I didn’t bother to ask her to expand on that. I sensed it, too. I didn’t want to know what else was coming. Though knowledge was power, it was not always enough to stop or change the course life had already set forward.
Chapter Sixteen
Scarlett
It all seemed to happen so fast. One minute we were in the hospital; the next, we were pulling up the drive to my parents’ house in Natchitoches, Louisiana. A sprawling estate, dating back many years, it had columns, balconies, and a long driveway framed by stately oaks.
It felt like coming home after a long journey.
I hadn’t called this particular place home in years, but I was too chicken to set foot in the house Brando and I owned, afraid that if I stepped in, I would never be able to step out. I tried not to dwell on that particular issue at the moment. Instead, I obsessed over the fact that being home, in general, felt like a huge sigh of relief.
None of us knew how Mitch would do after he realized he had lost a portion of his leg. None of us knew how he’d react to losing an important part of himself.
Again, he had defied the doctors and healed much faster than anticipated. He was young, and other than the injury, healthy.
It was the latter of concerns that was most troubling.
Mitch was young, and other than the injury, he was healthy, which meant that he was used to being self-sufficient and not hindered by not having an entire leg to depend on. Add into the mix his mother, who, under the best of circumstances, Mitch usually shied away from. She hadn’t been around much during his time in the hospital, but she had voiced her concerns about who was going to take care of him once he was released.
He still needed a lot of care, both physically and mentally, and before anyone asked her, she made sure to point out that she had a job and a life—and so did her other son and his wife.
I started to point out the obvious, that no one had asked her to take care of her son, but my father set a firm hand on my arm, sensing the retort about to fly from my mouth.
My mother stepped forward and told Sybil to put her worries to rest—Mitch’s care had already been taken care of.
“Bywho?” Sybil had asked, almost snootily. Then she carried on, arguing the point that Mick and Violet had children and couldn’t add a grown man-child into the mix. Mitch belonged in a place where help would be provided for invalids around the clock.
Mitch’s eyes had fallen at this, and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest.
“He can walk,” Brando said. There was a solid note to his voice that made it almost seem rude. “Don’t trouble yourself, Ms. Lewis. Mitch already made it clear that he wouldn’t be going home with you or Mick. No matter what.”
Peter had frowned at this, disappointed. The kids all wanted Mitch to go home with them. Mitch ruffled Peter’s hair, making him smile.
“Not that we don’t want him,” Violet said, mirroring Brando’s tone. “Ifoughtto have him come live with us.”
Sybil stuck her beak in the air at this.
“Wewill be taking care of Mitch,” my mother said, she and my father both taking a side next to his bed. “He’ll have all of the care that he requires.”
“And more,” I had put in, and then stuck my chin up.
Sybil never thought much of my family or me. Violet had told me one night after some drinking that she thought we were “too highfaluting,” and that it was no big secret that we had never earned the money we had, just inherited it. My father came from old oil money. My mother was also born into a life of leisure.
Despite who Sybil assumed my parents were and what they were about, I hadn’t been entirely shocked when my parents made the offer.
My mother could allow you a glimpse at the heartache she was feeling, but she’d never let you see her break, even through the hardest times of her life. The pain she walked through and still carried, as a mother who had loved and lost, was something she never showed, but I could feel it. Maybe it was strong enough that anyone could.
Mitch’s accident had brought my brother’s accident back to the forefront of her thoughts, as well my father’s. The gaping difference was that my brother hadn’t been able to walk away; Mitch had. It seemed my parents found comfort in that. It brought them a sense of peace that my brother’s death had destroyed.
An ounce of peace compared to nothing was still an ounce of peace.
My mother had covered her eyes with monstrous glasses when Mitch left the hospital, not wanting anyone to see the tears in her eyes.
Brando put a hand over mine as the old house loomed closer. I sighed, trying to release some of the pressure in my chest.
“I know you’ve said that you’ve always felt different, that you didn’t belong to this family. But the strength of the mother has been passed down to her daughter. Clear enough—as clear as any physical resemblance.”
“Mitch belongs to me, too,” I whispered. Some of that same peace had touched me. I had covered my own eyes as Mitch left the hospital.
