“Isn’t there any way this can be fixed?”
She glared at her mom. “Why? How?” She held her arms out and let them drop. “Why would I want anything to do with Heather? So she can stab me in the back again? She was hitting on Mason when I showed up. Hell, she’s probably sleeping with him right now.” The thought turned her stomach and broke her heart even though she’d heard Mason loud and clear turn Heather down flat.
“I can’t imagine Mason would do something like that to you.” Dede let her head fall back and stared up at the porch ceiling before looking at Sierra again. “Your sister was always audacious.”
“She’s a home-wrecking whore.”
Anger etched lines on her mom’s forehead. “Sierra, that’s enough. I know you’re angry and hurt—”
“I’m furious. And I deserve to be.”
“Of course you do, but you need to take a breath and give yourself time to sort this out.”
“Why? So I can go back to paying for a loan that put a roof over her head. Should I give her the okay to go after Mason? Why not? She gets everything she wants and doesn’t care who she steamrolls over to get it.”
“You’re right. She’s selfish. She expects others to make her life easy. And she gets what she wants. Maybe that’s my fault for spoiling the baby in the family.”
“We all did. Amy and I took care of Heather. We watched over her. We gave in to her just as much as you did to keep her happy. I helped create the monster, I shouldn’t be surprised she stabbed me in the back.”
“If you feel that way, then teach her to take responsibility for what she’s done.”
“How? What can she possibly do to make this right in any kind of way that counts? Can she bring David back so Danny and Oliver have a father again? Can she not sleep with my husband? Can she in any way, shape, or form erase what she did? Can she make me stop second-guessing every interaction I had with David from the time she sank her claws into him? Can she make me feel less like a failure or that I drove him into her arms?”
“This is not your fault. All marriages have issues. That doesn’t mean someone cheats.”
“No. It opens the door for someone to want something and someone else.”
“Sierra, honey, I’ve divorced three men, including your father, and each time I felt like I’d done something wrong. I took on all the blame. It had to be me. The marriages fell apart because there was something wrong with me.”
Sierra shook her head.
“I finally realized there’s nothing wrong with me. Those relationships ended because we didn’t fight to keep them together. David gave up on your marriage. Instead of fixing it, he let the issues between you fester. He made a mistake. Of course you sensed something was wrong, so you were hesitant to keep your whole heart in the relationship. You didn’t want to get hurt.”
“It was already too late. I just didn’t know it.” She sucked in a steadying breath. “I didn’t want to know it.”
“Trust me, I understand. No one wants to know the person they love lied or cheated or simply doesn’t want to be with them anymore. Whatever the problems, we want that love to survive. We don’t want to feel the pain.”
“It’s all I feel now. All my memories are tarnished. Can I believe anything he said to me in the end? Was he just placating me, hoping I wouldn’t find out? Were we happy, or did we just settle into our life and accept it?”
“I saw the two of you together. You were happy. He adored you and the boys.”
“Are you sure? Because if he could sleep with my sister, not some stranger, but someone that close to me, I wonder if he loved me at all?”
The silence stretched while Sierra wallowed in her hurt and pain. Her mom tried to come up with something to say to make this better when nothing would change this.
“This is an impossible situation.”
“This is a bad episode of shock TV. I’m trapped in my own real-life version of some sordid talk show where they reveal your sister slept with your husband and your niece is really your kids’ half sibling.”
“I don’t even know how to help you through this.”
She appreciated her mom’s honesty.
“I know you want some magic way to make this all right, that somehow Heather and I can work this out. For the children’s sake,” Sierra tossed out, because that’s what couples tried to do when they wanted to keep things together for the kids.
“Have you thought about what you’ll say to the children?”
“How are they supposed to understand this, when I can barely wrap my head around it?”
“They are siblings. I suppose, at some point, they should be told.”
“I agree. At some point. But how do I tell my sons that their father was a cheater? How does that news impact them? Will they think it’s okay to do that to a woman because, hey, their father did it to their mother? Or will they think it’s the worst thing you can do to your partner and that their father is a bad person? No matter what David did, I don’t want them to think less of their father.”
“The truth is that David was human. He made mistakes. The boys can learn from them. You can make them understand that what David did was hurtful and wrong, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t love his children, that he wasn’t a good father to them.”
“He didn’t think of what his actions would do to those boys. He didn’t think about anything but what he wanted and his own selfish desires. This wasn’t a onetime lapse in judgment. He carried on the affair for however long, maybe even up until his death.”
“I’m sure Heather can fill in the details.”
“I don’t need the details. I don’t want to hear her excuses or apologies. Nothing she says will make this better. Nothing will change my mind about what I think about her now and how I feel.”
Dede deflated with a heavy sigh and sank into the chair. “What about Mason?”
“What about him? Am I supposed to trust him when he kept this from me?”
“You don’t know for sure Mason knew before he investigated the loan. You love him. Not the same way you loved David. It’s deeper. Don’t let this come between you. Give him a chance to explain.”
She would. But right now, she was mad at herself and the world, and she didn’t think anyone could say anything to change that.
“All I know is that I don’t want to see her ever again. I don’t want to be confronted with what she and David did every time I see her. I don’t want to feel this way over and over again.”
“Please, Sierra, take some time to let all this sink in and settle before you make any drastic decisions.”
“I don’t have a choice. I have to think of the boys. I can’t just do what I want to do like Heather does without thought to how it affects others. No. I have to be responsible and thoughtful and considerate and decent while she does whatever the hell she wants, consequences be damned.”
Her mother allowed the bitter snarkiness without comment. “All I’m saying is take some time. Think about who’s at fault and who’s not. What’s best for your kids?”
Yeah, that last part was the hardest. The boys deserved to know Hallee was their sister. Lies had a way of coming out eventually, and they would have to learn the truth.