Beyond the Family Ties

Part 18

"Can I come in?" Lillian brusquely asked, taking a step forward and finding her way inside blocked by Becky's arm.

With a cool look on her face, Becky stared up at her mother, her chin proudly tilted up as she gave her a haughty look. Arm braced against the doorframe, her lips twitched up into a faint smile, and she arched an eyebrow. "You really think that I would let you inside after you tried to take my daughter from me?"

Gritting her teeth, Lillian sharply exhaled, her eyes wandering up and down the hallway. With mild surprise, Becky took in how agitated her mother was, as if she feared that she was being tailed, expecting trouble to show up at Becky's door, and Becky paused for a moment. Her mother rarely let her emotions get the better of her. Eyes wide, Lillian turned back to her, her lips pressed into a grim line as she looked down at her.

"Becky, please. We need to talk."

She wasn't sure why she relented, wondering if it was the anxious note in her mother's voice, or the fact that Lillian was so restless that it put Becky on edge, but she dropped her arm and stepped aside, letting the older woman push her way inside. Quickly shutting the door behind her, Becky drew all the locks and bolts, safely closing them inside, and she turned to face Lillian, who seemed much more at ease now as she shed a fur coat and draped it over the back of a chair.

"What do you want?"

"Sunny knows you're working with the government," her mother blurted out, wasting no time acting coy and playing games. Her eyes travelled over the apartment, taking in the fresh pile of ironing, the shiny countertops from where Becky had just wiped them, and the lemony smell of cleaning products. She drank in everything, turning to give Becky a hard look. "Is that paramedic here?"

Shaking herself out of her shock at her mother's words, Becky unfroze at the mention of Freen, folding her arms over her chest as she tried to keep her face blank. "She's at work."

Nodding, Lillian fixed her with an icy stare, no love emanating from her, and Becky patiently waited for her to talk. Her mother was here for a reason, other than letting Becky know that Sunny knew about her job, although that was a problem, and she'd make her reason clear in her own time. Opening her mouth to talk, Lillian paused for a moment, before grimacing.

"How about some tea before we talk?"

Stiffly standing there, Becky didn't move, giving her mother a cold look, engaged in a silent stand-off. Eventually Lillian sighed, moving towards the kitchen table and pulling a chair out, legs scraping against the wooden floor, before she lowered herself onto it and gave Becky an expectant look. After a few tense moments, Becky realised that it would go quicker if she stopped standing there in sullen silence, and shuffled off towards the kettle to make them some tea. Neither of them spoke while the water boiled, the only sounds being Becky quietly banging cups on the counters, the spoon clanging as she stirred a sugar into her mother's, remembering how she liked it even though she hated herself for knowing that.

Carrying the two cups over to the table, she set her mother's down with a little more force than necessary, the tea coming perilously close to spilling, before she took a seat as far away from her as she could. Holding her own cup between her hands, leaching the warmth from it, she hunched her shoulders and patiently waited.

"What the hell were you thinking, Becky? Joining a government organisation? Do you have no loyalty left in you?"

Snorting, Becky gave her a contemptuous look. "To our family? No. But to my own? Always."

"I am your own. The only reason I'm here right now is our of loyalty to our family. You are still a part of it, but you may as well have signed your own death warrant with this. He's angry, Becky. This is the last straw for him."