Like Sweet Potato Pie by Jennifer Rogers Spinola Read Free Book Online

visit, it won’t be the Hilton. I can barely fit in the bathroom myself, and I’m just one person.”
    Ashley didn’t laugh. An icy silence fell over the line, so I politely tried to fill it. “It’s not a bad place though, for the short time I’m planning to stay. A lot of families nearby. Good yard. All the other houses are—”
    “Well, it should net at least a hundred grand, right? The other prices in the area seem relatively …” Ashley seemed to realize she’d blundered. “I mean, I guess so, knowing Mom.” She laughed nervously.
    I twisted the cord around my hand, earthquake tremor increasing. “Ellen,” I corrected. “She’s not your mom!”
    “Of course she is! You and I both cared for her dearly, despite her difficult but … uh … charming personality. She certainly doted over Carson.”
    Ashley made no sense. I’d lived with Mom for years after Ashley left with Dad. I, not Ashley, put up with Mom’s psychological problems, depression, cults, and occasional beatings. She’d left me alone with drunk neighbors whose creepy boyfriends hit on me, and I slept at the homeless shelter after Mom got evicted. I wouldn’t call any of it “charming.”
    Ashley Jacobs (now Sweetwater, although I found little sweet about her) sprang from one of Dad’s “wild oats” before he married Mom. After Dad left, I got Mom’s coldwater flat, while Ashley spent her childhood skipping across Dad’s marble floors.
    Ashley’s voice slipped into a condescending tone. “Shiloh, you two didn’t really have a close relationship, right? To be quite honest, I see us—you, me, and Carson—as equals in our relationship with her.”
    “Ashley, Carson isn’t even born yet.”
    She gasped, tone sharp and accusing. “Like his due date makes any difference! At least we stood by her, unlike you!”
    “Now wait a minute!” I smacked my teacup down, shaking Ashley’s ludicrous postulations out of my head like cold seawater. “Don’t you start on my relationship with my mom! You know nothing about it, and frankly, it’s none of your business!”
    “Who took care of her while you ran off to Japan and did who-knows-what at Cornell?”
    “Did ‘who-knows-what’? Dad paid for your tuition, but I earned my academic scholarship fair and square. I worked to pay my own bills!” The blood rushed angrily to my face. “You? Taking care of Mom? You didn’t even invite her to your wedding!”
    “Well … well … sure I did! She came for the ceremony and then … uh … left right after. That’s why she’s not in any pictures.”
    What a big, fat lie! An
amateur
lie! Dad himself told me Ashley had banned Mom.
    “Where did she live?”
    “What?”
    “At the time of the wedding. You did mail her an invitation, right?”
    “I have no idea, Shiloh! We got married years ago.”
    “Five. Just name the state.”
    Silence. “Texas.”
    “Wrong, Ashley! Try Staunton, Virginia! She lived here for the past
six
years.”
    “No she didn’t!” Ashley gasped, spluttering again. “She just … lived there part of the time. You know. Like migrant workers.”
    I choked. Fish particles spewed everywhere.
    “Forget where she lived, okay? Maybe you just went off and left her, Shiloh, but we didn’t!”
    “Oh, right! Chicago is just down the street from Texas!”
    Our voices rose and met like two angry
sumo
wrestlers.
    “Don’t pretend you thought so differently, Ashley! You didn’t want to live near her any more than I did, and it was her fault.”
    An odd stillness fell over the kitchen, and the night breeze ruffled a corner of Mom’s frilly, country-style curtains. Blue-and-white-checked gingham with tiebacks. I walked over and shut the window tight. Locked it, hand lingering on the sill.
    “Although, toward the end Mom did change.” My words fell out unintentionally, like a shrimp from an overstuffed sushi plate. As I recalled letters and packages she’d sent me after she “got Jesus.” The offers to visit. My