Page 27 of See You Again
“Oh. That’s a shame.” Her mother’s disappointed tone sliced through her. “Are you on those dating apps? Teresa’s daughter is on one that is specifically for finding an older husband. Sugar something.”
“Do you mean Sugar Babies?” She rubbed at the tightness growing at her temples with one hand. Cami wasn’t about to tell her mother that her coworker’s daughter was on a website where young women exchanged sex for money.
“That’s it. You’ve heard of it? I think you should sign up.”
Cami gave a noncommittal hum, but her mother picked up on it. “You can’t work all the time,” her mother scolded. “You need a man in your life. I know at your age you think being independent is important, but look at me. I’m all alone with no one to take care of me. You aren’t getting any younger, you know.”
The muscles in Cami’s back tensed. There it was. The refrain that Cami had heard her entire life, and had only been amplified when her father walked out on his family when Cami was thirteen. In her mother’s opinion, a woman’s life can only ever be fully achieved with the care and keeping of the male gender.
Cami rolled her neck and struggled to hold on to her temper. Her mother meant well—in her way—and arguing would only make things worse. “I’m only thirty-two, and I meet people all the time, Mama. Work has been especially busy lately. I’m trying to help my friend Tara with her sister’s case.” If Cami hoped that would appeal to her mother, she failed.
“Men don’t like ghoulish women, Camellia.” Irene Messina reproved. “You need to be happy. If you don’t greet a man with a smile, they’ll find someone who will.”
Cami frowned. She’d heard the lecture too many times before. She liked to think she was a happy person at her core, but was it more influenced by her childhood than she thought?
She mentally shook herself. The worst thing for a therapist to do was self-analyze. Cami wouldn’t let her mother into her head.
“I know, Mama,” she said, to appease her mother. “How was work this week?” Cami asked, hoping to change the subject, and exhaled a relieved breath when it worked. For the next ten minutes, her mother regaled her with the latest office gossip.
Thankfully, despite the rough start, this was one of her mom’s good days, and Irene was happy to chatter without too much input from her daughter. Cami was able to get off the phone without any major catastrophes that her mother needed her to fix. After she hung up, Cami couldn’t help the familiar mixture of resentment and guilt that always consumed her after talking to Irene.
Cami had given up the idea of a so-called normal mother-daughter relationship a long time ago, but that didn’t mean it didn’t still hurt sometimes. She would have loved to share her turmoil over seeing James again, and have a mother who could give her advice or even just a shoulder to cry on. But that wasn’t Cami’s reality. She’d never even mentioned James to her mother.
Irene had been hurt badly when her husband left her for another woman, and as a result, her mental health, fragile to begin with, had never recovered. At least her mother still maintained a job and could support herself.
The day would come, sooner rather than later, when her mother’s issues would make it impossible for her to carry on the façade she maintained. Cami had enough training and education to know she couldn’t change her mother, particularly because her mother wouldn’t admit the extent of her problems. But it didn’t mean Cami wouldn’t try.
“Yoohoo!”
Cami swallowed a groan as her neighbor, two doors down, called to her when she got out of her car. Angela was the self-appointed head of the community’s nonexistent neighborhood watch. She was constantly waving Cami down to share with her what Angela was convinced was an undetected crime in their community.
She gave the older woman a wave but quickened her steps, hoping to reach the door before Angela spoke. She wasn’t fast enough.
“I just wanted to let you know you missed your delivery this morning. I offered to sign for it, but he said no.” Angela puffed at the bottom of Cami’s steps.
“My delivery?” Cami searched her brain. She was often guilty of late-night online shopping, but she didn’t remember anything that would have required a signature.
“I’ve been listening to your latest case. It’s very interesting. I have family in South Georgia, you know. So, if you ever need any tips or infor–”
“Was it our normal mailman?” Cami would normally feel guilty about cutting Angela off, but the woman barely stopped to breathe. And her mention of someone being at Cami’s home raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
Several times in the last couple of weeks, Cami had suspected that someone had been at her house when she wasn’t. A flower pot knocked to the side, muddy footprints on her porch, and most disturbing of all, smudges on her downstairs windows, as if someone had pressed their nose up against the glass to peek inside. Combined with the increasingly weird and personal messages the podcast had been getting… Cami stuck her hand in her purse, the familiar feel of her taser giving her a moment of comfort.
“No.” Angela pursed her lips. “Just a white van. He had a small box. But now that you mention it, there weren’t any markings on it, and he definitely seemed shifty.”
Her eyes widened comically. “Now that I think about it, he might have been trying to open your door! Do you think he was casing your house? Maybe I should have a meeting with the other neighbors. Let them know to be on the lookout for a ring of thieves.”
Angela’s words brought Cami back to herself. Most likely it was just something she’d forgotten or someone had sent to her. It was almost Thanksgiving… “Could it have been a wine bottle?”
Angela pushed out her lower lip. “Possibly.” Her face dropped. “Oh. Were you expecting a bottle? I guess you would have to sign for that.”
Cami didn’t answer. She had no intention of sharing the fact that the only time her father acknowledged her was to send her a bottle of wine from his wife’s vineyard for every major holiday. Madison thought Cami’s father was reaching out to reconcile, but Cami would have preferred even a simple phone call to the reminder why her father had left her. His rich new wife.
“Thanks, Angela. I appreciate you looking out. I’ve got a bunch of stuff to get done this afternoon.” She keyed the code into her door lock.
“I don’t want to be a nuisance but some of the neighbors have been talking?”
Cami kept her face neutral. Where was this going?