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“No, I have to get back, but thank you.”
Tension fills the air even with the overabundance of it already between us as Timothy takes his leave, and my mother reaches for a cigarette, lighting it up as she watches me closely.
“My letter?”
“Why was I safer?”
She blows out a plume of smoke, pulling her sweater tighter to her. She lifts the bottle of wine in offering, and I shake my head.
“I’m not here to catch up.”
“I see that,” she swallows. “Give me a second.”
“To think of more lies?”
Her eyes drop as she lifts the glass to her lips and takes a hearty drink.
“Why was I safer?”
“Your father was the most beautiful man I’ve ever laid eyes on. Truly. Not one woman in that plant went a day without fantasizing about him, I’m sure of it. And I was one of them.”
“Answer my question.”
She gives me a sideways glance, her tone biting. “Do you want the whole truth or a quick answer?”
“How could you? How could you let me believe he didn’t want me, how could he!?”
“Because it was safer that way.”
“And you think he loved you?”
“I know he did, as he loved you.”
“He made us go without all those years! He regarded you like you were nothing, treated you horribly. You call that love?”
“I call it penance. Sit down, Cecelia.”
I walk up to where she stands, her scars shining in her eyes as she pleads with me to listen to her.
I take one of two seats that case a small garden table in between and grab her wine.
“Fine. Talk. And I swear to God, Mom, if you leave anything out, this will be our last conversation.”
I don’t miss her faint, pained smile. “You’re so much like him in a way. Eyes that convey so much and at the same time cut so deep. But you’re horrible at hiding your feelings. You have too much heart to be anything but a beautiful and loving woman, no matter how much it hurts. I like to think that’s me I see.”
“I don’t consider it a blessing. I’m nothing like you.”
“Oh, baby, you’re so much like me. You love blindly and foolishly, and there was no way to keep you from experiencing it for yourself. I knew when you were little, you’d inherited my heart, and there was no way to keep you from loving the way you were created to love. There was no way to stop your heartbreak. You think I haven’t seen the change in you? You think when I look at my own daughter, I don’t notice you’ve been irrevocably changed by it? I taught you exactly about the heart you have long before you gave it away.”
“Don’t credit yourself for being a parent to me the last seven years.”
“I deserve that. And a lot worse. But it’s your father who saved me from that fate.”
“Tell me.”
She stubs out her cigarette and faces me. “He was a bastard, hard-nosed, straight-edged, power-hungry, money-hungry, and damn near impossible to penetrate. At first, I thought I was just a distraction for him, you know? And he made me believe it for a time. He was too focused on creating an empire to worry about a nineteen-year-old who had no future other than that damned plant. I knew it was stupid. I knew it was reckless to love him the way I did, and God did he make me question my sanity on more than one occasion. But then, one day, everything changed. It was as if he gave himself permission to love me back. We hid our relationship well. Your grandmother was oblivious. It was hard. In fact, I only confided in one person the whole time we were together. A gorgeous French woman by the name of Delphine.”
I damn near let the glass slip from my hand but manage to bring it to my lips and take a large sip.
