“I guess so. She moved in with their family for the rest of high school.” He skimmed the leaf’s tip along the hand that she’d rested on her abdomen. It left a trail of tingles, so she pushed her sleeve up past her elbow and turned her inner arm upward.
Taking his time, he trailed the leaf up and down.
“What did she do after graduating from high school?” she asked.
“She got a job in manufacturing and moved into an apartment with a few roommates.”
“What was her personality like?”
“Stubborn, tough, willing to stand up for herself. Honest. Nothing about her personality was fake.”
“You told me that she passed away when you were eight of a terminal illness.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t mention which terminal illness.”
His face went blank. She supposed that a long history of self-preservation had taught him how and when to mask his feelings.
“Heart disease,” he said.
Comprehension rolled from the top of her head down to her toes. Sebastian had once been a child powerless to save his mother.He was no longer powerless, and now he worked, every single day, to do for children what he’d been unable to do for her.
“Heart disease,” Leah reiterated.
“Yes.”
“Brought on by a congenital heart defect?” she guessed. He’d told her at the barbecue that his mom had had the condition all her life.
A small motion of his head told her she was correct.
“Which congenital heart defect?”
“Tetralogy of Fallot.”
“But ...”
“It’s treatable,” he finished, anticipating her confusion.
“Exactly.”
“It’s definitely treatable now, but it was even in those days.” He watched the leaf track down her forearm. “Patients with her condition have to be followed closely long-term. Often, they develop a leaky valve, and they might need valve replacement surgery. My mother was a terrible patient. She smoked. She drank. She didn’t take her meds. She never went to doctor’s appointments.”
“Why?”
“I think because she’d had her fill of hospitals and doctors. When she was a teenager, she basically gave the middle finger to her condition and decided to live her life as if she hadn’t been born with a heart defect. Eventually ... tetralogy of Fallot had the last word.” A breeze whisked the maple leaf away.
Sebastian flopped onto his back and stuck a forearm behind his head. Leah rose onto her own arm and looked down at him. Grooves marked his forehead.
“How did you deal with her loss, emotionally?” she asked.
“I didn’t. I’ve since learned that trauma splits an event from its emotion. My mom’s death was the most terrible thing that could have happened to me. But when it happened, I felt cold and hard inside. That’s all.”
Sorryseemed far too trite and small a word. She picked up a waxy magnolia leaf, arranged his free arm just the way hers hadbeen arranged moments before, and swept the leaf’s tip delicately along the inside of his strong forearm. “Did CPS try to contact her family?”
“No. She refused to accept the fact that she was dying until just a few weeks before she did. At that point, she clearly specified that she wanted me to become a ward of the state of Georgia.”
“Because?”
