Chapter 24 Put his money where his dick was

• Amberleigh had known exactly the way the meeting with the Head Goddess would go. She gave her a knowing smile, congratulated her, and reminded Amber what an opportunity and honor it was. And of course for the club, though she didn’t say that. But Amber could read between the lines. Her mama didn’t raise no fool. Well actually her mother hadn’t technically raised her, but whatever.
• The last time Amberleigh had seen her mother was when she was twelve and ran into her so strung out Krystal Dubois was crawling in the alley. By then the courts had terminated all her parental rights, and it’d been three years since their last court supervised visit. Amber helped her mother up off the ground and dumped her off at the crack house her mother was living in at the time. They talked for a few minutes, before Krystal asked her for money, then passed out on a couch that smelled suspiciously like pee. It seemed Krystal had aged twenty years and had gotten so thin Amber could see the poke of her bones through her skimpy clothes. Amber left her mother what remained of her school lunch that day and a phone number she could call her daughter at. Krystal never called.
• It was the last time she ever saw her mother, as Krystal was picked up in a raid a couple months later and died in jail less than a month after that. Just after she cut a deal and snitched on her dealer. It was the most non-accidental accidental overdose in lock up that month. Amber was told about her mother’s demise by her caseworker over some ice cream. Talk about warm, fuzzy childhood memories. Amber didn’t even cry, she just felt numb. And later she felt relieved.