Dream Keeper (Dream Team 4)

When we got into the dining area of his front room, we saw his mom had made herself at home and was watching a movie, flat out on his couch.

I knew this when her head popped over the back of it.

Oh, and there was glass all over the floor under the window she’d broken.

She’d helped herself to a towel from the bathroom to drape over it to contain some of the cold getting in, like she’d helped herself to his house.

I inhaled the deepest breath I’d ever taken.

So deep, it was a wonder I didn’t pass out.

“So, you haven’t ceased to exist,” she said, her eyes taking in me and Juno, as well as her boy. “Happy Thanksgiving, not that you give a shit whether mine is happy or not. Oh yeah, I forgot, this is because you don’t give a shit about me.”

Auggie made no response.

To her.

He pulled out his phone, engaged it, dialed a number and put it to his ear.

He then said into it, “Yes, hello. I need to report a break-in.”

Dana jumped from the couch and screeched, “What?”

Auggie continued speaking into his phone.

“It’s a member of my family. My mother. She’s broken a window to gain entry, but she hasn’t disturbed anything else or taken anything. However, we’re estranged, and this break-in was made with ill intent. She’s still here.”

“Hang up that phone, Augustus,” Dana ordered, rounding the couch to get to us.

“Yes, please send some officers. I’ll be pressing charges,” Auggie said into the phone, gave his address and then finished, “Thank you.”

“Hang up that phone, Augustus!” she yelled, moving double time to get to him, her hand up like she was going to try to grab the phone.

Or something else.

I shot in front of him, and since I did, she and I bumped chests.

“Don’t touch my mom!” Juno shouted, moving to wedge herself between me and Dana, doing it pushing back.

I stepped back.

Auggie stepped back with me.

When he was done doing that, he planted his feet, and one by one (Juno first, he reached around me to get to her), we were shoved behind him.

“Who’s the little girl?” Dana asked, leaning to the left to look at Juno.

“I’m pressing charges, Mom,” Auggie told her.

Her attention shot back to him. “You’re pressing charges against your mother?”

“No, I’m pressing charges against an unwanted intruder who broke my window who is also the woman who gave birth to me.”

“Yes,” she spat. “Your mother.”

“No, you’re not my mother,” he returned.

Well, damn.

He was doing this now.

Better now than never, I supposed.

“I can hardly forget pushing you out, Auggie,” she bit back.

“That’s the only thing you’ve ever done for me,” he returned.

I watched her face and I wanted to say she was offended. I wanted to say she was hurt. I really wanted to say that destroyed her, like what Juno said wrecked Corbin.

I couldn’t say any of that.

She was into this. She was loving this.

She’d come there for just this.

Yes.

On Thanksgiving.

“Okay, so now, according to you, I’m a bad wife and a bad mom?” she asked.

“Yes,” Auggie answered.

She opened her mouth but Auggie wasn’t finished.

“You think I’m going to do this with you, but I’m not. I’m going to make a report to the cops. I’m going to board up the window. And I’m going to do that as fast as I can, because we haven’t had our Thanksgiving dinner yet, and I need to get my girls home so we can do that.”

I looked down at Juno on his “my girls” to see her eyes wide and looking up at me like I just told her we were going to Disneyland for Christmas.

I suspected I was looking much the same.

“You and me, though, we’re done,” he stated. “I’m blocking you from my phone, and anytime you try to contact me or see me, I’m phoning the police. If need be, I’ll get a restraining order. If you remain in his life, I’m doing the same with Dad. You don’t have to tell him that, I will.”

“I’m not talking to your father,” she sniffed.

“I don’t care. I quit caring a long time ago, Mom. And the thing that sucks most about that is, you didn’t notice,” he replied.

Ouch.

I saw two uniforms moving up his front walk as Auggie kept talking.

“They might arrest you. I don’t know how you’re going to play this that might force their hands. But if they do, I advise not resisting. A broken window is one thing. Resisting arrest won’t make things easier on you.”

“I can’t believe—”

She didn’t finish that because Auggie walked toward her, by her, and to the front door.

She whipped her head to me. “This is you.” She jabbed a finger at me. “You’ve turned my boy against me.”

Juno made a noise.

But I didn’t.

I didn’t say a word.

In this, I was categorically not going to engage.