The Imposter by Marin Montgomery (ebooks online reader txt) 📕

down these unforgiving steps; it seems our ancestors preferred a steep incline to a gradual one. Old farmhouses were built with purpose and durability in mind, not comfort. It’s impossible to be quiet, with each thud reverberating through the farmhouse. These steps were the bane of my existence as a teen, rendering it impossible to sneak out.

Hence the window incident.

My mother is standing at the stove, her back turned to me. I expect her to raise her head in acknowledgment, but she’s murmuring words I can’t make out.

She’s stirring the pot with a wooden spoon as if she’s lost in a trance, hunched over the stovetop.

“Good afternoon, or maybe night, I should say.”

Startled, she whips around so fast the metal pot topples, and she yelps as she catches the sides before it scalds her or crashes to the floor.

Horrified, I watch as she leans back against the stovetop. “Mother, be careful! You’re going to burn yourself.”

Her hands are raised in warning, gesturing at me to keep my distance. Her terror-laden eyes are what concern me the most. She’s acting as if I’m an intruder about to cause bodily harm.

“You need to get away from the burner,” I admonish.

A deer-in-the-headlights expression remains on her face, the apprehension palpable as she holds the wooden spoon in her grip like she’s going to whack me with it if I get too close.

“Mother, what’s wrong?”

“Where did you come from?”

Puzzled, I point upstairs. “I was napping in my bedroom.”

“I didn’t realize . . .” Her voice trails off.

“What?”

“I didn’t know you were upstairs, honey.”

“Where else would I be?”

“I just forgot, is all. I didn’t hear you come down the stairs.” She looks apologetic, her grip loosening on the spoon. “I’m sorry, honey.”

I give her a questioning glance. “You didn’t remember I was here?”

“It’s just . . .” Deborah pauses. “There’s been a rash of home invasions, and then the window was broken, not to mention January.” Her complexion wan, she whispers, “It’s a lot to take in for me.”

“Why don’t you sit down, and I’ll finish this?”

“Sure, honey, but don’t burn it,” Deborah warns.

Sinking into a chair, my mother covers her face with her hands, and at first, I think she’s sobbing into them before I notice the way her hands tremble.

Not wanting to further upset her, I soften my voice. “What else is going on, Mother?”

I don’t want to pry and tell her I heard as she confided in a strange woman her secret, but I selfishly want her to confess it to me, her daughter, the one person who should be privy to this information.

And then what? I think. So you can go off on her when she’s in this fragile state of mind?

Speaking of selfish—she’s the one who kept it from you all these years, my inner child says. She should be sorry, not you.

Her voice is muffled. “I’m just wound up.”

“What’re they going after? Money? Farm equipment?”

“Anything they can get their hands on.” She sighs. “I’m just a little paranoid, since the neighbors also came home to a broken window. This was after church last Sunday, and the house had been ransacked.”

“Let me get you a glass of water.”

“In that case, I better take my medicine.” Squeezing her eyes shut, she adds, “And now I’ll have to tell my doctor I’m missing some drugs.”

I touch her bony shoulder gently. “Want me to go get them?”

“No, I’ll get ’em.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what are they for?”

“Oh, the usual things people my age deal with. Arthritis. Creaky neck and back pain. Getting old’s a pain in the ass.” She’s lying. Another fib to add to the ever-growing list.

“You’re barely fifty, Mother! Are you still seeing Doc Marshall?”

“Yes.”

I want to bring up her noticeable limp, but I decide to wait until she’s settled down a bit. She’s acting like a frightened mare right now, jumpy and confused.

After removing my hand, I find a box of unopened crackers and pour us both glasses of water. Out here, the tap water comes from a well, and it’s unpalatable and murky, so we make do with a filtered pitcher from the fridge.

She takes a sip as I maneuver around the kitchen, ladling the stew she’s made into two bowls and setting the silverware and napkins on the table.

“Are you sure you want to get up?”

“Yes, honey, I’m fine.” She slowly rises from the table and disappears from the kitchen.

I hear the bathroom door shut and the medicine cabinet open.

She returns momentarily with a handful of pills and swallows them down.

We settle uneasily into our usual places at the table and start to eat.

The empty chair between us belonged to my daddy, and we’ve never used it since his death, as if it would be sacrilegious. I swear I can taste smoke on my lips from his Marlboro Reds, as if he’s still smoking next to me like when I was a child.

The only sound is the scrape of our spoons against our bowls and the devouring of food. Our silence isn’t companionable, but I wouldn’t go as far as to call it unbearable.

We’re two people who, before today, haven’t spoken a full sentence to each other in years. We’re family, desperate for a connection but unable to find the right words to fuse a conversation.

I can tell by the way she pauses after every spoonful to stare up at the ceiling that she’s preoccupied.

Finally, she peers up at me over her soup spoon.

“Awfully quiet,” she muses. “I figured you’d have a lot to catch me up on in your life.”

“Just enjoying a home-cooked meal.”

“You stop cooking?”

I don’t bother to point out I never started. A Crock-Pot filled with frozen chicken and vegetables is the extent of my capabilities. “I’ve been on the road, so it’s been crap food.”

“You have big circles under your eyes.” She fixes me with a concerned-mother look. “I hope I didn’t wake you up when I was banging pots around in the kitchen.”

“Not at all.” I offer a small smile. “I did wake up with