“What do you mean ‘no?’”
“You never told me. Twenty-one years and you never told me.”
“I did. I told you—”
“Just recently.” Maddie’s voice grew angry.
“And you didn’t believe me.”
“You didn’t show me these.”
Ryn ran her fingers through her hair fisting it. “What if I didn’t have these? Jesus, Maddie! I’m your mother. I raised you, cared for you. I love you. I’ve never given you any reason to not trust me. If you told me someone harmed you, I would believe you. I wouldn’t need proof. The day you told me about your professor I didn’t once think you were lying. I jumped to your defense.” She grabbed a photo of her eye swollen shut and held it in front of Maddie’s face. “Nobody should have to see this shit, Maddie!”
“Your father has used you as a weapon against me for years, and the second I stood up for myself he pulled your college funding. He’s the reason you’re not in medical school, not me. How can you be so smart and yet so stupid to not see that? You question everything I do right down to the shoes I wear and the way I style my hair. But never … never have you questioned a goddamn thing about the man who has been nothing more in your life than a sperm donor—the biggest mistake of my entire life.”
Maddie stood, tipping her chin up, teeth clenched. “Well, if he was a mistake then clearly you must think I was too.”
Ryn sighed. “That’s not what I mean.”
“You can’t have it both ways. Either we were both a mistake or neither of us were. Which is it?”
“We were both drunk …”
“So a mistake. Is that your final answer?” Maddie punched holes into Ryn with her contemptuous glare.
“I don’t know how to make you understand.”
“I hate you both. I’m nothing more than the product of a drunk night between two people who didn’t love each other. Neither one of you wanted me.” She ran out of the room.
Ryn let her go. Words did not exist to explain her feelings toward Maddie. How could Ryn tell her she regretted that night with Preston, yet loved Maddie more than life? It wasn’t black and white. Maddie’s conception and her entire childhood was a shade of gray: her daughter the light, her husband the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Day
The bride-to-be stretched in all directions. A smile crept up her face like the gentle rise of the early morning sun. An intense floral scent overwhelmed her senses as she took a deep breath. Jessica opened her eyes.
“Oh. My. God.” She sat up.
Her bed. The top of the dresser, Luke’s chair, and every inch of the floor was covered in a kaleidoscope of rose petals.
On her nightstand, amongst the petals, was a cup of tea with a sticky note.
Good morning, Miss Day.