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“Are you all right?” Uncle Josh wears a worried frown.
When I rub my stomach I can detect a new roundness in its shape. “I’m fine. Just missing my mother right now.”
Uncle Josh stuffs his hands in his pockets and gazes out the window. “Sorry things turned out this way, Tessie.”
“It’s not your fault.” I chew my lip, wondering if this is an okay time to bring up a question that’s been stewing. “Do you think we could talk about my mother sometime? Growing up, she was always this sort of mythical figure. Yet there were no funny tales, no sentimental stories. I never had any grandparents I could talk to and she was an only child. You’re the only one left who remembers her. I guess she’s just been on my mind now that I know I’m going to be a mother too.”
Josh stays by the window. His eyes dart to my belly and he scrubs a hand through his hair. “Sure, we can talk about her. Diana, I mean. Your mother.”
The flat quality in his voice doesn’t escape my notice. Something occurs to me that had never occurred to me before.
“You didn’t like her, did you?”
It’s odd, the way he shifts and avoids making eye contact.
“She wasn’t a good mother.”
The statement couldn’t be more jarring. My father only ever discussed Diana in the most glowing terms.
She was beautiful. She was kind. She loved everyone and everyone loved her.
“Look at the stone angel, Tess. Her face is your mother’s face. So she would always be here to watch over you.”
But the blank, cold stare of the angel statue in the cemetery only gave me nightmares instead.
“They weren’t happy together, were they? My parents, I mean.”
Josh considers the question and it’s impossible to read the look on his face, which is a new challenge. Josh has always been an open book. Completely forthright. What you see is what you get. “No, not in the end.”
Peering inside the box, I take a second look at my young, smiling parents.
Stuart Ballerini always refused to see people in their full human complexity. We were all designated a role to play in the drama of his life, of which he was the sole star.
Josh was his trusted, loyal brother.
Diana was his saintly lost love.
Olivia was the evil witch who nearly cost him his kingdom.
And me?
I was the perfect daughter. Designed and trained to help him achieve his goals, and devoid of any troublesome wishes of my own.
“Let’s go.” I pick up the box. “There’s nothing else in here that I want.”
Josh takes the box from me. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I don’t want to spend another minute in this damn place.”
After one last look at the Em City skyline, I do make a silent wish that the city’s new guardian will be far better than her last. The city deserves that.
People gawk at us with morbid curiosity as we walk the hall for the last time and take the elevator to the parking garage.
Uncle Josh’s trunk is full of police equipment so he deposits the box in the backseat.
“Oh, shoot.” I already have the door open to the front passenger seat when I remember something.
Uncle Josh raises an eyebrow.
