Book 5 - Page 147 (2/2)

Her answer is casual. I feel anger and frustration but push them away. “Why didn’t you share any of your past with me before?”

“I meant to.” Her head turns toward me. “When you were little, I planned to one day. Then Nathan … happened, and you were recovering from that. And you met Gideon. I always thought there would be time.”

I know that’s not completely true. Life continues. Something would always serve as an excuse to wait longer. My mom hadn’t held out for a time when I could accept all she’d done for the sake of her sister; she’d waited until she could.

It took a strong woman to make the choices and take the actions she had. It was good to know that about her, but more so to understand the source of her fragility. My mother had been a woman tormented by the path her life had taken. Killing Jackson had haunted her, because she’d hated him so desperately and felt joy when he was dead, even as she felt horror for the murder itself.

Leaving my father behind had destroyed a vital part of her, as had living as if her sister, Katherine, didn’t exist. My mother had been separated from two pieces of her heart yet somehow managed to go on. Her overprotectiveness made sense to me now—she could not have imagined surviving if she lost me, too.

“Gideon says we’ll go see Katherine when we get back,” I tell her. “We’re thinking about moving her closer, so she can be part of our lives.” I’m bracing myself for that, knowing my aunt is my mother’s twin.

My mom looks at me with a sad smile. “She’ll be happy to see you. She’s been hearing about you for years.”

“Really?” I know from the journals that my mom could rarely see Katherine in person, since my mom’s husbands preferred to keep their lovely wife close. She’d had to settle for mailed letters and cards, since e-mails and calls left a trail.

“Of course. I can’t help but brag. I’m so proud of you.”

Tears fill my eyes.

She tilts her face up to the sun. “For so long, I was angry at the damage that had been done to Kathy—I never got back the sister I knew. But then I realized her mind protected her from that one night of h.e.l.l. She doesn’t remember it. And as simple as her thoughts are now, she finds a childlike joy in everything.”

“We’ll take care of her,” I promise.

My mom holds out her hand and I take it. “Do tree houses have champagne?” she asks.

I laugh and squeeze her fingers. “Sure.”

I woke slowly, drifting lazily upward from the depths of sleep into full awareness. Dappled sunlight filtered through the mosquito netting coc.o.o.ning the bed. I stretched, my arm sliding over to search for my husband, but he wasn’t lying beside me.

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