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“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Sounds like a cop-out.”
“Well, it’s not.”
“Or, it is.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
“He wanted us to be her!” Catherine finally snapped. She tossed her hands up in frustration and let out a deep growl of annoyance. “He wanted us all to somehow step into the shoes of Sophie. The woman who he talked about like she was the sun. Do you know how hard that is? To live up to the image of his dead best friend? To be compared to her by the way you did any and everything? When we first broke up, it was around the time Sophie had passed. I figured Kevin was mourning. Then when we reconnected, it was the same thing. Sophie this, Sophie that, all the time.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m sorry, what does this have to do with Stella?”
She released a weighted sigh. “She has her eyes,” she whispered, growing more somber. “She had her heart. She was the world of his world, his sunlight, and everything always orbited around her with him. Because she was the carbon copy of the true love of his life. Do you know what that does to a person? Falling in love with a man who never truly had the ability to love you back the way you hoped for?”
“Catherine…”
“I just wanted to be her, you know?” Tears rolled down her cheeks as she showed more emotion than I’d witnessed from any three of the women. “I wanted to be his best friend. But that role skipped over me and went straight to Stella due to association with Kevin’s truest of love.”
I didn’t know what to say.
It was clear that she was seconds away from falling apart.
I hated those parts of Stella—her goodness—were beginning to live within my soul because there was a tug at my heart for Catherine that would’ve never been there before.
“You know why I think he died?” Catherine asked. I didn’t respond, but I didn’t think she was looking for words from me as she continued. “Because he realized he’d never find her in anyone else. He’d never find that true love in another. He died because broken hearts can only remain shattered for so long before the beats just stop beating.”
I grimaced. Sure, I felt a slight tug at my heart, but at the end of the day, I was still me. Plus, Catherine’s words were still missing the point. “It sounds like the whole situation had a lot more to do with adults who didn’t know how to process their own fucked-up emotions and less to do with a little girl who was tossed into that world. Stella didn’t have shit to do with all your problems. She didn’t make Kevin fuck all you three women at the same time. She didn’t force you to marry him. She didn’t make Kevin fall in love with her mother. And she didn’t do anything to warrant the cruelty that the three of you monsters placed on her shoulders. You fucked up a child’s mind and emotions because a man didn’t love you. Don’t you see how pathetic that is? You should be embarrassed and ashamed that you took your insecurities out on her.”
Her eyes showed me what I needed to see—I was getting to her. That was a good thing. If I was breaking her down, then maybe I could get her to let me go.
“I’m not a monster,” she spat out.
“Then stop acting like one.”
Before she could reply, Denise walked into the room, rubbing her hands together. “Okay, I guess I’m up for bat with the babysitting.”
Catherine’s emotions pulled back, and she shook her head, wiping at her eyes. “He’s all yours,” she told Denise. “He just used the bathroom and ate lunch. You should be set.”
“All right. I’m just going to go use the bathroom, and I’ll be right out.”
Denise walked off to the bathroom, leaving Catherine and me alone. Catherine began gathering her items and headed for the front door.
As she turned to leave, I gave it one last try because I knew out of the three women, Catherine was my closest chance at getting out of the situation. “It wasn’t about you,” I told her.
“Excuse me?”
“Kevin’s inability to love you had nothing to do with the amount that you were loveable. His inability to love you was not due to your worth. It was due to his damage. It wasn’t personal.”
“Maybe not,” she said, shrugging her shoulders as she pushed her purse strap up her arm. “But it sure as hell felt like it.”
She turned to leave, and I felt a punch in the pit of my gut as I went on to ask her the same question I’d asked the other two women. “Catherine?”
“Yes?”
“Are you my mother?”
