When she opened the door, she stood for a moment in puzzlement. The woman’s face wasn’t familiar to her, but one look at her clothes and Ziara almost had a heart attack.
“Mom?” she croaked.
Her mother cracked her gum in the same way she’d been doing all her life. “I told you not to call me that, remember?”
I’ve done my best to forget. “Sorry. What can I do for you, Vera?”
“Aren’t you going to let me in?” she asked.
Ziara didn’t move, but shock kept her from shutting the door in her mother’s face. She’d never prepared for this scenario, never dreamed her mother would track her here to Atlanta—or even care enough to want to find out where she was. This situation was completely alien, but anger started to seep around the edges of her confusion.
She wasn’t about to taint her home with even a hint of bad memories. Pushing forward, she met her mother on the porch and closed the door firmly behind her. “What are you doing here?”
Vera knew Ziara better than to play the loving-mother card. “Well, I saw your picture in the newspaper, looking all fancy, prim and proper. Almost didn’t recognize you.”
Probably because she hadn’t seen Ziara, truly seen her, since before she’d hit puberty. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here, at my house.”
“Well, if you wanted to hide, you shouldn’t put Z. Divan in the phone book. I picked up on that right off.”
As her mother prowled the porch, Ziara performed her own inspection. The years hadn’t been kind, by any means. Not surprising, since her mother had started binge drinking about a year before Ziara left for good. Her once-thick, shiny hair had been teased to lift its lifelessness. Wrinkles radiated from her mouth as if she’d taken up smoking, hard. But one thing remained the same: her clothes. The skintight animal prints hadn’t looked good ten years ago, much less now.
“Right nice place you’ve got here, Ziara.” She paused to peek inside the window along the side of the door. “Right nice. I always knew you would land on your feet.”
I certainly did, with no help from you.
As Vera droned on about the house, Ziara found it easy to shut her out. There were no excuses, no changes her mother could make to establish a relationship between them—if that’s what she was looking for here. Seventeen years had been opportunity enough. Even if it made her a bad person, she wasn’t going to soften her heart for a woman who would put men and money ahead of her own child.
A child who had been haunted by those choices for her entire lifetime.
“Yep, you’ve done good. Better than I expected.”
“I know.” Anger seeped into Ziara’s voice, making it hard and cold.
Vera stopped in her tracks as if just now getting the message. Her eyes homed in on Ziara, almost closing from all the mascara gooped on her lashes. “Guess you did get some of my genes, after all.”
“Excuse me?”
Reaching into her cleavage, Vera pulled out a crumpled piece of newspaper to wave in front of her. With a quick snatch, Ziara was staring at the picture. In the foreground stood Vivian and Robert, discussing something with the reporter, but it was the background that caught her attention.
She and Sloan faced each other across one of the fabric tables. She looked as circumspect as she always did at work, but it was his expression that gave away the true nature of their relationship. She could just imagine the wolfish comment that would accompany that look on his face. Someone would have to be searching to notice, but she was pretty sure Vivian would look closely if given the chance.
Vera turned back toward the window. “That boss of yours looked like he could eat you up. Judging on his looks and money, I’d let him if I were you.”
A shudder worked its way down Ziara’s spine, the picture of Sloan even now sleeping in her bed burning in her mind. Despite the differences in their incomes, Vera and Vivian probably viewed this situation in a very similar manner. But what she felt for Sloan couldn’t be reduced to a simple paycheck.
“Why are you really here, Vera?”
The other woman’s back stiffened. “Well, I figure I fed and clothed you for seventeen years. Now that you’re on your feet, payback would be the grateful thing to do. I’ve had a few setbacks lately, and I can’t work—”
I just bet you can’t. “Actually, Mother, the state paid for my raising. I took the checks to the bank every month, remember? I bought the groceries with the food stamps I managed to salvage from your purse. I raised me. Not you.”
Anger sparked in the other woman’s faded brown eyes. “I don’t think so, you ungrateful brat. I worked on my back every day, something you never appreciated. And now you’re going to make sure I never have to worry about money again.”