Page 92 of Sunny Undone

She startles. “Why the hell did you…shoot…Derek?” The woman can barely string the words together, and she sways as she looks at me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask.

She lifts her chin. “Came to get my stuff.”

“You don’t have any stuff here.”

Della comes to stand by my side. Shame runs through me like an ice-cold IV just got connected to my veins.

Derek tries to get to his knees and crawl away, but I step my boot down on his back. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

He tries to roll over. “I don’t want to fuck…with whatever’s going on here. She said it would be easy. No one home. Now, you blew my fuckin’ foot off.”

Della looks at it. “It’s still attached and serves you right. Were you really going to break in and steal from your own son?”

Mom points towards me. “He owes me.”

I’m about to speak when Della puts her hand on my arm and steps ahead of me. “Listen, lady. I have no idea how hard your life has been,” she says calmly. “And I have no clue as to what happened to you that has resulted in you being where you are right now. I am genuinely sorry for whatever hurt you’ve experienced.”

Mom blinks. So do I. I don’t know where this is going or why we’re the ones apologizing. But Della is better at words than I am.

“But your son is neither a punching bag nor a cash machine.”

Mom’s mouth opens. “I don’t treat him like a⁠—”

“You do. But I get it. You can’t admit it because that would scald you like a vat of burning pitch. He has paid for your rehab. He’s paid your debts. He’s bailed you out. He’s given you somewhere safe to sleep. He has tried to help you, repeatedly, even though doing so hurts him.”

“Della,” I say quietly.

She reaches back and holds my hand but doesn’t turn my way. “You do not get to take credit for him.”

Mom’s expression changes. “What are you talking about?”

“I imagine, somewhere inside you, in the lucid moments, you look at Sunny and kid yourself that you couldn’t have been that bad of a mother because look how well he turned out. But you don’t get to do that here. Not today. Not ever. Because he isn’t a good man because of you. He’s a good man in spite of you.”

Mom recoils like Della slapped her, and I’m feeling a little shaky in the knees myself. But Della’s on a roll. She doesn’t stop.

“You had one job more important than any other job in your entire life. Raise your child. Make him feel safe. Make sure he knew he was loved. Give him just the smallest place in this ugly world where he never had to earn the right to be loved. And whatever happened to you, whatever caused this, you turned around and failed him. I’d suggest you look up intergenerational trauma, but I know you won’t.”

“Fuck. You. You don’t know what my life⁠—”

“No,” Della says firmly. “You don’t get to hide behind what you’ve been through because Sunny is proof that pain doesn’t have to make you cruel.”

That one hits me so hard, I almost forget to breathe.

Della steps back, loops one arm around my bicep, and encourages me to lower the gun pointed at Derek. “Every single time his goodness has shined for you, you dim it. You insult him. You punish him for succeeding where you have failed. So, if you ever look at your son and feel proud of the man standing in front of you, understand this very clearly. You are not looking at your achievement. You are looking at his.”

A round of applause comes from the side path as Ridge appears. I’d been so intently listening to Della that I hadn’t heard his bike. “‘Bout time someone put you in your place, Meg,” he says. “Because the saddest part is, your son still loves you. And instead of being grateful that you haven’t managed to kill that part of him, you keep coming back with a motherfucking hammer to try to get the job done.”

Standing between my best friend and my woman, I finally find my words. “I ever see you around here again, Mom, I’ll call the cops.”

And the three of us stand there, as Mom and Derek stumble and limp away without a word.

28

SUNNY

Somewhere up there, God looked down on me and decided I’m his chosen child. Because two days later, the sight of my cock thrusting between Della’s wet and oiled tits is more than I can comprehend.