Perspective (An Exposure Series Novella): Exposure Series Book Four Read Online Free PDF

that. I felt that it was evil as well.
    Mom pointed at me. “I’ll be praying for you, Cordelia. I’ll be praying for you and for the soul of that little baby.” She had tears in her eyes. “Here I was, all excited that I was finally going to be a grandmother. I should be so happy, but, Cordelia, you are messing up your life. I hope that you know this.”
    “I do,” I said. “And, if I didn’t, I’m sure you would always tell me about it.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked me.
    “Ma, come on, let’s eat. You haven’t touched your food, and it looks like CJ went through a lot of trouble to make all this. Didn’t you, CJ?” Stella was digging into her food as she talked, apparently in an effort to make my mother do the same.
    “Of course, I always do. I make the sauce from scratch, because I know that if I didn’t, mom probably wouldn’t eat it.”
    “I’m not hungry anymore,” she said, throwing down her napkin. “I want to leave.”
    “We’re not leaving,” Stella said. “Not until we have dinner and everyone calms down a little bit. Now, come on, ma. You made your objections known, now it’s time to eat and relax a little bit. I’m quite sure that CJ thought this whole thing through before she went into it, and Asher seems like a great guy. That’s what matters, right? I mean, she’s not marrying his father, is she?”
    “No,” my mom said. “But Asher was also in the mob. Cordelia is telling us that he stole money from large banks, which is bad enough. But I’m not naïve enough to ever think that this is all that he did. If you don’t think that Asher has blood on his hands, Stella, you’re naïve.”
    Stella turned to me. “Is that true, CJ? Did Asher kill people when he was in the mob?”
    I took a deep breath. “No, he didn’t kill anyone. He didn’t have to do that, because his father was the head of the organization, so he was given preferential treatment.” I hoped that I wasn’t shaking too much when I said that, and that my face wasn’t too red. I was a horrible liar, and I just knew that my mother could see right through me.
    She shook her head. “You let me meet this godfather, Cordelia, or…”
    “Or what?” I didn’t know what she was going to say, but I could have just imagined.
    She finally looked defeated. “Or nothing. Nothing. I hate that I’m in this position, and I really hate that you are in this position. But we are in this position, because you continue to make poor decisions. It’s my fault, of course. I didn’t have a male figure for either of you girls, so you both were missing that influence. I’ve tried, I’ve really tried, to be mother and father to both of you, but look where that got me. Cordelia is married to the mob, and Stella….”
    Stella bowed her head. I think that she knew that she was a disappointment to my mother, because she was still single and looking and she didn’t make much of her life. At least, according to my mother, she didn’t. She was a high school dropout and constantly was struggling with unemployment and underemployment. She was bright, that was for sure, but she never did find her place in life.
    I think that mom realized that she hurt Stella’s feelings, because she put her arm around her. “I’m sorry, baby, I didn’t mean to bring you into this. It’s just that I feel that I should have been a better parent. I should have provided more stability to both of you. I wish I would have done things differently in life, but there’s no going back.”
    They both started to cry, and I found myself crying as well. I looked over at Scarlett, who still hadn’t said a word, and I felt for her. She must have been freaking out over all of this, but she probably shouldn’t have been. She knew my mom and Stella, and how emotional they were. This really was just par for the course.
    We were almost done with dinner, and my mom and Stella finally stopped crying.
    “Uh, we have tiramisu for dessert,”