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“I was married not long after that,” Veronica went on, “and my husband moved into the Albright mansion. My father was very sick, and my mother needed company. I was afraid that if we abandoned her altogether, she would never come out of there again. Sometimes, my mother pressed me for a child. She wanted us to extend the line. She always told me that her blood was ‘royal.’ But it was hard to imagine this broken, lonely woman as a royal.” Veronica sniffed.
“Eight years after Bethany ran away, we received a letter announcing that Bethany had died in a car accident on Christmas Day. Father was already dead, but Mother crumpled to the ground, wailing. My husband carried her to her bedroom. She didn’t leave it for another few months. By then, she was so weak that I knew she was about to die.” Veronica’s eyes glinted with tears. “She went into fits of rage and sorrow, frequently repeating Bethany’s name. Until she no longer had the energy. She died the next summer. My husband said she was finally free— mostly from herself. Gosh, she could be a nasty woman. She never really knew how to love.”
Veronica whisked a tear from her cheek and gave Maya a tentative smile.
“We knew about you,” Veronica went on. The words were like a knife through Maya’s heart. “There was so much chaos that winter, spring, and summer, and my husband and I didn’t know what to do. After my mother died, I made a phone call to the county authorities where Bethany died. They said I could, of course, come to Pennsylvania to speak to your adoptive parents.”
Maya’s heartbeat had slowed to such a degree that she felt nearly unconscious. Was this really happening?
“It’s no excuse,” Veronica went on, her eyes on the window. “I fell into a horrible depression that autumn. I suffered two miscarriages. And I fought with my husband continually. I thought to myself, why would I bring Maya here? To this horror? Isn’t it better to break the familial cycles and allow her to be free from the Albright curse?”
Maya furrowed her brow.
“I hope you’ll believe me,” Veronica whispered. “I imagined bringing you to that mansion and revealing the darkness that lurked at the heart of our family. I imagined it would completely alienate you.”
Maya remembered her adoptive parents and siblings and how much they’d hated her. She’d been their curse. And it had tainted her life forever.
Veronica pressed a handkerchief over her face and sighed deeply into it. Maya was speechless. Here this woman was, so many years after the events of the past. Everyone she’d ever loved was now dead.
“Your mother and I adored Christmas,” Veronica continued, removing the handkerchief. “It felt needlessly cruel that she’d died that day.”
“I’ve never celebrated it,” Maya said quietly.
“It’s been a struggle for me,” Veronica said. “But it’s part of the reason I threw myself into the Christmas Festival every year. I wanted to honor Bethany’s memory.” She paused. “It’s, of course, part of the reason I wanted you to plan it. We have to help Bethany live on.”
“You know so much more about her than I ever did.”
Veronica bowed her head. “I’ll tell you everything. She was my sister. She was my dearest friend. And I miss her every single day, even so many years later.”
Maya’s heart felt bruised. She glanced at the door, aching to return to her car and drive as quickly as she could away from here.
But before she left, she needed to ask one final thing.
“Do you have any advice about Olivia?” Maya forced her eyes back to Veronica.
Veronica tilted her head. “You don’t need to worry about the necklace,” she said softly. “If it’s gone, it’s gone.”
But Maya shook her head. She didn’t care at all about the necklace, about its worth or its memories. “I just want to talk to Olivia,” she stuttered. “I want to explain everything you’ve just told me. I want her to know Bethany as well as she can. It wasn’t our fault, what happened in the past. And it seems reckless to throw this all away.”
Veronica smiled sadly. “I can’t help but feel that my mother is still working her dark magic so many years later. Perhaps she’s keeping you and Olivia apart.”
“I don’t believe in dark magic,” Maya said softly. “But I do believe in forgiveness and rebirth.”
Veronica raised her shoulders. “Then it seems the curse of the Albright family really is broken,” she said after a pause. “And maybe you and Olivia can find a way to come together again.”
Maya was exhausted. She wanted to drive back to that cursed mansion, fall into bed, and sleep for the rest of the day.
“If you do find her,” Veronica went on. “Will you please bring her here?”
Maya nodded and took one of Veronica’s small hands in hers. Loneliness echoed from Veronica’s eyes. “I’ll bring her,” she said. “We’ll find a way to be together after all this time. I promise.”
ChapterTwenty-One
On the drive back downtown, tears filled Maya’s eyes, making the snow-capped world around her blurry. She gripped the steering wheel of Phoebe’s car, her heart pounding, and eventually pulled over to the side of the road to clean herself up. The story Veronica had imparted rippled through her. It seemed impossible that so much darkness had permeated at the edges of her life since her birth. And now, she was here in Hollygrove— forced to reckon with the mistakes from the past. Was she strong enough? Again, she tried to call Phoebe, but Phoebe didn’t answer and immediately wrote back that she was with Henry; they were going over a contract to buy an apartment. A flash of happiness came over Maya. Phoebe wasn’t an Albright. She was a happy, confident young woman. She was okay.
Maya was overcome with the desire to go to Brad’s elementary school and tell him everything. She wanted to burrow her face in his chest. She needed him to tell her what to do next. He was the voice of reason in her life.
Maya drove the rest of the way to the elementary school and parked on the street behind the old brick building. School was letting out. Children scampered from all exit doorways, yelping as they darted through the chilly air. It was the perfect time to approach Brad on bus duty beneath the eggshell blue sky. There, surrounded by happy children, Maya’s familial sorrows wouldn’t feel so heavy.
