Her nod is solemn, her captivating blue eyes sharp as they slice through my bullshit. One thing about my mother—I could never lie to her. Even when my mouth says one thing, my heart always tells her the truth.
Thankfully, she takes pity on me and leaves me to this one tiny, yet epically painful, lie.
There’s an extra chair in the room, and we drag it closer to hers. We sit in silence together for a long while, watching my dad. Listening to the machines live for him. Lost in our thoughts. In our misery.
This is wrong.
Being here is wrong.
This room is a tomb.
A white and sterile tomb.
Panic breaks over me the longer I stare at him, with his brown hair greased back from scalp oils. His skin dried out from only bed baths. With the tape securing the tubes in place. I can’t…I can’t breathe. Every beat of my heart is a painful slam against my sternum. And when I turn to my mother, she’s watching me with a question on her face that amplifies my hysteria.
“Are you okay?”
No.
I fan myself. “It’s…a lot.”
“Everything will work itself out, Kerri,” she assures me, and I see the truth in her eyes. She’s accepted what’s happening here. Has made peace with becoming a widow. It’s there in her disheveled dignity and in the soulful and sad way she looks at my dad. She’s not a woman willing her husband back to life; rather she is a woman already in mourning.
“I know,” I tell her. Then, “How’s Nate?”
She heaves out a long sigh. “He’s…Nate. Your brother is angry. Can you blame him? He’s taken a liking to Jester, though, God help us. It surprised me that your friend has positively influenced him through all of this.”
“I don’t find that surprising at all,” I counter. “The Unholy are good people if you take the time to get to know them.”
“So I’ve learned.” Her gaze remains locked on my dad when she asks, “Are they going to kill her?”
The question is sudden, and I blink at her while my brain catches up to the moment. “The Unholy have an unbreakable rule against hurting women.” I pause and chew my bottom lip before asking, “How much do you want to know?”
My mother studies her husband a good, long while before answering. “Will we have justice for what she did?”
I give her a terse nod. “Patti cannot buy her way out of what she’s done.”
“Good.” Grace leans forward and runs her hands over the top of her husband’s. “Good,” she repeats, and there’s a world of agony in that one word.
She settles back in the chair and breathes out a slow sigh. “I expect to meet this Havoc of yours.”
He’s not mine.
I can’t hold back my bitter laugh. “Sorry, Mom, that won’t happen. Havoc willnevercome to Brighton, and I can’t see you going to Mayhem. And two, there isn’t a need for you to meet him. I told you, Havoc and I are nothing.Lessthan nothing, actually.”
Sheclucksher tongue in a way that always makes me feel like I’m a kid again, and she caught me red-handed in a fib. Then she raises a brow and pins me with an all-knowing typical mom-glare. “We’ll see.”
No, we won’t see.
Havoc made it heartbreakingly clear that what happened at the Death Star will stay at the Death Star.
And then my mother covers her mouth with her hand, a single tear slipping down her cheek. “It’s time, isn’t it?”
I look at my father. Really look at him, and a lifetime of memories play out in my mind, and as I leave my chair to kneel in front of my mother, my heart shatters into a million pieces. I pry her hand from her mouth and hold it in both of mine. “He’s suffering, Mommy.”
Her anguish becomes a living misery in this room. “How do I say goodbye to my husband? He’s my heart.”
Oh, God.
