Page 65 of Cactus Heart
“I’ll put the food out,” Austin said, grabbing dishes off the counter.
He could ignore her like that without getting scolded.
Dallas walked into the room with a hammer in hand. He dropped the tool in the drawer next to the sink, then gave me abig hug. Tension radiated through him as he kissed the top of my head.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Good,” I lied. “Got the pictures up?”
Dallas nodded, but didn’t smile. Of the three of us, he didn’t pretend as much. His eyes were a little glassy, his jaw set. None of us were happy about the photos going up, because it would just be a knife to the heart every time we saw them.
“Where’d you hang them?” I asked.
“In the hallway going upstairs,” Mom answered.
Great, so they were unavoidable. “That’s nice,” I said.
“I think we’re all ready,” she said as she grabbed a pitcher of sweet tea and carried it to the table.
We all dragged out our chairs and took our designated seats, ignoring the empty one where Dad used to sit. I wished that she would just get rid of the chair. Hell, I wished I could break it apart. But, instead it sat there, solemn and dusty like a headstone.
“Thanks for cooking,” Dallas said. “This all looks good.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Maybe next Sunday we could do pizza,” I said. “So you don’t have to cook every week.”
“What—do you suddenly not like my cooking?” Her words dripped with accusation.
Here we go.“No,” I said as I piled my plate. “Clearly I like your cooking. I’ve been eating your food my entire life, Mom.”
“It’s a good idea,” Austin backed me up as he piled his plate with food. “Just to do something easy. How has your week been? What have you been up to?”
“No different than last week,” she said with a shrug. “Did some work around the house. Watched a show. I saw some video about a politician that was caught in a sex club.”
“That was fake, Mom,” Dallas sighed like he’d gone over this fifty times already. He probably had. “Some of that AI bullshit. It’s called a deep fake.”
“Oh. Well I guess that’s good news,” she said. “Computers can really do that now?”
“Unfortunately,” Dallas said. “You know not to watch the news unless it’s from the sites I gave you.”
She smiled and italmostreached her eyes. “It was on Facebook. One of the ladies I used to get lunch with shared it.”
“Speaking of,” I said. “Have you gone out for lunch with any friends recently?”
Mom narrowed her eyes on me, the mood shifting. “No. Why?”
“Seems like it would be good to,” Austin said. “You used to go out three times a week.”
“Used to,” she said. “Just trying to save money.”
“Mom, you know you have plenty of money to spend on getting lunch with friends a couple times a week,” Dallas said. “We’re just worried about you staying in too much.”
“I’m doing just fine, darling.”
Fine. God, that word was fucking cursed. Everyone at this table wasfine, but none of us actually were.
It was always me that had to rip the bandaid off. “We think you need to see a therapist,” I blurted out.
