My hands rubbed up and down my sleeves as his words sent a strange chill over my skin. “What have you omitted?”
Laurel took a seat in a chair nearby as Mason began to share what he wasn’t certain I could hear. He was wrong. I could hear it. I just wasn’t certain that I wasn’t dreaming.
I listened in a state hovering close to disbelief.
Lorna
As my brother spoke, Reid reached for my hand and kept it wrapped safely in the cocoon of his larger one.
Once Mason finished his unbelievable tale, I asked, “What the hell? Can you repeat that?”
Though he was finished talking, his feet were still moving, back and forth on the edge of the area rug defining our living room. When he stopped, he turned my way. “Yeah, I didn’t know how to handle it either.”
“I don’t understand how she was with me. Did the people who took Araneae and me take her? Why?” While those questions should be front and center, I should be concerned about our mother and the confirmation of her demise, including her body in a makeshift morgue on 1, but that wasn’t where my mind went. Releasing my husband’s hand, I stood “Oh my God. Missy could be alive.”
The three of them looked around as if I was speaking of unicorns and pots of gold at the end of rainbows.
“I’m not crazy. My dream could have been real.” It was as if they’d all lost the ability to speak. My gaze went from my husband to my brother. “You both knew about this.” I turned to Laurel. “And you?”
“It’s not her fault,” Reid said. “Mason and I agreed—”
“Of course you did.” I let out an exaggerated breath as my palms slapped my thighs. “You two decided what I could and couldn’t know.”
“Lorna,” Reid said with the it was all for your own good tone. “You were dealing with so much.”
“I’m not made of glass.” My gaze went to Laurel. “And you. You let me talk to you about my dream. You heard Mace get upset. You didn’t think I should know why?”
She nodded. “I did. I encouraged Mason to tell you.”
“Almost two weeks later?”
Mason’s lips came together. “If you’re worried about Nancy, she’s not going anywhere.”
“Oh.” I stepped away from my husband’s attempted grasp. “I don’t care about her.”
“What?” Reid asked.
Laurel stood. “Lorna, this information is another shock to your mind in a rapid series of blows. It’s okay to be unsure. Don’t make rash comments or decisions without allowing this information to sink in.” She glanced toward Mason and back to me. “I know that there isn’t a lot of love lost between the two of you and your mother...”
I waved my hand toward her. “I’m not rehashing all of that.” Turning a three-sixty spin, my eyes met my sister-in-law’s. “Look at this.” I gestured between Mason and myself. “We’re here. We made it despite her poor excuse at parenting. Hell, maybe we made it because of that. I don’t know. Maybe forcing us to grow up as children made us stronger as adults, but even if that’s true, I’m not willing to give her credit for what we did. As far as I’m concerned, Nancy Pierce is the one who failed. We” —my eyes met Mace’s— “survived.”
“There is nothing wrong with mourning her,” Laurel said.
Still looking at my brother, I asked, “Have you?”
His stance straightened. “Mourned? No.”
“Do you feel the need to mourn the woman who birthed you—us?”
“Fuck no.”
Turning back to Laurel, I asked, “He doesn’t, why should I?”
“There’s no should or shouldn’t. However, just because he doesn’t shouldn’t stop you.”
Scenes I’d buried for years threatened to enter my thoughts. My hands began to tremble and my stomach twist. The apartment around me was gone. No longer in a castle in the sky, in a flash, I was in a room filled with clothes and trash. Nancy was talking to me. Her face was close and much younger than my recent recollection or dream. And then all of it was gone.”
“Lorna?”
Reid’s voice filtered into my consciousness. I blinked the unwanted image away.
Shaking my head, my mind replaced the flash with another scene from my childhood. It was the one-room studio apartment we moved to, about six months after we went to live with our mother. While it was dingy with few pieces of furniture—a table with only three chairs and an old discarded television—it wasn’t filthy in the way of that first flash. In this one room, there was only one real bed; a twin-sized one that had a frame where Nancy slept and then, for the three of us, there was a large mattress on the floor.
That memory should be depressing, yet it wasn’t. It was the first space we truly had after our grandmother passed away. It was also the last place we shared with Missy.
“Lorna, maybe you should sit down.”
“No, don’t you all understand?” Excitement laced my words, joy replacing whatever had momentarily sent ice through my circulation. I concentrated on the positive. “If she was found with me, it means that my dream wasn’t a dream.”
“Lorna,” Laurel began, “we’ve already discussed the unlikelihood of this possibility.”
“We? You mean you, Mason, and Reid?”
Sheepishly, she nodded. “I have concerns about what you think you remember. It’s inconsistent with your loss of memories. You don’t recall going to Montana or being kidnapped, yet you recall a conversation you had while you were drugged, dehydrated, injured, and nearly septic from ant bites.”
“What if Missy is alive? What if what I recalled really did happen?”
“What if it didn’t?” Mason asked, stepping closer. “Then after all this time, you’re letting that bitch down on 1 disappoint you again.”
“Is that your problem, Mason? You’re more concerned about disappointment than our sister?”
“Lorna,” Reid said. “We’re still working on who took you. This isn’t a priority.”
“My sister isn’t a priority?” I stared in disbelief. “And I suppose the two of you were the ones who determined this hierarchy of concerns?” Taking in both of the men’s expression, I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t only you two. Sparrow and Patrick had a say.”
Mason’s lips came together as Reid reached out to me and spoke, “I’m not saying we won’t investigate what you think she may have said to you. I’m just saying it won’t be until after we have other answers.”
“What if you never get other answers?”
“We will,” Mason said matter-of-factly. “We’ve been working with someone. If it pans out...”
“Laurel,” I said, directing my words to her. “You have a sister. What if Allison had gone missing years ago and you never knew what happened? What if it was Haley?” Laurel visibly bristled at the mention of her eight-year-old niece. “Missy was only a year older than Haley when she disappeared.”
“I’d move heaven and hell to find either of them.”