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"I want your word that you will teach her about the world."
"Fine."
"Tomorrow."
He frowned. "Sooner or later-"
'Tomorrow."
"Fine, Mother. I'll sit at her bedside and wipe the
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drool from her mouth and tell her about this godforsaken world we live in. Maybe she'll even understand something after I say hello."
Maeve seemed unable to stop a quick smile. "We shall see who learns what"
Ian rolled his eyes. "Good night."
"Good night, Ian. Selena and I shall meet you on the beach tomorrow morning."
"Of course you will, Mother. No doubt you'll be analyzing Plato."
He saw her reaction, knew instantly that he'd hurt her. He wished he could take the bitterness in his voice back, wished he'd simply walked away without uttering that last, telling sentence.
She expected something of him tonight, something that hadn't been a part of their relationship in years, in a lifetime. Honesty, perhaps. Understanding. He didn't know. But he could see now, in her sad, sad eyes, that he had failed her. Again.
"Oh, Ian ..." She moved toward him, raising a pale, slim hand. At the last moment, when she was so close that he could see the sheen of tears in her eyes, and the network of lines around her mouth, she stopped. Her hand fell to her side again.
Strangely, he found himself missing the touch that had never been. "What is it, Mother?"
She stared up at him, unblinking, her face impossibly pale in the darkness. "I would change it all i
f I could." Ian felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. His breath released in a harsh sigh. He gazed down at her, trying to find the right words. But there were none, and both of them knew it. "I ... know you're sorry...."
Tears glittered in her eyes. "But you don't care." Before he could respond, Maeve ducked her head and scurried away from him. She slipped back into her bedroom and shut the door behind her.
Ian leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes. Why couldn't he reach out to his mother? Why couldn't
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he be human around her instead of always acting like such an angry, petulant child?
With a sigh, he drew back.
She wanted what she'd always wanted from him- absolution; he was unable to truly forgive her. He wished he were different, wished he could smile and shrug and tell her it didn't matter.
But it would be a lie, more hurtful to both of them than a flat truth could ever be.
"I care, Mother," he said softly, his voice lost in the dark shadows of the hallway. Words felt so deeply, he couldn't say them any louder, couldn't say them to her face. He cared. He'd always cared.
He just didn't know what difference it made.
Chapter Thirteen
The next morning, Ian walked down the path to the beach. The sound of feminine laughter filtered through the trees, intruding on the shadowy silence. For a split second, Ian's step faltered.
The alien sound came again, throaty and mesmerizing, drawing Ian through the trees to the shoreline. He paused in the shadow of the forest and gazed out to the beach, seeking the source of the laughter.
