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Faye warmed the iron on the wood stove once more, then turned and pressed the dress again. “My son is Kent.” Faye lifted the iron and stared at her directly. Lara’s heartbeat sped up, her mouth went dry as her mind reeled from what she was thinking.
“Is my father Kent’s father?”
Faye’s eyes watered. She took a deep breath and pressed the dress. “He is. I loved him so much.”
Lara tried swallowing. “Did he know all along that Kent was his?”
“Yes. We saw each other regularly in those days.”
“How old...” The words stuck in her throat. She took a breath, “How old is Kent?”
“He’s twenty-five.”
So, for at least twenty-six years her father lived a secret life. Up here. In the hills while she and her mother were down below. A tear trickled down her cheek as she remembered all the times her father was gone. Her mother said he was working. It was plausible when she was younger. But when she asked questions, they both shut her down.
Faye moved to warm the iron again then turned to watch her. “Your mother is a drug addict. She found herself some elixir when you were about three or four. She liked how she felt and that started a pattern that has continued to this day. Your father would come up here to trade for elixir. He traded money and supplies.” She looked at the iron. “Things we could use.”
Ironing once more she seemed mesmerized by finally telling her story. “I met him on one of his forays up here. He was so handsome and I was enthralled with being involved with a townie. He was forbidden and delicious. But Everett, and his father before him, allowed it because I could get us things we needed. Then I got pregnant.”
She bit her bottom lip. “Keaton wasn’t very happy about it at first. But, in his way, I think he loved me. But he loved your mother more.”
She sniffed and returned the iron to the stove. Picking up the dress, she laid it on the bed then swept across the room, so lightly she could be a dancer. A pair of shoes were tucked in a trunk. They were also white. Faye carried them to the sink and began rubbing the shoes with a cloth.
“He loved Laylah more than me. I was so embarrassed. So stupid. But he kept coming up here to see me once or twice a week. And as my belly grew...” She laid her hand on her tummy. “His gifts to me were grander.” She pulled a silver chain from under her dress and held it up for Lara to see. “He bought me this silver heart. I never take it off.”
She tucked it back inside her dress and laid her hand over where it rested for a moment before taking a deep breath and continuing with cleaning the shoes. “He brought me a wood stove for my cabin so Kent and I would be warm. He’d come up and chop wood sometimes to help me when Kent was too little to help. A lot of the folks up here didn’t want to help me. I didn’t fit in. I had a bastard with a townie. I was tainted.”
Her lips tipped up at the corners slightly and she shrugged. “But I could supply them with things, so they had to help me a little bit.”
Lara nodded. It explained so much of her father’s behaviors. The secrets. The absences. Her mother’s avoidance of contact with her. She swallowed as the emotions rushed her. Her mom wasn’t able to love because she was likely high all the time. As Lara grew older, she would just take off and hang at Shianne’s all the time. It made sense now.
“Thank you.”
Faye turned to her and stared. “Thank you? Why are you thanking me?”
“It explains so many of the questions I’ve always had growing up. Why my father wasn’t around. Why my mother was often alone in her bedroom. Why she was always sick.”
Faye nodded. “He felt responsible to keep her from crashing. He enabled her. I enabled him because it made him come up here for more elixir. We had a pattern.”
“Why did it change this year?”
Faye shook her head. “The mayor and the town council stopped the tax deferment. Keaton said he couldn’t pay more for the elixir. Supplies weren’t good enough anymore because Everett needed the money. Keaton promised to sell the elixir to other communities and then he reneged and failed to sell it. Everett cut him off from the elixir. I understand your mother isn’t taking it well.”
Lara’s eyes shot to Faye’s. She knew everything. “Why does Kent hate me?”
She laughed and shook her head. “He has some stupid notion that you have what he doesn’t. Keaton paid for him to go off to college. I hated that. We fought about that a lot. But, Kent is smart and he wanted to learn how to work on computers of all things. He has a crazy notion he can make our lives better up here. Then Keaton lied to us and refused to sell, and Kent sees you down there in your pretty bakery, with your own business. Keaton stops in to see you often and that makes Kent so mad.”
Lara shook her head. “I have nothing to do with Kent’s situation or his life. I’ve been in the dark all this time.”
Faye shrugged. “He doesn’t see it that way.”
Chapter46
Tate and Aidyn moved to the back of Everett’s cabin. Aidyn watched the ceremony near the center of the grounds and Tate slowly rose to look in a window. He saw Lara tied to a chair across the room. An older woman tended to a pair of shoes at the sink, which was only a basin of water and a counter.
Lara had something on her face and tried wiping it on her shoulders. The woman moved to her with a fresh cloth and dabbed at her face.
She made several trips to the basin then to Lara. But to his relief, he could see she was gentle with Lara.
