Around the Bend Read Online Free PDF Page B

luggage—”
    “And no Reginald. I will not leave here and trust these—” she leaned closer to me and lowered her voice while she gestured toward the door the troopers had just exited “—these buffoons to find the car. They didn’t even care about my pig.”
    “Well, he is a pig, Ma. It’s not like he’s a dog.”
    As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. Her entire body seemed to tighten up, anger knotting her features. “You are under a great deal of stress because your car was just stolen, so I will forget you said that about Reginald.” She drew in a breath. “I cannot believe you let this happen.”
    “I didn’t let anything happen, Ma. I locked the doors, I kept the keys with me. I know I’m a screwup and a disappointment in many other ways, but you’re not going to blame me for some drug addict who decided to go on a joy ride.” I drained the diet soda I’d gotten from the vending machine, crumpled the can and made a two-pointer into the trash, then reached for the door handle. “Now, let’s accept the offer of the nice officers for a ride over to the nearest rental place, get a car and go home.”
    This was a prime opportunity to talk her into giving up this insane idea of a cross-country trip. Get me out of this torture chamber and back to Nick, where I could straighten out our relationship and get things back to where they were before.
    But my mother wouldn’t budge. “You can go home. I’m going after Reginald.”
    THAT PIG again. There were days I wondered if she loved him more than me. “Ma, he could be halfway to Mexico by now.”
    “Technically, because we’re only in New York, he couldn’t have—”
    “It’s a phrase!” I shouted, frustrated and angered by the car, the hassle and the whole trip and her love for Reginald. What about me? I wanted to scream. Had she ever loved me that much? What if I’d been carjacked? Would she have been so hell-bent on tracking me down? “I didn’t mean it literally. Besides, it’d take a miracle to find the car. You heard the cops.”
    She held her tongue for a minute, then turned her no-nonsense face on me. “I am going after Reginald and when I have him back, I’m going to Uncle Morty’s. You are welcome to come along.”
    In other words, I could be a passenger in her mission. The pilot. Disappointment settled in my stomach with the acidic soda.
    There was simply no arguing with my mother when she got like this. Behind her back, the other lawyers had called her a bulldog. I knew why.
    I sighed, then held the door for her. “We’ll drive for one more day and if we don’t find Reginald, then we’re going to the nearest airport and flying to Uncle Morty’s.”
    She shook her head. “I won’t fly.”
    I bit back a scream of frustration. My mother wouldn’t drive, wouldn’t fly. And sure as hell wouldn’t go home without her pig.
    Reginald .
    That damned potbellied pig, as much as I hated it, was all my mother had, now that my father was gone. She indulged him, because she had no other pets, no other companions living in her house. He was her best friend, as weird as it seemed. And though I might not like it, saving her bacon buddy was the right thing to do.
    “All right, Ma,” I said after a while, wondering myself what I was doing. This was my chance to go home, to end this trip before it really even began. But no, here I was, pushing forward with the mileage and the search for the pig. Because I knew what he meant to her, and because I understood the need for that connection. If the roles had been reversed and it had been Nick in the car, I’d have been asballistic as my mother. I may not have wanted to marry Nick, but that didn’t mean I wanted some idiot in a bandana to steal him, either. And I would have moved heaven and earth to get him back if that had ever happened. “We’ll hire ourselves a bloodhound and find your pig. I promise. We won’t go home until we do.”
    A soft smile stole across her face, one