Love was evil.
It stole, and it harmed, and it left you with your bleeding remains flayed wide for the world to dissect.
It left you to run and hide as though you’d done something shameful. For many of us were ashamed when our hearts were no longer our own, and the thieves refused to give them back.
We were hurt. We were embarrassed. We were disappointed in ourselves for entrusting someone with something they’d never earned in the first place.
He was earning it now.
But I was still struggling with then.
Ricky entered the living room with his motorcycle jacket slung over his arm. “Dinner is in the oven, and I dug out some of your mother’s multivitamins.” He opened the curtains, the late afternoon sun racing in to smack me in the face. “Take them.”
He walked out as I was still cussing, my bowl of popcorn on its side on the couch.
Grumbling, I plucked up all the pieces and tossed them into the bowl, then headed into the kitchen. Two fat tablets sat on the countertop. I dumped the popcorn into the trash and the bowl into the sink.
“That boy must be good for something if you’re actually bringing your soiled dishes back to the kitchen.”
I almost choked on the vitamins, banging my chest before grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge.
Mom sorted through the mail, her hair out and framing her face in soft curls. “Don’t die. I just got here.” She restacked the mail and dropped it to the counter. “And it would seem we have much to talk about, my dear.”
I sipped from the bottle, then recapped it and left it on the counter. “Elijah told you.”
“Of course, he did.” She eyed me, her lips twitching. “You used my credit card, Fern. Did you really think just because I’m busy as fuck that I don’t keep a subtle eye on you?”
It was official—I was a lovestruck moron.
I moved out of the way as she checked on dinner and lowered the temperature of the oven, then I followed her to the living room.
Her heels were kicked off, landing side by side neatly on the rug. “How is Daryl?”
“Fine,” I said, knowing I’d said the same thing to him about her.
She hummed. “Girlfriend or wife?” At my crinkled expression, she tittered. “I could look into it, but I don’t care to. All I know is that man can’t stand being alone. So which is it?”
“Girlfriend. Works in a call center.”
“Cute,” she said, checking her phone with a scowl and crossing her legs.
Annoyance thundered through me, too fast for me to stop myself from blurting, “What happened to my grandparents?”
If she thought she could just sit there and return emails while I simmered in all I’d uncovered, she was wrong.
Mom didn’t pause, fingers flying over her screen. “They’re dead. You attended their funeral.”
“How?”
She blinked and slowly looked up. “How?”
“Yes,” I said. “How.”
She powered off her phone and tossed it to the couch, then leaned forward. “What did he tell you?”
“Not nearly enough, so don’t worry.” Struggling to hold that dark gaze, I repeated myself, “I want you to tell me how they died. I know it wasn’t an accident.”
My grandfather had owned his fair share of helicopters and small planes. While returning from New York one stormy morning with my grandmother, his favored plane crashed into the sea.
“It sounds to me like you don’t need me to tell you anything.” She clasped her hands between her stocking covered knees. “You’ve already pieced it together.”
She’d had his plane tampered with. “Why?”
“They arranged my marriage. They forced me to bear a child. They never accepted me.” I waited because surely, there was more. “I did everything they ever asked of me to make sure I gained control of what was rightfully mine, but there was always this fear that no matter what I did, I would never be good enough. I’d disgraced them. I’d trusted them with my true self, and they nearly shunned me.”
I swallowed.
Mom scratched at her temple, then gazed at the rug. “They’d planned to adopt.” She laughed. “My mother couldn’t have any more children, and in the end, I guess I wasn’t good enough. They were already in the midst of plucking some riffraff kid from a boys’ home on the Lower East Side when I found out.”
“A teenager?”
“All the better to be their successor in case they didn’t live long, unbearable lives.”
“You wouldn’t have the hotel, the brothel—”
She cut me off. “Excuse me? It’s a men’s shed.”
“Come on.” I rolled my eyes. “I’ve known for ages.”
A frustrated noise left her, and she stood, taking a seat next to me on the loveseat. “There’s no nice way to say this. I was promised an empire, to be a ruler of this small kingdom, and when that was threatened…”
“You attacked.”
“I also had a child to protect. What’s mine will one day be yours if you want it, but no one was taking the choice away from us. I’ve worked too hard, and I sacrificed so much of myself in the process.” She smiled, but it didn’t touch her eyes. “Quit beating around the real reason for your visit, Fern. That pie smells amazing, and I’m starving.”
Fine. “Did you want me?”
Rearing back, she balked. “Are you serious?”
I said nothing, merely waited.
“Foolish girl, I’ve wanted you from the moment I first heard your heart beating. Yes,” she said, her tone hard. “I wanted you. Just because I like women does not mean that I didn’t want to be a mom.” Sliding closer, she said, “Being part of Nightingale meant I didn’t want to become the type of mom I knew it’d make of me. Someone who forced you to your doom.”
Relief, rapid and bone-crushing, drenched me. “It’s not all bad,” I said. “Right?” It couldn’t be, or else there wouldn’t be as many members as there were across the globe.
“No,” Mom said, and she smiled a little. “No, it’s not, but when it’s bad, it’s bad, Fern, and it’s my job to protect you. But how can I protect you when it was me who cursed you?”
I smiled too and took her hand in mine, my fingers linking with hers. “Like this.”
I felt her go entirely still.
I leaned into her, and whispered, “This is all the protection I’ve ever needed.”
Tears rushed out of her eyes, and she swiped them with her free hand as though she were trying to squash bugs. “I hate you so much right now for fucking up my face.”
“I love you too.”
Two days passed, and I still hadn’t left home to return to my new one.
To my husband.
I’d tried, but every time I thought about leaving, I then thought about what would happen when I arrived home. It could be the start of something amazing, life-changing in the best way, or it could be the end of a cruel, wounded male’s bad joke.
Said male had called a couple more times, and I’d watched my phone ring before letting him slide into voicemail.