Page 283 of Taken Away

That.

Aubrey had spent her whole life believing absence meant rejection.

Bennett took her hands gently from her face and held them between his own.

“She was wrong to do that to you.”

Aubrey looked at him through tears.

“She was my mother.”

“I know.”

“She was supposed to love me enough to tell me the truth.”

Bennett’s voice nearly failed him.

“Yes.”

Aubrey crumpled forward, and he caught her against him.

He held her there.

One arm around her back, one hand cupping the back of her head while she cried into his shoulder until his shirt was damp and his chest hurt from holding in his own grief.

She cried for Anne.

For Mabel.

For Harold.

For the little girl she had been.

For the life she might have had.

For the father she had lost before she ever knew he was hers.

Bennett held her through all of it.

After a long while, the sobs began to quiet. Her body went heavy with exhaustion. Bennett eased her back against the pillows, pulled the quilt over her, and brushed the damp hair from her cheek.

Her eyes were closed before he finished.

“Don’t go,” she whispered.

“I won’t.”

He sat beside her until her breathing evened out.

Even then, he stayed.

An hour passed.

The light changed outside the windows. Gold faded to blue. Shadows gathered in the corners of the room.

Aubrey slept.

Bennett sat in the chair beside the bed and watched her.