Falling into You (Falling Stars 3)

Carefully, I sat down on the edge of the bed, drawing up a knee so I could face her. I brushed her matted hair from her sweaty forehead, praying another prayer that I could take it away. Make it better. Do something that would change the brutal reality of this.

She reached out and touched my chin. “Don’t be sad, my beautiful daughter.”

One of those tears I’d been fighting slipped free. “How could I not be?”

She traced the pad of her thumb over the trembling of my bottom lip. “Because I’ve lived the best life I could have lived. Have loved and have been loved. Have been given the greatest gifts.”

Agony stretched tight.

I’d been wearing an armor of strength for so long, trying to hold everything together for my mama and papa, for Daisy, but I could feel it getting stripped away.

Piece by piece until I was brittle and bare.

Unable to handle the itchy feeling, I pushed to standing and paced toward the window as if I could hide it, hugging my arms across my middle as I stared out on the fields of awestriking color that rambled for acres behind the house.

“You saw him last night.” It wasn’t even a question.

I glanced back at her with a weary smile. “I did.”

“How was it?”

I choked out a laugh. “Horrible. I haven’t felt so weak in a long time, Mama. I thought I’d overcome it, and one look at him, and I realized I’m not even close. I shouldn’t have gone.”

Mama’s expression twisted in compassion. “Just because you continue to grieve someone you lost is not the same thing as weakness. It just means you have a soft heart. A good heart. One that continues to beat. And even though it hurts, you get up each day and you live your life beautifully. That’s what I call overcoming.”

“Mama,” I whispered, not sure how to accept her praise when I was feeling this way. I shook my head as if it could toss Richard Ramsey right out of my psyche. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just forget him.”

Mama blew a huff of air from her nose. “Oh, I’d say it does.”

“He left me. That’s that.”

She stretched out her hand for me, palm up, like she could reach me from there. “Oh, Violeta…there is a very fine line between love and hate. Between condemnation and forgiveness. Between cherishing the memory of a beauty that has faded and hating that it existed in the first place.”

I huffed like a petulant child. “I do kind of hate that it existed in the first place.”

“But would you take it back?” she pressed. “What does your heart say?”

Mama had always taught me to listen with my heart.

I bit down on my bottom lip, wavered, memories rushing too fast.

His face and those hands and the songs he’d left written on me.

“I don’t know.” That was about as honest as I could be.

Desperate to change the subject, I pointed at her tray. “You should eat before your food gets cold.”

She picked up her fork and pushed her food around, not taking a bite.

“Mama,” I begged.

This time, her smile was sad, the look in her tranquil eyes telling.

Knees weak, I moved her way and knelt at the edge of her bed, unable to remain standing. “Mama,” I said again, gathering up her hand in a fist and pressing her knuckles to my lips.

“It’s okay.” She shifted to set that frail hand on my cheek, taking my fingers with her.

I pressed her hand closer.

Desperate to keep her near.

She stared at me, her scratchy voice barely breaking the surface, “It’s a good life, Violet. A good, good life. Miss me, but do not despair.”

Her thumb stroked my cheekbone, my mama shaking as she murmured, “I am missing only one thing. There is only one thing that I would change.”

Grief lashed through her expression, and I saw it for what it was.

She glanced at the empty doorway, at the sound of Daisy bounding back upstairs.

She looked back at me, the truth of her loss flooding out. “Find her, Violet. If there is any way, find her. Bring her home to me. I want to see her one last time.”

Anguish squeezed my heart in a fist, completely crushing it when Daisy appeared at the door and came racing in with the tape dispenser lifted over her head. “Got it!”

She ran around me and grabbed the picture, oblivious to the torture that raged inside me.

The fear.

The worry.

I pushed to my feet and pressed a soft kiss to my mama’s temple. “I’ll try, Mama. I will try.”

Knowing her last request might very well be my end.Peals of laughter floated through my open bedroom window, a soft breeze blowing through and billowing the sheer drapes.

Fall descending on the hot air.

I glanced out at my father who pushed Daisy on the swing, the child squealing and begging him to push her higher.