“Your mother died?” he whispers, searching my gaze.
I look away, let the void overhead soak my vision black. “She isn’t dead,” I mutter, “or she wasn’t. I don’t know where she is now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You have no idea what it means to be sorry. To you,sorryis a scapegoat, a means to avoid accountability for your actions. It’s no wonder you are alone.”
His shoulders roll inward, and I vow not to display a shred of pity for him. He may be a beaten dog on this night, but weeks before, he held the leash.
The fault is yours,I nearly cry. It will be the club I wield, brought down with shattering force.
But that is simply not true.
I try to swallow, yet despair lodges in my throat, a snarled old knot. The West Wind was the perfect scapegoat. If he is responsible for my sad tale, then I do not have to accept what I have feared all along: I was not an important enough reason for my mother to stay.
“My mother had been ill for a long time,” I begin. “Her mind lacked the clarity necessary to make sound decisions.” And when Veraness had been ripped from beneath our feet, who can say how severely it damaged her fragile mind?
Zephyrus drags a thumb along his lower lip, studying me as he did on our very first meeting, when he had yet to decide who I was, who I might become. “The story you told at the Well of Past. Was she of stable mind then?”
“Mentally, I think she was beginning to degrade, but I did not know it at the time.” I was only a child, without the answers to life’s problems. Back then, she did not mumble nonsense about the end of the world. Neither did she hoard tinctures, convinced of her premature death.
“She hit you.”
“She did.” I do not excuse my mother’s behavior, but she was troubled. If she could not help herself, I could not help her either.
“She abandoned you.” As he searches my gaze, I witness in him another realization, like a candle taking flame. “That’s why you’ve been at Thornbrook for so long.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. A trembling manifests in my core, rippling outward, and tears well before I’m aware of them, salted tracks sliding down my face.
“My mother was sick,” I choke. “She was sick for a long time, and I could not help her, could only watch as she deteriorated, and changed.”
“Brielle.” The West Wind’s tone gentles. “You were a child. It was not your responsibility to care for your mother.”
The dam has broken. The flood will not cease. “She wouldn’t seek help. I tried. Every day, I tried. But over the years, it grew worse. Sheclaimed she never had a daughter. Said I was a liar, that I was only pretending to love her to steal her money, though we had none to spare. Business slowly declined, and eventually, she was forced to shut down the shop.” No employment, no means to support a family. And when the storm hit, no home. My mother could not differentiate between reality and illusion. Her mind was too far gone.
My chest caves, and my head drops into my palms. I remember the gates, their glinting iron points, Thornbrook’s massive front doors, the church bell ringing so sweetly. Finally, my mother’s retreating back as I stood upon the rain-slickened stoop, a child of eleven.
“I try not to think about that day,” I sob into my hands, “but how can a mother treat her daughter so cruelly? How could she leave me?”
I was defective. I wasn’t enough. Not for my own mother to choose love over fear. I am, a decade later, still mourning.
Rising to his feet, Zephyrus circles the fire to crouch at my side, placing a hand upon my back. The gesture wrenches open the wound, my heart in pieces.
“I loved her. And yet, some days I loathe her. Ihateher.” Spite licks at my skin, seeking an outlet, even as my shoulders curl forward, attempting to repress that foul emotion. “But as much as I loved her, she didn’t love me.”
“I do not believe that.”
He is wrong, I know it in my soul, yet I can’t help but ask, “How can you know?”
“Because—” He catches my chin, draws it upward so I’m forced to look into his eyes. “If anyone is deserving of love, Brielle, it’s you.”
Deserving of love.What does that even mean?
“How can I feel this way about the woman who birthed me?” My chest heaves. “She gave me life. Is that not the greatest gift?”
Zephyrus takes my hand in his. Our fingers lock, an effortless slide. “We do not have the privilege of choosing our parents, unfortunately. Not everyone is adept at the job. As such, we must sometimes carry this pain throughout our lives.”
His face loses focus behind my swimming vision. At times, the West Wind is unbearable. Now he is knowing, sage.
