Random Acts of Love (Random #5) Read Online Free PDF Page B

in a robot voice.
    “You wanna talk about Viagra, or you wanna congratulate me on finding the best man I could ever imagine to find for a stepdaddy for my little girl?”
    This time, the earth tipped on its axis like a frat boy at pledge week. Go home, Earth. You’re drunk.
    “Stepdaddy?” The word came out like I was hacking up a hairball.
    “That’s right, sweetie. Calvin loves you so much already.”
    “Calvin?”
    “Calvin McMasterson.”
    The name seemed familiar. I remembered a Julie McMasterson from high school. A grade or two below me. The quiet, studious type, so shy you wondered what she was up to.
    Wait.
    “McMasterson? Mr. McMasterson?” A ripple of unreality tore the room in half. You have got to be fucking kidding me. I knew who Calvin McMasterson was, and suddenly, this entire conversation felt like one big prank. Today wasn’t April Fools, was it?
    I looked at my phone screen. Nope.
    “Mama, you’re marrying the town taxidermist?”
    “Yep. He says the best thing he stuffs these days is me.”
    My eyes searched the living room for something to pierce my eardrum so I didn’t have to hear this. Too bad the television remote was too big.
    “Darla?” she finally asked. “You there?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well? Ain’t you gonna congratulate me?”
    A wall of sadness hit me. Hard. Something like a sob formed at the base of my throat, and my heart slowed down and sped up all at the same time. Maybe I was the one actually having a heart attack. What if I had to tell her to hang up so I could call 911 and get me an ambulance to have my own emergency?
    “Oh, Mama,” was all I could finally say around the lump in my throat and the giant ball of cotton that my brain had turned into. “Congratulations.” The word felt like I was saying it around razor blades in my mouth, but I knew I had to say it, even if I didn’t feel it. There are certain points of decorum that even I know have to be met whether you like it or not. My failure to say that simple word could ruin my relationship with my mother forever.
    So I said it.
    Even if I didn’t feel it.
    “You sound like your cat just got run over in front of you and you watched its head pop off and roll into a drainpipe ditch,” Mama said.
    Well, now.
    That’s about right.
    “Mama, no, I—”
    “Don’t start lying to me, Darla Jo. I know you.”
    Start lying? Aw, shit.
    “I know this comes as a shock. I know you don’t like to think of me as a person with needs.” 
    Oh, hell no. We are not talking about sex.
    “But I am a woman. Not just a mama, and not all broken like I was for two decades.” She paused, her voice softening. “I loved Charlie with all my heart.”
    My face tingled, eyes filling with tears. That was what I felt. Grief. Grown up grief, so different from what a four year old feels when you’re told Daddy won’t come home no more ’cause he went to be with Jesus. I used to be so jealous of Jesus. He got all the good people.
    “I know you loved him, Mama.” 
    “And I tried all these years to find a way to take all those feelings I had for him and just kill them off. Murder them. Cut them off like the accident cut off my foot. But you can’t just amputate your heart.” She gave a sad, bitter laugh, then inhaled deeply. A pause. A whoosh of air. I could almost taste the smoke. “No matter how hard you try. It’s persistent. It wants to feel.”
    Ain’t that the truth , I thought. Mama couldn’t have delivered a harder gut punch in person if she tried.
    “Now, Calvin, you see, he’s...quiet. Nice. Sweet, even. I’ve known him all my life and never once thought about doing the two-backed nasty with him.”
    That lump in my throat became bile.
    “But then one thing led to another and—”
    “How?” I blurted out, wishing I hadn’t.
    Her voice lit up and filled with wistful warmth. “We had one of those town fairs you know I despise. Jane insisted I go, though. Said her little ones were excited about the face