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“Adrian,” I said softly. I went to him and put my arms around him, pressing my cheek to his chest. He was stiff at first, but he gradually relaxed. “I can do this. Just let me try. Please.”
He sighed. “Just please be careful. Promise me that.”
“I will,” I said.
35
Juliette
My mother was the first to come to my room when I was back at the family house in New York. We spent most of our time in a twenty-two bedroom house in upstate New York that overlooked a lake and hills. My father had bought up all the surrounding lots, demolishing existing houses and preventing others from being built for privacy.
I’d also seen state prisons that were less secure.
Each exit was guarded day and night. The gate was coded. The only way in or out was with one of father’s drivers. I’d only slipped away because I became friends with one of his guards and snuck out of a party he dragged us all to. I’d pawned the jewelry I was wearing to scrape together enough for a couple month’s rent and transportation to North Carolina.
And now I was back.
My mother wore her hair in a tight bun and had on a loose flowing white top and dress pants. She always dressed to walk around the house like some high-end realtor—decked out from head to toe in the latest designer trends. She was beautiful, too. She was fifty-four and she hardly looked thirty, thanks to some of the best plastic surgeons in the world and a lot of my father’s money.
She didn’t speak at first. She just sat on the edge of my bed while I huddled by my pillow cross-legged. I felt like a child again being back here. I tried to cling to my memories of everything I’d done since I left. I wasn’t a child. I wasn’t just some pretty Coleton thing that was meant to be bartered off to the highest bidder. I was capable and being here didn’t change that.
“You can talk to me, you know,” my mother said.
“No offense, mother, but I know you have to tell father everything I tell you. So, no, I can’t.”
She sighed. “Well, there’s no reason you have to talk about that.”
That being the fact that I ran away and showed up at the gates last night like a refugee seeking shelter. I hadn’t explained why I came back or why I left yet, but father still hadn’t returned home to interrogate me.
“How have things been here?” I asked. I made an honest effort to sound somewhat friendly. I didn’t fault my mother the same way I faulted the others for the Coleton Way. I always saw her as a different kind of victim than I’d been. I didn’t exactly blame her, but I did find it hard to respect her. She just rolled over and let it all happen. None of it may have been her idea, but I’d never seen her do anything to fight the way my father ran this place.
I guess, if nothing else, she was the one who had taught me not to take his shit. She probably didn’t realize she was teaching me a lesson but watching her made me swear to myself I’d never be like that. I’d never just let things happen to me and the people I cared about. I’d do something, even if it wasn’t easy. Even if it got messy.
“Oh, the usual,” she said. She launched into a ranting story about how one of the cleaning women was caught sleeping with one of the cooks. This, of course, was a great scandal because the people who worked at father’s home weren’t supposed to fraternize with one another. Naturally, he’d blacklisted both of them and done his best to make sure none of his many friends ever hired them. But now there was a great crisis because nobody made mother’s favorite roast chicken dish as well as he had. And the new cleaning lady had broken some of the crystal.
I smiled and endured the story, nodding when I was supposed to be sympathetic and gasping when I was supposed to be outraged. Eventually, my mother smiled warmly, reaching to give my thigh a gentle squeeze. “It’s so good to have you back, darling. Being the only Coleton girl around here is exhausting. I missed you, and I’m glad you came back to us.”
I felt a small pang of guilt at that and gave her hand a little squeeze back. “Thanks,” was all I managed.
The part I didn’t explain to Adrian and the team was how much of a task it would be to make it from my room to my father’s office. Everywhere was watched, and I’d need an excuse to be seen anywhere near his office.
I left my room planning to say I was just taking a walk to clear my head if anyone stopped me.
