Breaking Ties by Tracie Puckett Read Free Book Online Page A

smart enough to know that she had lost every shred of hope at getting close to me again, so she would’ve clung to the one person who’d fought hardest to keep our ties intact.
    I closed my eyes, working to steady my breath with a slow count to ten. Still, I could feel the temperature of my blood rising, only adding to the irritability that I wanted so badly to shake.
    I didn’t know why it bothered me so much that she hadn’t tried contacting me. I never thought that, if the situation presented itself, it would bother me, but it did. It’s not like I stayed in touch with our mother. It’s not like she’d ever tried staying in touch with us. After she decided to run off and live the rest of her life with Uncle Ronnie, I guess her old life was just that … old. She had bigger and better things on her mind, and that didn’t include her daughters. So why? Why after all of this time—four years to be exact—had she suddenly decided to come back into Bailey’s life?
    “What’s she want?” I asked, my words barely audible over the chorus. It was only then that I opened my eyes again, focusing on my sister.
    “To talk.” Bailey tucked the phone away after deleting the unread text. “I don’t even know how she got my number. She texted a few days ago and asked if we could talk. I ignored the message. She started calling, leaving voicemails. Once a day at first, but now I’m lucky if I can get through an hour without hearing from her.”
    “And you don’t know what she wants?”
    “Just that she wants to talk,” Bailey said, rolling her eyes again. Four years ago, my sister would’ve had a completely different reaction to our mother’s gesture. She would’ve thrown herself at her feet, doing anything she could for Mom’s acceptance and approval. But like with me, time changed things for Bailey. She’d come to see Mom for what she was—useless … or useless to us, anyway. We didn’t have time for the drama she caused. “Has she tried calling you?”
    “No.” My eyes met the concrete floor as I contemplated Mom’s reasoning for reaching out to Bailey. Had something happened? Was she sick? Dying? Why would she call my sister and not me? What was so important for them to talk about? “No. I haven’t heard a word.”
    “Don’t take it personally,” she said, reading into my hurt expression. As much as I hated my mother, hated everything she’d done to my father, and everything she’d put us through, I still couldn’t help but feel stung all over again. It was just like Mom to hurt me … even when she didn’t know she was doing it. “It’s not like I want her to call. What I really want is for her to leave me alone. I have nothing left to say to that woman.”
    “You’re not at least a little curious about what she wants?”
    “I know what she wants,” Bailey said. “She wants to talk.”
    “But about what?”
    “Then and now, the way things are, the wedding.” She said it quickly as if that would somehow make it easier to admit, but I could see the way it hurt my sister to say those words. She knew about Mom’s engagement, and she didn’t want to admit what she knew. She didn’t want to tell me. In that moment, all Bailey wanted was to protect me.
    “Bailey, I know she’s getting married.”
    “You know?” she asked, her brow furrowing. “How? I didn’t know until two nights ago. How did you—”
    “Dad.”
    “Oh,” she looked down. “ Dad knows?”
    “Yeah.”
    “So then I guess you guys know about—”
    “Uncle Ronnie,” I nodded. “Yeah. We know that, too.”
    “How do you think he found out?”
    I couldn’t tell her the truth. I couldn’t admit that Dad had known all along about Mom and Ronnie. I was pretty certain that I knew a whole lot more than my sister ever would about what happened between my parents, but it was hard to say how much Mom had divulged in her calls and messages. Did Bailey know that Ronnie and Mom had an affair? Or did she think that Mom