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Truth is, their engagement bothers me. Ethan is a piece of fucking shit. Can she not see that? I’m guessing she hasn’t told Horatio yet. I can imagine how he’s going to take it.
I don’t know how Sly did it, how he got Horatio to take that deal and absolve him so Sly came out smelling like a fucking rose. All I know is that he had a hand in what happened to Horatio Hart because it all stinks.
I wonder if this was his plan from day one. Weasel his way into Hart’s company, then steal it out from under him. But why would he want Ethan to marry Ophelia? For that matter, why pay for her schooling, her housing, and give her a room in his home? Because Sly, like his nickname, is a cunning man, and he does nothing out of the goodness of his heart. Hell, he has no heart.
Ophelia has nothing. Her inheritance vanished overnight when the feds seized the money in Hart’s various bank accounts. The girl doesn’t have a penny to her name. So why this engagement between Ethan and Ophelia?
Maybe they’re in love,my traitor mind taunts.
Fuck no! She doesn’t love him. She can’t. And Ethan Fox is no more capable of love than his father and mother are. Fucking family of sociopaths.
Why then?
Why do you care?
There it is again. My fucking head fucking with me.
She isn’t like them. She can’t be. She can’t have changed so much from the awkward, kind little girl who grew into an insecure, kind teenager. Or am I blind when it comes to Ophelia Hart? Has she grown as cold-hearted as them?
Barbie.
It’s the hate name I gave her. I was angry. I am still fucking angry. But the thought of her being like them? I can’t stand it.
Yet she’s wearing his ring on her finger, isn’t she? Doesn’t that tell me all I need to know? What happened between us didn’t matter, not to her. I need to forget it. Forget her. She isn’t worth it. When the fuck am I going to get that through my head?
A car comes down the narrow lane, high-beams glaring, honking their horn when I take the turn too tight and too fast.
“Fuck you!” I yell even though he can’t hear me. I keep going, although I do slow down. I’m being stupid. I don’t want to kill anyone tonight.
Well, Ethan Fox maybe.
I look out the window at the dark water of the Atlantic below. The moonlight is all but gone now withthe clouds that rolled in carrying snow, but I get glimpses of black water now and again. This was my mom’s favorite drive. She’d have me bring her here every weekend toward the end. I’d bundle her up under so many blankets you could hardly see her and drive, and she’d just watch the views and smile. Smile like the world hadn’t dealt her yet another shitty card. Smile like she wasn’t dying.
The memory of it chokes me up, and I draw a tight breath in. Esmerelda Cruz was a good woman. She deserved better than for the asshole Sly Fox to father her bastard son. Ethan was right about me. He only spoke a fact. But calling her a whore? No, man. No fucking way.
I take the final turn, realizing I don’t have anything to lay at her grave. She won’t mind. She’ll be happy to see me.
The road grows narrower as I ascend higher and higher, my headlights the only source of light. They don’t put guardrails or streetlamps here. I slow to go off road and there, in the distance, I can just make out the dim red light that burns in the small chapel. It’s all but forgotten but for Father Emiliano and his sister, Lourdes, caretakers of both the chapel and the cemetery.
I park the SUV near the short, warped wooden gate and climb out. I grab my scarf from the passenger seat and knot it around my neck, not bothering with a coat, and walk through the gate. The snow is thicker now, landing on my face and hair and skewing my vision.
When I get to the chapel, I open the door, which is always unlocked, and enter. It’s only remotely less cold inside. I take a moment to glance at the altar, at the golden crucifix there. Mom loved it. All of it. I’m not remotely religious, but she never stopped believing.
I grab my wallet out of my pocket, don’t even count out the cash but put the wad of it in the locked offering box before lighting a candle for Mom. It can’t hurt.
I take a moment, my throat doing that thing again, making it fucking hard to swallow. To breathe. It’s the only lit candle in the place. Apart from Father Emiliano and his sister, no one comes here anymore. I try not to think about that, about her being alone up here, and walk back outside.
I go to the edge of the cliff to the stone marking Mom’s grave. It’s a kneeling angel, wings spread wide, head tilted down, watching over her. She always said angels were everywhere, watching out for us.
The fact that Sly Fox was my father did not support her claim, but she’d shush me any time I said it. Any stray feather she found on our doorstep, she’d pick up and keep, telling me an angel had visited our front door.
I still have every one of those feathers tucked away at home.
I bend to brush away snow that’s settled over the carved letters of her name and there, on the knees of the angel, is a pristine white feather. I pick it up. She’san angel now too, watching over me. It’s what she’d say.
I pocket the feather and harden my heart by remembering her life.
Esmerelda Cruz had the misfortune of meeting Sly Fox when the cleaning service she worked for sent her to fill in for one of his regular staff. She was a beautiful woman, my mother, with her long dark hair, olive skin, and those black eyes.
