Queen Bee Goes Home Again Read Online Free PDF Page A

door, but relegated that to the dead-issue file and topped the stairs to face the latest ordeal of my life.
    Her face flushed from heat and anticipation, Miss Mamie opened her arms to draw me in. Jus’ like a spider, the voice of Mammy from Gone with the Wind whispered in my brain. Déjà vu, all over again.
    I loved my mother, but this definitely hadn’t been my plan for life at sixty. Till my world fell apart, I’d always imagined my husband and I would retire and travel. Phil was traveling, all right, but with a blond ex-stripper half his age, and all our money, half of which was legally mine. But what is, is. My ex was a crook, and may have been all along.
    Move on, my twelve steps prodded. Let go and let God.
    I forced the anger down with a mental mantra: I forgive him, I forgive him, I forgive him. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. No way around that one.
    One day, I’d mean it when I said so. For now, I “acted as if” and kept praying it into being.
    Shifting my attention to the present, I gave the Mame a brief squeeze, then escaped to hold open the screen door for her. “Where’s Tommy?”
    â€œGone to one of his meetings,” she said cheerfully as she shepherded me through the hot, stuffy grand dining room into the much cooler kitchen. “It was a special one—a birthday party, I think.”
    Somebody would get their one-year-sober chip. Or their twenty-first.
    The kitchen smelled of everything wonderful and edible from my childhood, fried chicken foremost. My stomach rumbled, but quietly enough not to set Mama off.
    She smiled. “Thank God for AA. Your brother hasn’t had a drink or drugged in seven years.”
    For which I was truly grateful, but the twelve steps hadn’t cured his laziness. He’d known when I was coming home and wasn’t there. Nor had he been there the day before, when my broker and childhood friend, Julia Tankersley, had rented a small moving truck for the day, then drafted her family into bringing what was left of my good furniture into the garage apartment.
    Typical Tommy.
    Seeing the criticism in my expression, Miss Mamie took the tea out of the icebox as she defended, “He’ll be back directly, I’m sure.” Pouring the cold brew over ice in a quart glass, she aimed some motherly judgment my way. “Your brother has been a big help to me, keeping up the house since your daddy got sick,” she scolded. “Give him credit for that, at least, Lin.”
    She refrained from listing the things I hadn’t done to help her since I’d escaped to my little Fortress of Solitude ten miles away.
    Shamed, I nodded. “I know. You’re right.”
    That last sentence had taken me five years of intensive therapy to master, along with several weekly meetings in my 12-step enabler’s group.
    Miss Mamie handed me my tea as if it were a prize for agreeing with her. “Tommy’s takin’ care of the outside the best he can. Now that you’re here to help me with the inside, we’ll all be just fine.”
    I did my best to conceal the panic that rose afresh at the thought of being trapped as a maid, at Miss Mamie’s beck and call, for the rest of my life.
    Visions of Psycho flashed in my mind.
    I took a sip of tea to calm myself and my eyes watered, teeth curling at the syrupy sweetness.
    Sweet tea was one thing. This would induce diabetic coma.
    â€œGoodness,” I sputtered out. “I must have forgotten to tell you that I can’t have sugar anymore.”
    Contrary to rumor and Dr. Oz, Splenda hadn’t made my taste buds any less susceptible to real sugar. The cloying sweetness lingered on my tongue, and my teeth ached.
    My mother’s eyes widened, her hand dramatically splayed across her chest. “Oh, no. Don’t tell me you’re diabetic.”
    â€œNo,” I temporized, “but the doctor doesn’t want me to be, so