So much for easing my daughter into my new identity. My true identity.
Even that reality could not stop me from working on instinct. “Oh my god,” I screamed, pulling her into my arms.
I’d forgotten about the fact that my daughter could very well hate me and held her tightly. She did not stiffen in my embrace, nor did she try to struggle out of it. She hugged me back with the same fervor that I was hugging her. Slowly and magically, the last piece of me slotted back into the vacant space that had never filled despite all of the evolving I’d done.
Being Violet’s mother was the one part of my identity that I was proud of, that was pure and right amongst everything else.
We hugged for a long time, neither of us feeling the urge to cut the embrace short. I had months to catch up on.
“I was leaving to fly to see you at the airport tomorrow!” I exclaimed, still holding her tightly. She smelled of pear and freesia, the perfume I’d gotten her for her fifteenth birthday. The perfume she’d worn every day since then.
That calmed me somehow. With everything that had changed so drastically, so pivotally in these past months, at least my daughter smelled how she normally did. How I remembered her.
Though I didn’t actually want to, I wanted to hold on to her forever, I let her go but held on to her arms so I could look at her, try to find that thing about her that seemed different. Then again, there were a lot of things about her that were different, not just the freckles or the style. She’d been in love. Traveled on her own. Experienced an entirely new culture. Had her world rocked by her mother two days ago.
Jesus, everything about her was likely to be different.
“Come inside.” I yanked her into the living room.
“How did you get here?” I demanded, my mind racing, thinking of my child rebooking all of the flights her father’s travel agent had organized. She would’ve had to take connections, she would’ve had to get herself a ride out here in the desert—we were almost forty minutes away from the closest airport. My eyes fixed on the red Jeep in the driveway beside my brand-new Mini Cooper. Swiss had bought it for me. Without asking. And I loved it. Adored it.
Violet had rented a car. I was pretty sure you couldn’t rent one until you were twenty-five, but then again, I’d never had to rent a car. I wouldn’t know how to rent a car. Yet Violet had. The Violet I knew could not do all of that.
“How did you even know where I was?” I added, my stomach curdling with the thought she might’ve got the information from her father. It sickened me to think of what other information she might’ve gotten. He’d retreated to lick his wounds without a fight, but I didn’t think Preston was done. He was too petty for that. He’d want to hurt me somehow… And turning our daughter against me was the surest way to do that.
Violet pulled back her shoulders. “I tracked your phone,” she said matter-of-factly.
I blinked at her, processing the information. My body relaxed ever so slightly at hearing that Preston wasn’t involved. “You can do that?”
She rolled her eyes. “Mom, it’s seriously so easy to track people down nowadays, if you know what you’re doing. Plus, I’ve got a friend who knows how to circumvent certain security firewalls.”
I knew all too well how someone could be tracked with a phone number. I had a hospital stay to prove it. Something I wouldn’t tell Violet, though.
She looked around the house for the first time. “After everything you told me, I couldn’t fathom staying in Paris. I needed to see where you moved to. How everything has changed so much.”
Her voice was more reserved now, full of emotion.
It was a spear to my heart.
“Sweetie,” I whispered.
Violet looked at me. “I like it,” she murmured. “This place. This town. I like it a lot. There’s… something about it. It’s special.”
My heart thrummed. “Yes, it is.”
Violet moved to throw her purse on the sofa. “How did you end up in New Mexico, of all places?” she asked, not the first question I expected but as complicated as all of the questions would be from here on out.
I sighed. “Um, it’s a long story, honey. Can I make you something to eat first? I know it was a long flight with terrible food. I can whip up cacio e pepe or roast a chicken?” I offered hopefully.
“Mom,” she said, the word full of everything that lay between us. A warning. I was not going to be able to distract her with food. “I didn’t come all the way here for roast chicken, we’ll get to that later,” she said with a weak smile.
I tried my best to smile back.
“I just need to know why,” she said in a voice that was somehow grownup and childlike at the same time. “I need to know what happened.”
I pursed my lips together, my throat burning and my hand involuntarily going up to my neck, to where my injuries had long healed.
“It’s just me!” a voice called through the open door, saving me from having to answer Violet. “I brought more outfit options because I figured you might need them, and I also brought stuff to make margaritas because I want you to try on the outfits and, oh—”