Kiss Mommy Goodbye by Joy Fielding Read Free Book Online

minutes and listen to me.”
    “Don’t tell me what to do.”
    “Shut up,” he yelled. “I
am
telling you what to do. That is, if you’re interested in hearing the truth.”
    “It’s a little late for truth now, isn’t it?”
    “Is it?” he shrieked. “Is it? Is that what you’re telling me?” He let go of her hands almost violently, getting up and moving around the room, a grenade whose pin had been pulled.
    “You’re not interested in hearing the truth? You don’t mind hearing lies or half-truths; you don’t think anything about calling me a liar, but when it comes to hearing the truth, you’re not interested!”
    “Don’t you dare twist this thing around!” Donna yelled, jumping to her feet. “Don’t you dare make this sound like somehow it’s my fault, that I’m the one to blame.”
    “The ball is in your court, Donna,” he continued. “Nobody’s talking about blame. Who said anything was anybody’s fault? Why do you have to assign blame? We’re talkingabout truth. Either you’re interested in hearing it or not.”
    “I don’t believe how this has gotten twisted!”
    “What are you going to do, Donna? Are you going to hit the ball back or are you going to just walk off the court?”
    “Christ, spare me the metaphors.”
    There was a moment’s silence. “What are you going to do, Donna?” he repeated. “It’s up to you.”
    “Me,” Donna said under her breath, jerking her fist against her chest. “It’s up to me.”
    “I’m prepared to tell you the truth if you’re prepared to listen.”
    “If I’m prepared to listen,” she repeated numbly, sitting back down. For several minutes, no one said a word. Then Donna lifted her head and looked directly at Victor. Still not saying anything, she indicated she was ready to listen.
    Victor took a deep breath. “Thank you,” he said. Another long pause. “A little more than five years ago, maybe closer to six,” he began, trying to choose his words carefully, tripping over them several times in spite of his efforts, “I met and married a girl named Janine Gauntley.” Donna took a deep inhale of air, praying she wouldn’t faint, feeling her stomach begin to heave. “Listen to me,” he continued, aware of her acute discomfort, of the growing blackness in her eyes though she continued to stare directly at him. “We’re divorced,” he said quickly. “I swear to you. We’re divorced. We have been since I moved down here. The marriage was a disaster—I honestly have no idea why—it just didn’t work, and so after almost two years we gave up on it and I moved out. We had no children. There didn’t seem to be any complications. But there was one.” He paused, not without a flair of the dramatic, even in moments of crisis.“My mother.” Donna released an almost silent breath of air, the food in her stomach moving up and down as if on a seesaw. She said nothing, waited only for him to continue. “I told you I was an only child,” he went on, quickly adding, “and that’s true, I am. My parents weren’t able to have any more children. My mother had several miscarriages after I was born, one of them when she was almost six months pregnant. It was a little girl and, obviously, she didn’t survive. My mother never really recovered from that, and I know this is going to sound like a cliché, but Janine became just like that daughter to her. They were very, very close. Too close.” He stopped. “Whenever Janine and I had problems, she always took Janine’s side. It was really like Janine was her child and I was the in-law. And rightly or wrongly, I resented it. But I accepted it, resigned myself to it; it was something I could live with, as long as Janine and I were together. When we split up, I knew my mother would take it very hard, but what I didn’t know was that even after I’d moved out, into my apartment, my mother continued to see Janine, to speak to her every day the way she always had.” He stopped, looking