Page 80 of Tamed Enemy
“The ones I had printed to look like coupons.”
“Youpaidfor our groceries?” She’s shocked.
“I tried to make things a little easier for both of you.”
“You put money in my oatmeal box?”
“It wassomething,” I say. “It felt like the only thing I could do. I wish I’d done more.”
“You wish…” She trails off. I realize that’s not shock on her face. She’s horrified. “Cole. You had no right.”
I’m confused. “No right to what?”
“You had no right to bring us into your lies. Your crimes. The foundation of your fortune was illegal hacking. Every penny you own now is poisoned by that. But you sit here and tell us that you paid for ourgroceries… You gave us cash… You made us spend your dirty money. You made us accomplices without ever giving us a choice!”
“I never thought?—”
“That’s just it.” She cuts me off. “You never thought—about what you were doing to us. About what you did to make your billions. You are exactly like your mother.”
“I—”
She turns to her husband. “I told you this was a terrible idea.” And then to me: “It’s time for you to go.”
“I don’t want to leave things like this.”
“Well, Cole, I guess there’s one single, solitary thing you want in this world that you aren’t going to get.”
She pushes back her chair. I barely have time to stand before she throws herself through the swinging doors to the kitchen.
“I…” I say to Mr. A. “I thought I was making things better.”
“We all make mistakes,” he says, like I’m one of his kids on the robotics team who’s put the wrong variable into a line of code.
“Should I?—”
“You should go home now.”
“But—”
“Go home. We know how to reach you. We’ll let you know if we’re ever ready to talk.”
Leaving seems like the only kindness I can offer. But with every step I take toward Jacobson’s car it feels more and more like defeat.
31
KATE
Mam calls a few minutes after Cole leaves to make peace with the Andersons. I think about ignoring her, but past experience tells me how that will work out. She’ll call back every five minutes until I turn my phone off. Then she’ll reach out to Granny.
If she still hasn’t succeeded in getting my attention by then, she’ll do something to make herself sick. Last time, she swallowed ipecac. The time before that, she dropped a plate and sliced her forearm with a shard. She’s faked a dozen illnesses—fevers, palpitations, nausea.
She won’t stop until she lands in hospital. She carries a card in her wallet that lists me as her emergency contact—she’s used it for years, even when Dawasof sound mind and body.
Mam’s a fucking tool.
So I decide to cut the entire game short by answering the first time she calls. “What?” I ask.
“Nine months, I carried you in my body. And this is the way you answer the phone?”
