“She feels weak when she can’t walk on her own,” Dad tells me after she disappears. “The therapist says to be there for her without making her feel weak.”
“How could you not tell me this?” I throw all my anger and frustration on my father. “How could you keep me in the dark about something as important as this?”
“You heard her. She wanted it this way.”
“Or maybe you made her believe she wanted it. After all, the decisions are always yours and everyone else has to follow.”
“Ronan, I understand this is hard for you —”
“Hard.” I laugh. “Try something stronger than fucking hard.”
“Edric, I’ll just…” Eduard motions at the entrance.
The fuck.
I forgot he was here all along.
“No, wait.” Dad motions at him. “I need to discuss business decisions with you. Stay the night.”
“Business decisions,” I scoff. “With dear Uncle Ed.”
“Maybe you need to cool your head, Ronan,” Dad says.
“Fucking maybe.”
I throw one last glare at Eduard before I storm out of the dining room. I go straight to my parents’ bedroom, but Lars stops me before I go in, telling me Mum needs rest.
I tell him we’re not speaking until he dies then I go to my room, open my laptop, and search everything about my mum’s condition. Then I stop and catch my breath, because sometimes, as I read about the effects and the shit she went through, I feel like there’s no air in the room.
I spend an entire night like that, researching then staring at the ceiling, thinking I’ll lose my mum then going back to researching again.
In the early morning, I go to Lars and tell him we’re calling a truce so he can tell me all he knows. Apparently, on that nightmare night, Mum and Dad didn’t leave me because of a Halloween party, but because Mum had intense pain, and as soon as they got to the hospital, she was admitted and diagnosed.
All the overseas trips were to a private clinic where Mum had to stay with her regular doctor.
The reason they came back after the last surgery is because Mum couldn’t take staying in the hospital anymore and wanted to be with me.
Her depression has been reduced since they returned, which her doctor says is a good sign, but they won’t know anything until the test results come out.
“Not telling you was entirely her ladyship’s choice,” Lars tells me after he’s done with his retelling. “Don’t blame your father for it. He’s suffering as much as her. Why do you think he has that scoundrel taking care of business? It’s so he can devote all his attention to your mother.”
I point a finger at him. “Truce over. We’re not on speaking terms.”
“Tea?” He offers me a cup.
“Not speaking, Lars.” I leave his kitchen, and just like that, I find myself in front of her room again.
I place a hand on the door, and for a second, I feel like that kid who called her name and got no reply in return.
I can live in a world where I’m protecting Mum by burying the truth inside, but how can I live in a world where she doesn’t exist?
I have no idea how long I stand there, breathing harshly, feeling as if I’m about to combust.
It’s long enough that I slide down to the floor in front of the door with my back to the doorframe. It’s long enough that I relive all the stories she used to tell me when I was a child.
They all had happy endings, because she has always been a romantic at heart.
She always loved too much, cared too much, so why the fuck is this happening to her?
Charlotte Astor is one of the good ones. She does charity. She gives and gives and takes nothing in return. She loves and cares, so why the fuck did cancer choose her? Why didn’t it hit a lowlife like Ed?
Or even me?
I pull out my phone and go straight to my conversation with Teal. There’s no new text.
It doesn’t matter. I can call her, visit her.
Fuck my pride.
I need her like I’ve never needed anything before. I just need to hug her, and that’s it.
A hug.
I call her, but she doesn’t pick up.
If she’s grown attached to clingy texts then that’s what she’ll get.
“Sir.” Lars’s shadow falls on me.
“We’re still not talking.”
“Sir.”
“And I don’t want fucking tea.”
“Ronan,” he says sharply.
“What?” I snap, finally looking up at him.
He holds out a folded piece of cream-coloured paper.
“I don’t know where my father is. Sorry — his lordship.”
“He went out for an early-morning meeting.” Lars thrusts the letter in my face. “This came for you.”
For me? Who the fuck sends letters anymore?
“Who is it from?” I ask.
“Miss Teal.” Lars raises an eyebrow. “She left with his lordship.”
Teal sent me a letter then went somewhere with Dad? Why would she do that?
Ah, fuck.
She’s not thinking about ending the engagement, is she?
I open the letter, and my heart nearly stops beating.
31
Teal
Ronan,
I’ve never written a letter in my life, but you broke my patterns for everything, so what does adding writing a letter to the mix matter? Right?
I’m trying to throw a joke in there, but that probably didn’t come through. As you know, I’m kind of socially awkward.
You said in your text you wished I trusted you enough to let you see my pain. It’s not that I don’t trust you, because I do. It’s weird, but if you stood at the bottom of a cliff, I would fall over with my eyes closed. Do you know why? Because I know you’d catch me.
I know you’d never let me hit the ground or rock bottom or any of that.
The reason I couldn’t come forward as you did isn’t that I don’t trust you; it’s that I don’t trust myself.
I’m a fraud, Ronan. I didn’t get engaged to you because of Dad’s company, although that did play a part. I got engaged to you for other reasons, and all of them have to do with the pain I refuse to let others see.
Pain is weakness, and I hate thinking about or reliving the last time I was weak.
But now, I will, because I hope by the time you finish reading this letter, you’ll be able to understand that not all people deal with pain the same way.
You came out. I hid.
For me, the pain started when I was born as a prostitute’s daughter. Knox and I begged to go to school, but she barely let us. All our mum cared about was drugs and money to get those drugs.
She opened her legs for anyone as long as she got her next shot of heroin. She didn’t care that we heard everything or that we hid so we never got in the way of the men who left her room.
Over time, she got clients who weren’t interested in her cunt, but in seeing her children naked.
Or rather one client.
He came in the dark when we were asleep and made us strip. When Knox cried, she hit him and said either we do as instructed or we wouldn’t go to school.
So we did.
We removed our clothes and stood in the dark as that man was making those sounds of masturbation.