Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 108531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 543(@200wpm)___ 434(@250wpm)___ 362(@300wpm)
A completely unamused laugh huffed from Jayna’s chest. “Because you got knocked up at eighteen. It’s not a thing to be proud of.”
“And it’s not a thing to be ashamed of, either,” her mom countered. “I had a family. I had babies to love, and I had a roof over my head. I had friends who had my back. I knew what my life would be, and I accepted it. I was grateful to my momma and daddy for everything they gave me. You know I had a brother who was just like you.”
Hadn’t she heard this story before? Her uncle had been a sore point for her mom all her life. Uncle Ron had been the only member of the family to get the hell out of Papillon. “Yes, he was a lawyer and he moved to the big city and drank himself to death. I’m not an alcoholic, Mom.”
“Not yet you’re not, but when you realize you can’t find what you need out there, that everything that would have made your life good was right here and you were too ambitious to see it, that’s when you’ll turn to the bottle. You’ll end up exactly like my brother, who walked away from his family and never offered us anything. He only invited us to visit so he could show off how much he had. He wanted to show us his fancy wife and his fancy kids and a house that had a bathroom bigger than our whole trailer. He made our parents feel ashamed of what they had. I won’t let you do that to Sienna. She’s always been a good girl.”
Her mother was being a complete hypocrite. “If my divorce ruined my life, how is Sienna better than me? Twice, Mom. Two times she got married and two times they failed. She’s renting a single-wide across the yard from where she grew up, working two jobs to try to barely make ends meet, but she’s the success story? She’s the smart one?”
“I didn’t say smart. I said good,” her mom replied. “Sienna is a good girl who thinks of others first. She cares about other people, not just herself. You’ve always been a selfish girl who couldn’t be happy with what she had. Nothing was ever good enough for you. You had to have more. Sienna’s doing fine and has been for years. She doesn’t need anything from you. Not money or advice, and she definitely doesn’t need a job that moves her into a world she doesn’t belong in. Nothing from you. If she needs something she can come to her momma because I won’t expect anything from her.”
“I did need her money when she had it.” Sienna stood at the bottom step, her eyes weary. “I didn’t tell you but after I divorced Donnie, I was dead broke. I told you Donnie paid the first and last month on this place, but it was Jayna, and she never asked me to pay her back. I told you both my exes were making their child support, but Donnie doesn’t have a job, and Austin sends about half of what he owes every other month. Jayna’s paid for a lot and now she can’t, so I’m scared about what happens if I get sick and can’t work a full week or if the tips are bad. At some point the bar I work at on weekends is going to find a permanent bartender and I’ll lose my shifts there. I walk on a knife’s edge, and if I lose fifty dollars of income a week I’ll get cut and so will my girls.”
Her mother’s shoulders straightened. “You should have told me. I would have handled it for you.”
“You can’t go and fight with my exes, and you don’t have the money to help out,” Sienna said with a weary sigh. “But you’re probably right. I wasn’t good at school in the first place.”
Jayna’s heart ached for her sister. “You weren’t bad at school. You are smart, Sienna. You can do this.”
Sienna wiped a tear away. “Yeah, well I’m not feeling like I can tonight. I’m going to bed. I’ll talk to Quaid tomorrow and let him know I need to think about it. And, Mom, Uncle Ron offered to help all the time. You were just too proud to take it.”
“Because he would have held it over my head to show me how much better he was,” her mother insisted.
“Or he actually just wanted to help. He was willing to pay Jayna’s tuition to college and you turned him down,” Sienna said with a frown.
Jayna felt those words like a kick to her gut. “What?”
Her mom had flushed. “He wasn’t serious.”
“He was.” Sienna turned to Jayna. “I was there, and he was absolutely serious. He thought you were smart, and our cousins had already started to get into trouble by then. He said he knew his own kids weren’t going to go to college, so he might as well pay for the only kid in our family who would. He offered to pay for everything and Mom turned him down, told him if he ever said a word to you about it she wouldn’t see him again.”