"She will never know what Lauren was like - what she was capable of. And Lauren will never have the ability to teach her daughter our ways because you took that from her." Stacey sobbed as she spoke the words, and this time when I hung up the phone, it was because her grief and rage were too much, even through the bridge of technology, and I was well aware of how deeply my hands shook as I ended the call.
"Well?" Brenna demanded as soon as I ended the call. "Is the Voodoo Witch alive?"
"Yes." That one word shuddered through me, and while it was the truth, it didn't feel right. "But she is not fully functional and it doesn't sound as if she will ever recover."
"And the baby?" Brenna's demanding tone was possibly the only thing that kept me grounded in that moment.
"Alive."
"Then the rest does not matter."
And while I knew that Brenna shut down the discussion for the sake of my guilt, I wasn't certain that the words she had spoken were the truth. For a child to grow up without a mother was still a tragedy - and that mattered more than any of us could comprehend.