"Your mother teaches second graders?" Corsica asked with a snobbish toss of her hair.
My father barked out a laugh. "No. That's just what it looks like when Alice helps someone find themselves."
Corsica smoothed her long hair with one hand. "I prefer Matisse."
I narrowed my eyes at her arrogant stance. "Oh, my mother is going to eat her alive, don't you think, Xavier?"
Corsica slid her eyes to me. "Why do you say that?"
"This whole perfect, good girl thing you've got going on? My mother will tear it to shreds. She sees right through people. Right down to what's hidden inside."
Xavier shook his head. "Stop teasing her. Alice Brightwater might be very direct, but she is not cruel. She is one of the most loving people I've ever met."
"Not that you ever deserved it," I said under my breath.
The closer we got to my mother's encampment near Pinnacles, the more I thought about what sharp words she would have for my father. After all these years, I still didn't understand how hearing them fight left me feeling cut.
Corsica felt my hesitation as we parked my SUV and walked up the dirt road. My mother's encampment resided on a sunny piece of property spotted with oak groves. Tucked between the trees were tents that scattered into the woods around a large, brightly swathed yurt.
When my mother flew through the colored scarves and enveloped my father in a long embrace, I couldn't tell who was more surprised, me or Corsica.
"Xavier, you're getting your shoes all dusty just to see me?" Alice asked my father.
"Dust? I'm walking on air just being near you."
A wave of nausea hit me. My father had always been charming and gallant, right before he turned.
"Penn?"
The bad memories broke apart as my mother turned to me. Before I knew it, I was wrapped in the familiar lilac and sage smell of her. All those years of comfort and strength she gave me. Now, her body felt frail in my arms, and I was angry at the world. How could she be sick? My sweet, gentle, angel of a mother?
"This can't be your girlfriend," Alice said over my shoulder.
I kept my hands on my mother's shoulders. "She is. This is Corsica."
"No, no. She's all wrong." She shook her long, flowing sleeves at Corsica. "She's all layers of plastic. She just wants money. No, more than that. Luxury. Oh, Penn, she's everything you fought to get away from."
"She means me," Xavier said to Corsica with a conspiratorial wink. "I was the worst. Looks like now it's your turn."
"How are you still not the worst?" I asked.
My mother caught me by both hands and tugged me around the curve of the yurt. She waited until my father gallantly offered to show Corsica the outdoor kitchen before she swatted me on the arm hard.
"Over two years. I haven't seen you in over two years and you bring some uppity, social climber to use as a human shield?"
"Me?" I scoffed. "You've been avoiding me for two years so I wouldn't interfere. And, what in the hell is going on with you and Xavier?"
Alice crossed her brightly colored sleeves. "He lets you call him that now, doesn't he. Xavier's changed. Hasn't he talked to you yet?"
"No." I ground my teeth to keep from yelling. "No one's talking to me, most of all you. How could you not tell me you were sick?"
My mother waved away my question. "I know it hurts, darling, and for that, I'm sorry. But I didn't want you to worry and, you were right, I didn't want you to interfere. I still don't want you to interfere."
The pain thickened my voice. "But you went to him, instead."
Her soft hands swept over my cheeks. "He's always been my best counterbalance."
I squeezed her hands in mine and then dropped them. It was impossible, but I felt exactly like I had all those years ago, torn between two people and caught in a struggle I did not understand.