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“What did you do?” he asked.
“Soon. I’m working toward that part. I’m nothing but a woman of mistakes.” I patted his knuckles and leaned back again. “Recounting my youth has the unfortunate side effect of revealing how much trouble I caused by not thinking. I let passions rule over common sense. I let pain guide me instead of logic. I do wish youth would come with wisdom instead of learning it the hard way.”
Dylan glanced at Margot before looking back toward me. “I’m assuming...and I’m asking this for my benefit as well as Margot’s, that your daughter is still alive and well?”
I nodded. “She is.”
His shoulders slouched. “That’s a relief. But also...rather perplexing.”
“How so?”
“Well, you’re extremely private about your personal life. I did some preliminary research on you before coming here today, and apart from a scant page on your company’s website, there’s no mention of your daughter.”
I smiled and plucked at the blanket across my legs. “I was willing to share my science with the world, not my soul.”
“Because you lost your soulmate?” Margot whispered.
I looked up with a small shake of my head. “Because it was no one’s business. My daughter deserved a normal life. She deserved to be wild like I had been, rebellious and reckless, to make mistakes and be stubbornly passionate. If the world had known about her and what happened to her father, she would’ve had eyes on her, which would’ve brought boundaries and judgements. She wouldn’t have learned to listen to her own intuitive nudges or become who she is today.”
“And who is she?” Margot asked quietly.
“She’s my shining star,” I whispered. “She’s involved with Lunamare. Alongside a large team overseen by Theodore and Edmund, of course.”
“Wait...so that actually happened? Teddy and Eddie are your business partners?” Dylan asked with a quirked eyebrow. “Honey’s brother and brother-in-law?”
“Business partners?” I shook my head. “No. They are so, so much more than just that.” I sighed and rubbed my temples, willing my headache to fade. “I met them through Honey, but none of us could guess how close we would become. How much I’d fall in love with both of them.”
My voice turned sad with the past. “Honey was the sister I never knew I needed. She’s another soulmate without a doubt. She still is, even though we’re old and grey. She and Billy have enjoyed the farm life they always dreamed of, and I’m godmother to their five children, but...without Teddy and Eddie, I don’t think I would’ve survived. Even with Ayla.”
“How so?” Margot murmured.
I straightened my spine, gathering courage to keep telling my tale. “Two weeks after Aslan was shot, my father travelled to Townsville to tell Griffen Yule what’d happened. Griffen’s unofficial renovator and book-keeper was dead, and I was far too broken to resume my studies—”
“Hang on.” Dylan held up his hand, his mind whip fast. “You’re telling me that you’ve worn the title of a marine biologist turned utopia mastermind for decades, and yet...you never graduated?”
“Correct.” I managed a small, sad chuckle. “I never went back to school. I was pregnant. My heart was in pieces. I wasn’t in the right headspace or lifespace to resume.”
“Wow.” Dylan breathed. “That’s—”
“A lie, I know.” I shrugged. “But just because I don’t have an official degree doesn’t mean I’m not a marine biologist. I’m second generation. I’ve dedicated my life to the ocean.”
“You were saying...?” Margot prompted, cutting Dylan’s surprise off at the knees.
For a moment, I forgot. Old age made my mind a little dithery, but then I remembered and continued, “My father stayed down south for a few days, packing up our things. He donated our second-hand furniture and brought back boxes of clothes and mementos. He closed that chapter of our lives so I didn’t have to, and when I padded down to the beach at three in the morning—which had become my habit to scream at the moon for taking Aslan from me—I stopped and just stared at those boxes stacked in the garage.
“I found myself opening a box and on the top was my sunset dress. The exact replica to the one I’d worn when I was raped. The one I’d been wearing when Aslan had been beaten and shoved into the street.”
“Oh, no.” Margot gasped. “That dress was cursed.”
“It was.”
“W-What did you do?”
“I did what any grieving young widow would do. I lost myself. I fell into fury for that dress. For that bad omen. That cursed piece of clothing. I took the box holding Aslan’s work shorts and well-worn t-shirts, jumbled together with my pretty skirts and tops, and I placed them in a pile on his bed in the sala.
“The sala where I’d slept ever since Aslan had gone. The sala that used to hold so many happy dreams but now only swirled with nightmares. I bundled up the sunset dress. I poured my mother’s favourite lychee liqueur over it, stole my father’s lighter that he used for an occasional cigar, and...I set it all on fire.”
