She looked up and smiled with fondness. “I was only seventeen. I was at a gala and I met him there. We struck up a conversation, and we even danced.” Her eyes drifted to a faraway place, as if remembering the moment. She drew in a deep breath and came back to the room. “When my Lenny went to war, Karson offered me a job as his maid so I could make ends meet. He even bought a house on acreage down the road for us.Though he knew that Lenny, the stubborn fool, wouldn’t have accepted it.” She shook her head and chuckled. “So, Karson sold it to us dirt cheap. He had the real estate agent tell us it was a bank foreclosure sale, the deal of a lifetime. Lenny didn’t have a clue. I’ve worked here ever since.”
“Does Lenny know what he is?” I asked.
“No, Lenny is gone now. I lost him eleven years ago.” Sadness pinched her eyes. “He was a good man, honest, loyal, salt of the earth, but he never would have understood.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. It felt entirely inadequate because there was nothing anyone could say to ease the grief of losing someone you loved. There was something they could do though, during the few months you struggled after—be there for you. My father and sister were too caught up sharing their own grief to help me with mine when my mother died. I was broken and alone. Tom was my rock then. The way he cared for me made me feel loved. He was the reason I kept going on the days I wanted to curl into a ball and cry.
“We got a lifetime of memories together, which is more than some. And when I think of my Lenny now, I remember all the good times we shared and how he made my life so special, and for that I will always feel blessed.”
“That’s a good way to look at it,” I said softly.
“It’s the only way, Amy. No one who ever truly loved you would want you suffering because they aren’t with you anymore. They’d want you to keep living, they would want you to be happy, not despite of them dying, but because they got to share treasured moments with you while they lived.”
I was thrust back, fragments of that moment through the dark, tiny snippets shifting through the shadowy edges of my memory.
I was in the car talking to my mother.
A blur rushing at the car, the burst of a blinding white light.
The squeal of tires, the explosion in my head.
I came back to the room with a sharp breath. A ball of emotion clogged my throat as it always did when the memory surfaced. Mary made complete sense. My mother loved me, and she wouldn’t want me suffering. But Mary wasn’t the reason her husband was gone. If I hadn’t left that party early, if I hadn’t called her to come and get me, she’d still be alive. The rest of what happened that night was blank. Despite being able to replay everything in my head like a movie, my mind had blocked out most of the accident. It was a common trauma response, my doctor told me. I didn’t know how badly she’d suffered; I didn’t know if she died instantly. I didn’t want to know.
There must be something on my face because Mary was quiet for a long moment. “Georgie is struggling with everything. I’ve caught her crying a few times. It must be tough for you both?” she prodded gently.
“I can think of better ways to spend my days than worrying about a firstborn plotting to kill us.” I tried to lighten the mood.
It didn’t work. Her mood shifted, annoyance replacing gentle concern, her lips thinning. “I never did like Sarah, but I never thought she’d be stupid enough to try to hurt Karson, and certainly not Ethan.”
Panic twisted my chest. “Has she tried to hurt Ethan?”
Mary’s brows flickered and she stared at me for a moment before she answered, “By hurting you, Amy, she’s hurting Ethan.”
My chest loosened and I took a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I always thought that particular line was just a descriptive authors put in their books. Given it had happened to me about half a dozen times when Sarah attacked us, and again now, I could confirm it was a very real thing.
“Ethan is alright, nothing happened?” I pressed.
“He’s fine.” Mary waved a hand dismissively. “Ethan can take care of himself, and he’s with her father. I don’t think she’d hurt either of them. Even Sarah has a limit on the extent of her evil.”
“Hopefully, they’ll find her soon, and this will all be over and Georgie can go back to her life.”
Mary nodded slowly. “Some people are not equipped to deal with this kind of life.”
I didn’t think anyone was, but especially Georgie. When I first moved to Church Heights, it was Georgie who took me under her wing, who made me feel like we’d known each other for years. She was kind and funny and soft-hearted. She was one of those people that everyone loved, and she made everyone feel special.
The way Mary was looking at me pointedly, did she think Karson should erase Georgie’s memories? When he’d gone to wipe her mind after the attack, Georgie had shrieked and skidded back along the floor, both terrified and absolute in not wanting her mind wiped a second time. Fair enough. No one wanted to lose pockets of their life at someone else’s whim.
A breath flurried from my lips. “The whole saga is hard for anyone to wrap their head around.”
Mary sighed wearily, smoothing down the creases in her pants. “Sarah took on the wrong vampire. I’m guessing she’s regretting what she did about now. If she’s smart, she will stay far, far away and never return.” She pressed her hand to the arm of the couch and rose stiffly to her feet, then inclined her head to my plate. “You should eat that before it gets cold.”
I took the plate and settled it on my lap. “Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure, honey.” She placed her hand on my shoulder gently.
She headed out of the door and stopped, as if she had an afterthought. “Just always be honest with Karson, even if youknow he won’t like what you have to say. Karson values loyalty and honesty above all else. He won’t tolerate anything less.”
My chest twisted a little tighter.
