She looks like the lies she tells as she sits behind the wheel of her black Lexus, a gift from one of the bigger fish she caught in recent years. Her hair is perfectly done, suit jacket and pencil skirt making her look like a 90’s flight attendant. We were two states away before she had let us stop for breakfast.

It was nearly noon, and she had found one of those bougie little restaurants tucked into a gentrified corner of nowhere, brick walls, Edison bulbs, tiny succulents on every table and the smell of lavender and coffee. The kind of place that serves avocado toast with a garnish of entitlement for eighteen bucks. Mom fit right in. She always does. Sliding into a booth, she crossed her legs neatly, ordered a cappuccino without even glancing at the menu, like she’d been here a hundred times. Like she belonged, she always looked like she belonged. I could see her eyes scanning; she was already looking around for a target. You know how they say some people can’t leave their work at home, well, we had no home, and she was always working.

I ordered pancakes, but the waiter raised an eyebrow like I had just tried to order a happy meal and suggested the “lemon-ricotta stack with blueberry compote.” I said fine, whatever, because I was too tired to argue. Why can’t someone just like regular old pancakes? What’s wrong with that?

Mom gave the waiter that smile, the soft, rehearsed one, and I could practically see the poor guy melt into his apron as he put in our order. She never turns it off, even for waiters. Especially for waiters.

“That one,” she murmured, almost to herself after our food arrived. “Conference badge tucked in his pocket. No ring, but his watch cost more than this whole place, and he drips old money.”

I stabbed my fork into the pancakes, trying not to look. Trying not to care.

“We just got here,” I said. “Can’t we breathe for five minutes?”

Her eyes flicked back to me, sharp and glittering. “Someone has to pay for those fancy pancakes you wanted.”

She sipped her cappuccino, her eyes waiting to catch his over the cup. The man in the gray suit laughed at something the waiter said. Pancakes I wanted? I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want these stupid things. I never wanted the fancy stuff. I would have been happy with my happy stack at IHOP. I didn’t want luxury; she told me I wanted it.

I hated her in that moment. Hated how easily she slipped into whoever she needed to be. Hated being told what I wanted. Hated how, once again, I was just the kid in the booth pretending this was brunch, not the first act of another tragic dance.

“Eat,” she said without looking at me.

She didn’t talk after that, not really. She didn’t have to. The silence between us was a language we’d learned fluently. Every clink of her spoon, every calculated glance at the man in the gray suit, it all meant something. It always meant something.

The man finally noticed her. They always did. A quick smile, a polite nod, then a longer look. That was all it took. The first deadly domino.

“Don’t,” I said quietly, my jaw tight and back stiff.

“Don’t what?” she replied, pretending to be innocent, stirring her cappuccino without breaking eye contact with the man.

I pushed my plate away. My appetite vanished.

The man rose from his table a few minutes later, phone to his ear, jacket slung over one arm, still glancing at Mom with cherry-red lips and perfectly manicured nails tapping the side of her coffee cup. He looked back once, and I knew before she did that he’d return. They always came back, curiosity first, then charm, then lust, then ruin.

She saw it too, suddenly. Her lipstick was already in her hand, the color of blood and confidence being reapplied flawlessly. I didn’t move. “He’s married,” I said, even though I didn’t know for sure.

She smirked. “That’s what makes it interesting.”

I sat there, hands in my pockets, the kind of daughter that knows too much and can’t say a word.

Part 3 Coming Soon