Meant to Crash | ✓

Chapter Twelve

I loved my mother. Really, I did. But I'd be lying to myself if I said I genuinely wanted to drive up to her house after work today. The last time she had told me she wanted to "talk" the discussion had led me to get the job that I had now. Hopefully, the only reason she wanted me over was because she missed me. My head couldn't take anymore surprises.

For the first time, my mother was waiting for me out on her porch. When I had left work, I had called her that I was on my way, but I didn't see why that would've made her want to wait out in the windy night. She'd never done that.

We greeted each other briskly and gaited into the house, side by side. A cordial and civil conversation floated between us. She set out some tea for us both in the kitchen. She hated tea; I knew that. Everyone knew that. I loved it though. Clearly, she made it for me and for some reason, she drink with me.

The TV buzzed in the background as she asked about my day. I saw no point in going to great detail on what I had been up to, I kept thinks light and didn't fully express how odd Sebastian had been when he came back from his random trip out of the office and how he hadn't left his office after then, even though he had a meeting down on the tenth floor. I had to lie for him and say he was "out of the building."

Mom smiled on the rim of her cup "I'm glad everything went well."

"It was." I took a sip of the tea. Something gnawed at the pit of my stomach. The whole time, we had dodged talking about me moving-and how random it was. Gulping loudly, I bared myself for the worse, and blurted, "I'm sorry, Mom."

She peered up at me from her drink. "What for?"

"For moving out the way I did," I said in a hushed voice. "It was wrong and I should've talked to you beforehand instead of just throwing it in your face the way I did."

She placed her hand over mine, giving it a light squeeze. "I think it's me who needs to apologize. The way I acted was very out of line. Sometimes I forget that you're twenty-one and old enough to make your own choices." She grinned toothlessly. "A little too late for me to act like you need parental control, huh?"

This woman, standing in front of me, wasn't my mother. There was no way she would've been so perfectly fine with the manor I moved off, let alone apologize to me. I had been more than positive that she would rip me to shred the moment I walked in here. I remanded there staring at her, wondering blankly where my real mom ran off to. 

"Oh, speaking of the move," she chirped, pushing herself away from the kitchen counter. "That reminds me, I wanted to give you something for your new home."

I raised both my brows at her words. "You do?"

"It's nothing extravagant," she supplied. We moved upstairs. "I was going through the attic last night and found something I think you should have. Wait right here." She lifted her hand at me as she entered her room and bend down beside her bed, lugging out something rectangular with a floral cloth draped over it. With her free hand, she reached for what was behind the draped object, then began walking back to me in the hallway. First, she handed me the smaller frame in her left hand-the second thing she had grabbed for.

My fingers wiped against the dust that had collected on the glass, revealing an old black and white photo in an oval shaped frame. A woman around her early twenties in a long skirt that dropped down to the ground. Next to her, stood an older man with his hands were behind is back and his head high. Neither of them were smile. A brick structure act as their backdrop.

"That's right there-" Mom's index finger tapped the woman "-is Maddison Bishop, from your father's side of the family."

"Oh, right." I nodded. This was the woman my mom had named me after; she had told me about her in the past when I was growing up-before the divorce that tore our household apart. "She's my great-great grandma."