeans and a sweater before heading to my daughter’s room. I filled one bowl with cat food and two with water for Bogart, Addy’s vegetarian cat, who preferred to hide in her
