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Before I can ask, she starts speaking again.
“I should have turned Liam in. I was barely old enough to buy liquor, with three very young children, a violent and cunning father in law, a broken heart, a shattered ego, and a business to run. And I didn’t have a soul to confide in about the worst thing that had ever happened to me.”
She takes a puff of her cigar and blows an expert smoke ring. It’s like she’s speaking from my heart.
In that moment, I see my mother in an entirely new light. She’s always been this fearless, unstoppable, resilient, tough as nails, bitchy-as-fuck, hard ass. She’s successful, flawlessly composed, so utterly capable that I forgot, that she's also just a woman. Flesh and bone and with a heart as prone to pain as mine.
I’ve had challenges, but nothing like what she has overcome. I don’t think I’d make the same choices as her.
But I can’t say for sure.
The night my daughter was born, I lay awake all night with her in my arms, making promises and vows I’d longed to hear my whole life.
I’ve kept all but one – that I would never lie to her. The first time she asked me about her father’s frequent nights away while we were still living in Paris, I lied. And I continued to for years because I didn’t want her to know who her father – and mother – really were.
My mother stares sightlessly in my direction. The cigar dangles from her long elegant, bejeweled fingers and she looks every inch the titan she is. Can I really judge her not wanting to tell me her truths? Especially when the stakes were so high.
It’s only been three months since I last saw Stone and I can barely breathe for missing him.
She’s spent 32 years without my dad. She’s dated, being Lucas Wilde’s widow is part of her identity. I can’t imagine how she’ll handle things when his return becomes public knowledge.
“Do you still love dad?”
“You still love your grandfather?” She retorts in a slightly defensive tone, one eyebrow raised in challenge.
“I don’t know.” It’s the closest thing to the truth I can manage. I’m still trying to reconcile my memories of the man I thought I knew with the evil I’m confronting.
“I shudder to think of all of the secrets shared with him and kept from me,” she grimaces.
I scoff. “Until I find a way to top ‘your father’s not really dead,’ you might be setting yourself up for a pot and kettle comparison, by calling me secretive.”
“Touché. Not much worse than that,” she concedes, waving one hand in the air, as if she’s giving a testimony.
Not much worse, but there are things equally awful. I look over at the pile of glass, chrome, and pictures and think of secrets that brought me here today.
“What was that tattoo on his wrist?” I watch her closely for any flickers of recognition or surprise.
She looks at me askance and that one-sided frown of annoyance is a relief. She considers herself a connoisseur of information and not knowing something always annoys her. “What tattoo? Be more deliberate with your words, girl,” she snaps.
I point at the pulse point on my wrist and trace a thunderbolt. “Pops had one.”
She waves my words off. “He didn’t have a tattoo on his wrist. You know that.”
I walk over to the mess I made and sift through the glass with the toes of my shoe, until I get to the first frame I smashed. I pluck the photo off the backing and hand it to her. “Yes, he did at one point.”
She puts the cigar down and takes the picture from me. She scrutinizes it closely and frowns. “What the hell is that?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve seen them on other… people,” I tell her.
She puts the picture on the settee next to her. “What other people?” Her voice is hard, but her eyes…aren’t. She looks afraid, but there’s also a vengeful light, a slight curl to her lips, that remind me of a wolf’s snarl.
I know that I’m not the one she wants to hurt. But now that I’m a mother myself, I know that I’m about to break her heart beyond repair.
I haven’t told anyone this story. I haven’t wanted to relive it. It’s the monster that lives under my bed. But I’ve done my mother a great disservice in keeping it from her. So, I gather my courage and sit down.
“I need to tell you something.” I take her hand in mine and start from the night in the bakery when Stone stabbed Weston.
“Dan? That sycophantic little fucker, I never liked him.” She’s been stoic, her eyes flickering with rage and anguish, but completely silent. But now she stands, pacing the way I do when I’m agitated.
