Leaving me gaping and bleeding out.
I eased up to her door. The floor creaked under my footsteps, and I peeked in to find her already looking at the doorway. Expecting me. Anticipating me.
“Come sit with me, my angel.” She patted the bed with a frail hand.
A torrent of sorrow swelled in my chest. An eternal spring that would gush forever.
Under it, it felt impossible to breathe.
Her grayed hair was matted and stringy, her hazel eyes deep set in the shallow pools that sunk in her pallid face.
It didn’t matter. It would still be the loveliest face that I’d ever seen.
Choking back the tears I could feel burning in my throat, I eased inside and moved over to her. “Hi, Mama.”
I leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. Lingering. Wanting to stay in the warmth of who she was forever.
Finally, I peeled myself back to look down at the woman who’d always had every answer.
She smiled up at me, her eyes twinkling with mischief. “I heard you had a visitor.”
I sighed and sat down on her bed, facing her, bringing my knees to my chest like it could hold the brittle pieces together. Every crack running through the middle of me aching like mad. “He brought Daisy a present from him, Mabel, and Emily.”
She hummed. She didn’t believe for a second that was the full story.
A sigh pilfered free, and I hugged my knees tighter. “He kissed me. Last night and today,” I admitted in a rush, cheeks blazing with embarrassment.
“That’s that boy’s way, isn’t it? Sweeping in like a storm that hits in the middle of the night without warning, and you can never tell what kind of damage has been done until the sun comes up in the mornin’.” She said it with a soft smile. Disappointment and affection.
We’d all loved Richard Ramsey which was probably why my daddy had come to hate him so much. Because he’d put his trust in him even when he’d swept me up in the whirlwind that was his life.
“I’m afraid if I let him, he’ll demolish me again. All of us.” My gaze shifted out the door into the hall where we could hear Daisy playing in her room. Her imagination running wild as she prattled on to herself. “And I don’t want to walk blindly in the night.”
Understanding moved through her expression.
“And what’s he saying, Violet?”
My lips pursed. “He’s actin’ like he wants me back.”
“And what do you want?”
I choked out a laugh. “Not to be a fool. Not to stumble out and get lost in his darkness.”
The man a total eclipse.
Awestriking.
Earthmoving.
Heart-altering.
A curtain pulled over your eyes so quickly you were caught unaware.
“He left me with nothing.”
A lame excuse and a faulty explanation.
That and a shattered heart.
She reached out and curled her hand around my ankle, her voice rough and low and filled with emphasis. “You are no fool. Not even close. But you are not driven by the sensible. You are driven by the sensation. By the feeling you get buzzing through your veins. Are you listening with your heart? What are you feelin’ right now?” she asked, those dark eyes searching me with their unending warmth. With her belief and hope.
“Terrified.”
It was the bare, basic truth.
Sympathy pulsed through her expression. “That should probably tell you something.”
My head shook, knowing how crazy it was. “I think he’s in trouble, Mama.”
A frown pinched her brow. “What kind of trouble?”
I hugged my knees tighter, mind spinning as I tried to add up the pieces he’d given. The secrets he held. “That, I don’t know. But whatever it is? I think it just might have been bad enough to rip us apart.”
Anguish flayed through my heart. Every wrong he could have committed. The ideas of what he had done. When I’d gotten that pathetic letter six years ago, I’d come to the quick, undeniable conclusion—he’d fallen for someone else.
It’d hurt. Hurt so badly, but I’d done my best over the years to come to terms. But then why would he say the things he had? Imply he’d had no choice?
My tongue darted out to wet my lips, and I forced out the admission, “I agreed to go to dinner with him tonight. To talk.”
Mama laughed out a wry sound. “Oh, I doubt very much that man has talkin’ on his mind. Look at you, already loved up and he’s barely touched you.”
Redness streaked. “Well, there won’t be any more of that touchin’. I already told him that was it. That I wasn’t taking him back and if he wanted to have dinner, we would talk, lay out the past, and get over it. Move on. It’s time.”
She looked at me like I was the one telling the lies. “That’s just it, huh?”
“Yep.”
Her mouth slipped into a disbelieving grin. “Don’t be so sure there’s not more.”