But I Need You (This Love Hurts 2)

Her hair is perfection, with thick natural curls that shine down to her shoulder blades. A black pencil skirt and a cream blouse are classically professional, yet on her body they could look scandalous.

“They really called you in two days after?” I ask her and she lets out a sigh of frustration before slinging the black leather hobo bag onto her shoulder.

“It’s not them, it’s my patients.”

Guilt rides down on me. “I’m the workaholic, not you. Maybe you would say I’m projecting because work is what I wish I were doing.”

“No,” she says and then leans forward, giving me a kiss on the cheek with both of her hands gripping my forearms. She leans back, still holding on to me as she adds, “I’d say you don’t want to be left alone with Mom.” Her diagnosis sinks that knife a little deeper. “And I don’t blame you.”

“Go analyze someone else’s psyche,” I say, batting her hands away, once again opening my laptop and taking a seat on one of only two barstools lined up at the end of her counter.

“Just … one hour,” Cadence says and I wave her off, not bothering to look up and give her more reassurance. It’s her house, her life. She’s right, I don’t want to be alone with my mother who looks like a shell of herself and is constantly crying or staring off at nothing. But I deserve just that.

The clicking of her heels is steady and determined, followed by the front door opening and closing. I can even hear her car turn on and then drive off. All the while I stare over my left shoulder, past the small living room with only a single sofa and one reading chair tucked into the corner. I have a direct line of sight out the glass doors to the patio and seated there, with the same mug she’s had for hours, is my mother. The wicker furniture is comfortable enough, but I know the thin blanket my sister gave her can’t be giving her much comfort since it lays on her lap and doesn’t even cover her upper half.

Her nightgown is thin and she’s got to be freezing, but the last three times we asked her to come in, she only shook her head and began crying again.

“I loved him. I loved him so much,” she whispered the last time I went out there.

I wanted to talk to her, to try and process everything that’s happened between the two of us, but she merely stared ahead blindly with a sad smile on her face, telling me she was counting all of her mistakes. She said she’ll be out there for a while and not to mind her. With a small pat on my hand she looked me in the eye and added a please and another apology.

I debate on the likelihood that she’ll come in if I go out there and ask her to again. It’s slim to none, but I have to check on her.

Cadence still doesn’t know it all. A single whispered conversation confirmed that our mother killed our father. My sister left, locked herself in the bathroom and then asked me for time. That was last night and this morning she’s avoided any real conversation. We need to all sit down. The three of us know a secret no one else can ever know.

First, I need my mom to tell me what she’s willing to let my sister know. It’s obvious Cadence blames herself for something that she said triggered our mother. At least that’s what she believes.

Whatever happens and whatever’s spoken between us, I want the three of us to know we still have each other. Given the current state of each of us individually … I don’t know how to make that happen.

All I know is that the police suspect someone else and have evidence that leads to that person.

You need to believe someone else did it. It’s so much easier when someone else did it.

The consequences of delivering what feels like justice come with some sense of relief. A drunken attorney once told me that. I didn’t think much of him back then, but oh how I wish those words were true right now and that I could, even for a split second, believe that someone other than my mother had done it. And that the police would find them, prosecute, and all would be right in the world. Save one more gravestone that shouldn’t exist.

The morbid thought is interrupted by the buzzing of my phone, vibrating against the granite countertop. If it was anyone else, I’d just watch it ring and not answer.

But it’s Cody. And after last night, the lone hour I gave him before coming back here to my sister’s, I can’t ignore him.

There’s so much I need to tell him still. So much I want him to tell me.