Wariness crawled up her spine as she swiped her finger on the touch screen to answer the call. “Hello?”

“Mia! Oh, baby, it’s so good to hear your voice!”

The rage returned in full-force, hardening her insides and stiffening her shoulders. It took a serious amount of effort to respond, though her words were cold and biting.

“What do you want?”

On the other end, Brenda Whatever-her-current-last-name sounded devastated. “Baby, it’s me. It’s your mom.”

“I know who it is,” she said through clenched teeth. “And I repeat, what do you want?”

A soft sob met her eardrums, but Mia wasn’t put off by her mother’s crocodile tears. The woman was a master manipulator who knew precisely which buttons to push. In Mia’s case, Brenda knew to appeal to her daughter’s innate tendency to take care of others in need, but after years of playing this game, Mia knew better than to fall for it.

“I just wanted to see how my daughter was doing.” Brenda sniffled. “It’s been so long since we’ve talked.”

A cloud of disbelief swirled through her. “And why do you think that is, Mom? You dropped Danny off on my doorstep two years ago and haven’t been heard from since!”

There was another sniffing noise. “I told you, I needed to focus on my marriage, baby. I needed time to nurture the new relationship.”

Mia was so angry she was ready to burst. “No, what you told me was that you needed me to watch Danny while you went on your honeymoon. I didn’t think you were giving me a teenage boy to raise.”

“Our wires must have gotten crossed then. I thought you understood what I was asking for.”

“Oh, you mean a two-year hall pass from motherhood?” she snapped. “Is that what you were asking for?”

“Mia, calm down. You know I get anxious when people yell at me.”

Every muscle on her face froze in a mask of shock and fury. She wanted to whip the phone across the room and watch it shatter into a million pieces. No, she wanted to reach into the goddamn phone and strangle her mother through the telephone line. The woman was unbelievable. A despicable piece of work.

“Well, I get anxious when someone rearranges my entire life without asking me!” she yelled. “You left Danny, Mom. You just left him and expected me to take care of him.”

“It’s not like he’s ever been a handful,” Brenda argued. “Your brother is a wonderful, well-behaved kid.”

“How the f**k would you know? You were never around when he was growing up, and you haven’t been around these last two years.”

“Well, I’m going to be around soon.”

Horror slammed into her chest. “What are you talking about?”

“Danny emailed me last week begging to see me. I was swamped with work so I couldn’t make it then, but I’ve been shuffling my schedule around. I’m going to try to drive up to San Diego in the next week or two. I can’t wait to see you guys.”

“Since when? You f**king abandoned us!”

“Watch your language, young lady.”

“Don’t you f**king ‘young lady’ me!” Mia struggled to regain her composure. “And don’t bother coming here. Neither one of us wants to see you.”

“Your brother’s email says otherwise. He wants to see me, Mia.”

“Danny is a naive kid. He doesn’t know what he wants.”

“He needs his mother.”

“He needed you two years ago.”

“Mia—”

“I mean it, Mom, don’t come to San Diego. There’s nothing for you here.”

With that, she ended the call, then let out an infuriated roar that bounced off the apartment walls. The f**king nerve of that woman! She disappeared from their lives for two years and now she wanted to waltz back for a visit as if nothing happened?

Breathing hard, Mia stormed into the living room and threw her phone on the couch in a fit of anger. She was going to slam the door in her mother’s face. Yep, that’s exactly what she would do if the woman followed through on her visit threat.

Brenda Weldrick-Jordan-Davis-Schwartz-Parker-Hassan-Reilly-Diaz-Reynolds had no place in their lives. Not anymore.

And not ever.

An hour later, Mia had calmed down drastically, thanks to a long shower and nonstop self-reassurances that her mother was full of shit. There would be no visit. Nope, because Brenda’s ADD rivaled that of a preteen in math class. She’d get distracted by something shiny and forget all about her kids again, just like she always did.

Mia didn’t know what had inspired the phone call in the first place, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. No doubt another divorce. Or maybe there’d been a family-centered episode on one of her mother’s favorite talk shows and the woman had felt guilty or something.

It didn’t matter. If there was one thing Brenda could be counted on, it was not being counted on. She hadn’t kept a single promise in her miserable, self-absorbed life, so there was really no reason to believe she’d actually show up in San Diego.

When Mia stepped into the living room, freshly showered and feeling centered again, she found her brother huddled over the coffee table with an open textbook, scribbling in his notebook.

“Hey,” she greeted him. “When did you get home?”

“While you were in the shower,” he answered absently, his gaze glued to his homework. “Practice ended early.”