Молли Харпер - And One Last Thing...

“Well, that’s good to know,” Mama deadpanned, her arms full of luggage, her elbow firmly planted against the doorbell. “Because given the circumstances, I don’t think you deserve a cruise.”

“Mama.” I laughed. My mother set her bags on the floor and held out her arms. I folded into them and for the first time since sending the e-mail, cried in earnest.

“Baby,” she murmured against my hair. “I’m so sorry.”

I sniffled, my tears forming a seal between my cheek and her neck.

“I’m going to strangle that little -” Mama grunted, patting my back. “I knew I should have said something earlier, but I thought you knew about Mike and Beebee.”

“You knew? You knew?” I cried, pulling away from her.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t know anything,” Mama said, throwing up her hands. “I heard rumors. I suspected something was going on, but I thought after that birthday party, so would you. I thought you were just trying to put on a brave face. To keep your head up while you sussed out how to hit him where it hurts.”

Mama led me into the kitchen and poured me a cup of coffee. She forced me to sit at the breakfast bar, searched in the cabinet for Bisquick. “So when you finally figured out you were married to a clichéd little man, you didn’t think to call me?” she asked, her tone mildly exasperated. “Instead, I get phone calls in Hilton Head telling me to come home as my youngest child has clearly lost her mind.”

And suddenly I was four years old again, with her pinking shears in one hand and the remains of my curls in the other.

“I may have sent out a little divorce notice,” I said, measuring “little” with my fingers.

“In the form of a brag letter?” Mama asked, beating Toll House chips into pancake batter a little harder than was necessary. “Lacey, I’m all for healthy expressions of your feelings, journaling, creative ceramics -… If you’d wanted to, we could have made a Mike - piñata and beaten the living hell out of it. But we probably wouldn’t have sent pictures of the piñata party out to every person we know.”

“I know, I know. It was a crazy thing to do. But I just - it was the only way I knew how to hit back. To hurt him as much as he hurt me.”

“Well, Rissy called me in Florida and read it to me. I’d say you did a good job of it. I know I’m wired to think anything you write is fabulous, but after I got over the initial shock, I laughed my butt off.”

“Wynnie says that all men stray and I should suck it up and stick around for the fabulous prizes,” I said, sipping my coffee.

Mama slapped a ladleful of batter on a heated griddle. “Honey, I’ve kept my mouth shut for years, but now that divorce is on the horizon, I feel perfectly comfortable in telling you that Wynnie Terwilliger is an idiot.”

“But I thought you two always got along! You did all those walkathons together and the bridge club and the holidays.”

“Well, what was I supposed to say, ‘No, I don’t want to spend the holidays with your husband’s family’? That would have seemed unfriendly.”

“You should have told me this years ago, a fat lot of good that will do us now. I did the right thing, didn’t I?” I asked. Mama winced. “The newsletter aside, I did the right thing. I couldn’t stay with Mike.”

Mama flipped a pancake without even looking. “I can’t judge. How could I tell you what to do in this situation until I’d lived through it?”

“So you never had to worry about this with Daddy?’ I asked, not quite sure if I wanted to hear the answer.

“Oh, honey, no!” Mama laughed, wrapping her arms around me and holding me tight. Unfortunately, she had the batter ladle in her hand and there was now unfinished chocolate chip pancake dripping down my back. “No, I never had to worry about this with Daddy. Haven’t you ever wondered why I le Daddy drag me along with him on these silly fraternity trips?’

I nodded. “Every time you go.”

“Well, if I learned anything from my mama, it was that if you don’t want to be with your man, there will always be another woman willing to take your place,” she said. “So I go on these trips and I watch your daddy make a complete fool of himself, because, for one thing, it’s funny, and because there are plenty of miserable Phi Rho wives there who would be more than happy to upgrade to your daddy if they had the chance. I’ve said the thought of having an affair probably wouldn’t occur to Daddy, but I really don’t give him a chance to think of it.”

“So this is my fault?” I asked. “I should have seen this coming?”

“No! Well, of course, you did miss a lot of signs.” Mama said, flipping the pancakes onto a plate and coating them in butter and syrup. “But you didn’t know what to look for. Mike probably saw this growing up.”

“You knew about Mike’s daddy and the other women?”

Mama snorted. “Wynnie doesn’t suffer in silence nearly as well as she thinks she does,” she said. “I’m sorry your marriage turned out the way it did. You deserved better. I’m proud that you stood up for yourself, proud that you refused to just roll over and die. Though you could have done it a little less spectacularly.

“For now, I want you to focus on something besides getting back at Mike. I don’t want you to become one of the bitter women in my bridge club, counting every alimony penny as if making Mike suffer will make your life better.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said. She sprinkled powdered sugar over my plate. “Oh, good, because I was just thinking, this isn’t sweet enough.”

She nudged the plate toward me. “Lacey, eat.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said again, now dutifully forking a bite of pancakes. My stomach roiled at the thought of putting it in my mouth.

“Good girl,” she said, giving my forehead a smacking kiss. When she turned her back to wash the griddle, I wrapped several bites into a paper napkin and tossed them into the trash.

There was a knock at the door. My eyes widened. ‘Don’t answer it. It will be my mother-in-law with a tranq gun and two tickets to Cancün.”

Mama rolled her eyes and opened the door to find a well-dressed young man with an envelope in his hand.

“Lacey Terwilliger?” he asked, looking past Mama to me. He placed the envelope in my hand and slunk back out of striking range. “You’ve been served.”

Mama snatched the envelope out of my hand and tore it open. I padded back into the kitchen. “It’s probably his divorce countersuit, Mama. It’s nothing to get excited over.”

Mama exclaimed, “Lacey, he’s suing you for character defamation and libel!”

“Well, I can’t really say I’m surprised,” I snorted, taking the papers out of her hand.

“I can’t believe he’s actually suing you,” Mama said. “It’s just so… tacky.”

“Oh, let him,” I snorted. “Let him try to prove it’s not true.”

Holding up Mike’s countersuit, Mama deadpanned, “And look, he got a two-for-one deal with the process server. His lawsuit and the divorce papers. His grounds for divorce are abandonment!”

“Abandonment?” I said, taking the papers from her. “Oh, what fresh hell is this?”

“Well, you did leave the marital home without warning or taking half of what you deserve,” Mama said. “Honey, you might just want to calm down and reassess your situation. You don’t want to get into a big legal battle here. Mike’s like a cat.”

“Emotionally unavailable and fond of licking himself?” I asked.

“I was going to say he always lands on his feet.”

Despite agreeing to take my divorce case, Sammy “the Shark” Shackleton hadn’t had time to meet with me yet. His office, however, had time to cash my retainer check. Given our newfound financial relationship and Mike’s recently filed lawsuit, I had no qualms about calling Shackleton and Associates and asking for an emergency consultation.