Free Getting Sassy by D C Brod Page B

can smoke?”
    Making a sour face, she folded her menu and set it beside her. “Oh, just a little area in the garden. The way the wind whips through there, it’s a wonder anyone can keep a match going long enough to light up.”
    I pictured those elderly women, standing around the garden, the edges of their coats flapping in the breeze, hands cupping matches to their cigarettes, and it was my turn to hide behind the menu.
    Then my mother muttered, “With what I pay for that room, I should be able to smoke.”
    I remembered the rule was if a resident was caught smoking in her room twice, she was out. And for a fleeting moment, I thought I had my out. If my mother was the reason she would have to move into a less appealing place—if she did it to herself—then I could shed a little of the guilt. But the moment that bubble surfaced, it burst, and I knew it was wrong. All wrong.
    I lowered my menu and saw that she was sipping her coffee, which was pale with cream.
    While she still hadn’t admitted that she did sneak a smoke, I conceded that I wasn’t expecting a mea culpa. I just wanted to make my point. Besides, she was going to have plenty to feel defensive about in just a few minutes.
    We both stuck to neutral ground as we chatted. She told me about the lecture they’d had on migratory birds that would pass through northern Illinois in a month or so, and I told her about an article I was writing on a woman who collected kaleidoscopes. She told me shethought a woman in her forties shouldn’t be wearing her hair as long as I did; I told her that the rules had changed. Then she conceded that it wasn’t the length that bothered her so much as the fact that I often wore it in pony tail. It was easy, I told her, fully knowing she would next mention that if I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life alone, I needed to put more time into my appearance. She didn’t disappoint. But this time she added, “You’re not getting any younger, you know.” By the minute, I said to myself, almost looking forward to our imminent confrontation.
    I waited until the waitress had delivered her stack of blueberry pancakes and rasher of bacon, then watched while my mother poured a generous quantity of syrup over the pile. I even let her take a couple of bites and commented on how good my scrambled eggs and dry wheat toast were.
    I took a sip of the strong, hot coffee, set my mug on the edge of the red paper placemat, and said, “I need to talk to you about my biological father.”
    Barely glancing in my direction, she dabbed a chunk of pancake in the syrup and thrust it into her mouth.
    “Robert,” I added, then pressed on. “Maybe you could start by explaining why you told me he was a mailman who died in the line of duty.” I paused and waited for her to look at me. When she didn’t, I said. “Neither is true.”
    She stopped chewing and glared at me, her jaw locked.
    I pressed on. “And you were living in Cortez, Colorado, not Colorado Springs.”
    Nailing me with her frostiest look, she said, “You were born in Colorado Springs.”
    “You moved there from Cortez.”
    Her hand trembled slightly as she picked up the mug of coffee and took a sip. I waited for her to return it to the table.
    “Mom, I just want to know why you lied.”
    She carefully chewed a bite and didn’t make eye contact with meuntil she’d washed it down with another swig of coffee. I was always a little surprised at how her watery blue eyes could harden and turn flinty.
    “What difference could it possibly make?”
    “He was my father.”
    “You never knew him.”
    “So?”
    I’d already decided I wouldn’t tell her about the séance. And after my night of research, I didn’t think I needed to. “He was my father. Don’t I have the right to know?”
    She just glared, and now the little muscles around her mouth were working.
    “Didn’t you think I’d want to know?” I pressed.
    “You never questioned me.”
    “Why should I? You tell me my