Unfinished Business An Angela Panther Novel (A Chick-lit Paranormal book) (The Angela Panther Series) by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson Page A

it with anyone but my ten-year-old son, and that really didn’t seem all that appropriate.
    Sometimes I thought it would be easier for her to be gone completely, so I could truly grieve, but each time I considered what that actually meant, I pushed the thought away. I didn’t know how long she’d be here, and honestly, having my mother with me as a ghost was better than not having her at all.
    School was out for summer break and I knew I’d probably go to Hell for this, but I dreaded the summer. Some mothers relished this time of year, but it made me feel trapped and anxious. When the kids were younger, I had fun with them, but now that Emily was a teenage drama queen I would prefer only partial custody, like every other weekend and alternating holidays. Sadly that doesn’t happen for happily married parents. So far the kids were being unusually demanding, which made me miss my alone time even more. Jake had been out of town, back to his regular schedule of traveling most of the week, and all kids, all of the time made me cranky and a cranky Angela was never a fun Angela, for anyone.
    I texted Mel and vented. “Ugh. Is summer almost over?”
    “In your dreams, Ang.”
    “That’s not helpful.”
    “You say that to me a lot.”
    “Maybe you should get the hint.”
    “Have a cupcake. You’ll feel better.”
    “I’ll get fat.”
    “I’ll have one too. We can get fat together.”
    “You’re Asian. Asians don’t have fat cells.”
    “Have you seen my cousin Lu?”
    “You don’t have a cousin Lu.”
    “Well if I did, she’d be fat.”
    “Want to meet for margaritas tonight instead of coming over in a bit?”
    “Can’t. Nick is working late again. Seems to be doing a lot of that lately. Probably because the kids are home more and he hates them.”
    “He doesn’t hate them.”
    “Well he should. Sometimes they’re easy to hate.”
    “That’s because they’re your kids. If they were mine, you’d love them and chastise me for saying anything bad about them.”
    “True, but still.”
    “I’ll text you when I’m ready for you.”
    “K.”
    I stepped back into the reality of my life...my house. Emily had her phone glued to her hand and texted God knew what to God knew whom. Her best friend, Taylor hadn’t left her side, and I started to think that instead of talking face to face, they were texting each other. She asked to go to the neighborhood pool, and I blurted out a much too excited sounding yes, even before her sentence was complete. Whoops. I made a mental note to sound less excited about her leaving the house next time.
    “Geesh, Mom. Trying to get rid of me or something?”
    Abso-freaking-lutely.
    “Of course not, Em. Why would you think that?”
    “I can tell you’re being sarcastic, you know.”
    “Who, me?”
    She sighed. “So can I really go?”
    “Yes, Em. Just be home for dinner, okay?”
    “Fine." She and Taylor went up to her room to change into their bathing suits.
    It was the day I planned to go through Ma’s things, and I preferred to do it without my family around. Jake got home late last night and got up early to take Josh to the park to practice lacrosse so Mel could come over and help me.
    I sent Mel a text. “The coast is clear.”
    “On my way. One stop first,” she texted back.
    I smiled, knowing she planned to bring cheesecake and cupcakes, because everything was better with cheesecakes and cupcakes.
    As I grabbed the special “Mel and Angela” coffee cups I had made last year, she walked through my garage door into the kitchen. “Lookie,” I told her. “Our cups.” I held up the cups and made a crazy face. Mel’s cup had a picture of her wrapped in Kevin Bacon’s arms, and mine, an image of me snuggled up next to a much younger Andy Garcia. We didn’t personally know Kevin Bacon or Andy Garcia, but Mel was a wiz at Photoshop, and when she posted the pictures to FaceBook, I quickly downloaded them and had a set of cups made for each of us. It’s the