She grimaced and shifted around in her shoes. “Still, you need to let me see her. As her mother, I deserve that much. It’s my right.”
“Mother?” I hissed, my gut filled with disgust. Being a mother didn’t simply mean giving birth. Being a mother meant late-night feedings. Being a mother meant sleeping next to a crib because your child was sick and you needed to watch their breaths. Being a mother meant knowing Talon hated teddy bears. Being a mother meant you stayed.
Jane was not a mother, not for a minute.
She was a stranger to my child. A stranger in my house.
A stranger to me.
“You need to leave,” I told her, uneasy about the fact that she apparently believed she could walk back into our lives after all this time.
“Are you sleeping with Lucy?” she questioned, throwing me for a complete loop.
“Excuse me?” I felt it form in my gut and start rising to my throat—my anger. “You abandoned your daughter months ago. You left without more than a bullshit note. You didn’t take a second to look back once. Yet now, you think you have the right to ask me something like that? No, Jane. You don’t get to ask me questions.”
She pushed her shoulders back. Although she stood tall in her high heels, there was a tremble in her voice. “I don’t want her near my child.”
I walked over to the front door and opened it. “Goodbye, Jane.”
“I’m your wife, Graham. Talon shouldn’t be around someone like Lucy. She’s a toxic person. I deserve—”
“Nothing!” I hollered, my voice hitting a new height of anger, panic, and disgust. “You deserve nothing.” She’d crossed a line by using the word wife. She’d crossed a bigger line by speaking ill of Lucy, the one who had stayed. She’d crossed the biggest line by saying how Talon should be raised. “Leave!” I shouted once more.
The second I hollered, Talon started crying and I swallowed hard.
I had grown up in a home with screaming, and it was the last thing I ever wanted my daughter to witness.
My voice dropped low. “Please, Jane. Just go.”
She stepped outside, her head still held high. “Think about what you’re about to do, Graham. If you slam this door, it means we must fight. If you slam this door, it means there’s going to be a war.”
With no thought needed, I replied, “I’ll have my lawyers call yours.”
With that, I slammed the door.
“Lyric’s back in town,” I said, hurrying into Monet’s Gardens where Mari was putting together a new window display.
She glanced over at me and gave me a small nod. “Yeah, I know.”
“What?” I asked, surprised. “When did you find out?”
“I saw her two days ago. She stopped by Parker’s place to talk.” The way the words rolled off her tongue so effortlessly and carelessly confused me. Who had taken my sister, my favorite person in the world, and changed her?
What had happened to my Mari?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, my chest hurting as my heart began to crack. “You saw me yesterday.”
“I was going to mention it, but our last conversation didn’t lead to the best place. You stormed off,” she told me, picking up the vase and moving it over to the windows. “And what does it matter if she’s back? Her family is here, Lucy.”
“She abandoned them for months. She left her newborn in the NICU because she was selfish. Don’t you think it’s terrible for her to just walk back into Graham’s life? Into Talon’s life?”
“We don’t really get a say in that, Lucy. It’s none of our business.”
More pieces of my heart shattered, and Mari acted as if she didn’t even care.
“But…” Mari took a deep breath and crossed her arms, looking my way. “We do have to talk about the business. I thought I could hold out for a while longer, but since we’re here now, we might as well talk.”
“About what?” I asked, confusion filling me up.