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“But . . .”
“But I guess I’m not ready.” She cleared her throat and added, “I wonder if I’ll ever be.”
“I hope so.”
“Me too.”
A gust of wind, thick with moisture, blew past, toying with the hem of Melinda’s long coat, billowing its skirt around her slim legs. After a beat, her mother said, “You know that I don’t blame you, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
Melinda had said as much over the years.
“Try believing it.”
“I do.”
Her mother eyed her. “Then you should quit blaming yourself.”
“I don’t.” The lie came easily.
One of Melinda’s eyebrows cocked, and though she still used the umbrella for support with one hand, she grabbed Rachel’s fingers with her other, then squeezed gently. “I felt that I lost two children that night, you know, both my son and daughter. Luke . . . he was gone, yes, but you retreated.”
That wasn’t quite true. Rachel had drawn away from her family, yes, guilt propelling her. And most of her friends had abandoned her after that night, caught up in their own lives. Rachel had found comfort and strength in Cade Ryder’s arms when he’d come back to Edgewater.
“You and I . . . we lost more than Luke,” her mother said, nearly inaudibly as the wind kicked up again.
“I’m working on that.”
“Well, work on it a little harder, would you? It’s been twenty years. Time to let go.” Then she placed a gloved hand to her lips, kissed her fingers, and touched the edge of the gravestone. “You need to move on.” She was nodding. “And so do I.” Hesitating, she bit the edge of her lip, as if something were on her mind.
Rachel asked. “What?”
“He’s out, you know,” Melinda said softly as rain began to fall again. Big, fat drops that reminded Rachel of tears.
God’s tears, her grandmother used to tell her. For the fate of humanity. Rachel had never believed it.
“Who?” she asked, eyeing her mother. “Out from where?” What was Melinda talking about?
“Bruce.”
“Bruce?” Rachel repeated before she understood. Bruce Hollander was Luke’s biological father. Rachel had never met the man, a convict who’d been sent to prison before Rachel was born. Her dad, Ned Gaston, had worked the Hollander case as a rookie detective. “Oh.”
“Right. ‘Oh.’”
“He contacted you?”
“No. He can’t. Or he’s not supposed to and so far he hasn’t. I heard it from my attorney, who had been informed by Bruce’s parole officer.”
“Does Dad know?”
Melinda lifted a shoulder and her face, if possible, grew grimmer. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t tell him?”
A beat. More raindrops. “We don’t talk much.”
The understatement of the year. “Maybe you should work on that.”
