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She lifted her startled eyes to his. “If someone tells you something often enough you start to believe there must be at least some truth to it.”
He weighed his answer carefully, knowing these next words needed to penetrate. “Your mother verbally beat even a healthy level of selfishness out of you a long time ago.”
“She’s a narcissist. She really is.”
“I believe it,” he assured her.
Now that she finished with her fork, she spoke animatedly with her hands. “Intellectually, I know the problem is her, but secretly I thought for a long time there had to be something seriously fucking wrong with a person for their own mother to reject them.”
“A textbook reaction. Most children who are abused internalize, and most children believe their parents implicitly. It’s a survival mechanism.” He shrugged. “It can’t be avoided for the most part, but it can be undone.”
“I’ve unraveled most of it.” She reached her hands across the table for his hands and laced her fingers through his. “But there are still tangles that I have not been able to work out.”
“That’s a lifelong process, part of the human condition, some humans have more to untangle.”
“Do you have anything to untangle?”
He gently squeezed her fingers, enjoying the feel of her smaller hands laced with his.
“Not too much. I had my issues in my teens like most teenagers, some issues in my early twenties, but I enjoyed a golden childhood. It makes a difference.”
“Mara doesn’t really get how our mother is.”
“Have you tried to shed some light on her behaviors?”
“Some, more lately because Bea’s really been on her, but I haven’t ever pushed the reality of her narcissism onto Mara.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged and withdrew her hands from his, he resisted for a half second before catching himself and releasing her.
“Maybe she was getting something positive from the relationship. Maybe my mother acts differently with her,” Willa replied.
“And?” he prodded. There was another doubt in there, a bigger one, he was sure of it.
“And I didn’t know if my bond with Mara would withstand it. She’s very loyal to our mother so I played it cool.” Her eyes filled. “I should have alerted her more forcefully.”
“Willa,” he rumbled, the beginnings of anger filling his gut, an emotion he didn’t usually have occasion to deal with outside of the abused animals he came across in his job, “none of this is your fault. If you start taking on blame as the younger sister, what’s Mara going to do when she catches on as the older sister? The fault is not yours, and it’s not Mara’s. And your mother is most likely the way she is because of issues in her childhood, but that is her responsibility, not yours.”
She smeared more mascara under her eyes and laughed. “You’re a pretty smart guy.”
He smiled, the sweetness of his upturned lips softening his severe face. “So, I’ve
been told.” He stood up, “I need to get you home. It’s extremely late and you’ve had an emotionally exhausting night.”
She pulled herself out of the booth and stepped right into his chest. He brought his arms around her, held her firmly against his body, and pressed his mouth to the top of her head.
“You’ll be all right, curly.”
She flexed her fingers into his back.
“You’re really more of a rescuing type of Viking, not so much a plundering type.”
She felt the booming laugh before she heard it. He drew back, and she grinned up into his smiling face. He reached out and twirled one of her curls around his finger and tugged it lightly.
“Don’t be too sure about that, curly.”
Despite the heat that flared in her eyes, he stepped back and released her. She needed space to figure things out. He knew she wanted to sleep with him, but he wanted her sleepingbesidehim, and he wanted that to carry on for a good long while. At this point he was almost certain she would only be in it for one night, maybe two.
