“That’s not your job, Mom.”
It was now.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Stella
Mom hadn’t answered a single, simple question since she got back from the police station yesterday. She verbally danced and skipped her way around a clear answer. With each parry my frustration grew. I’d targeted all my anger at Hanna. Let the pent-up frustration and yearslong slog of panic build and explode, aiming the shrapnel directly at her and catching Jeremy in the cross fire.
More guilt. This never-ending swim through a pool of shame defined me. I sat in hypocritical judgment of Hanna, Aubrey, my mother, and my patients. My path crossed with corrosive and dysfunctional people all the time. I saw my life as different from theirs. Silently named their sins and found them wanting while I absolved myself from my choices.
With every story I listened to, I lost perspective on how to separate out the understandable from the unforgivable. My life had become an uneasy accounting where I measured how bad an act was by how easy it was for me to get away with it.
I needed a break. Time to rethink my role and my ability to serve it. But first, Mom. The nanny took Everly to the playground a half hour ago, keeping her safe so I could focus on Mom.
She’d barricaded herself in the guest room she’d taken over. I’d tried to open the door earlier, but it wouldn’t budge. I took a quick look at a photo Agatha sent me from the swing set as I marched up the stairs a second time. Everly laughing. My favorite sound.
I dropped my cell into my pocket and emerged into chaos. The guest bedroom door stood open. I didn’t recognize the clothing stacked in piles on the bed. The toiletries gathered on the dresser. Jackets and boots. Enough purses to open a store.
When did she drag all of this stuff over here?
“What are you doing?” My voice came out louder, harsher, than I intended.
Mom froze for a second, then continued stomping around. She was a bundle of misfiring nerves. Gathering things. Dropping things. Shoving things in bags. “I can’t stay here.”
Not a helpful response to my question. “In my house or in Sleepy Hollow?”
Mom finally stopped and looked at me with a load of pants and sweaters overflowing her arms. “Do you understand what’s going to happen to me?”
Years ago, she’d developed a strange affect. Her voice changed. Sounded more elite, if that was a thing. That weird wash disappeared now, leaving her sounding like every other non-millionaire woman in town.
“Explain it to me.” I’d run over the evidence with Lukas. The longer he talked about Daniela’s injuries and Jeremy losingconsciousness as a way to explain away the firsthand testimony against Mom, the less I believed Mom’s denials.
“Xavier started this,” she said.
Not a surprise where the blame fell. “I’m going to need more information.”
Mom dropped her arms, letting the clothing tumble to the floor. “I do not need your judgment or your condescension.”
Whip-fast the affect returned. It brought my annoyance with it. “I backed you up. I went over to Hanna’s house and—”
“She should have stayed out of this.” Mom yelled the comment. “I told Xavier not to trust her. First Victoria, then Hanna. He should have been proactive and taken care of both of them on his own.”
Oh, God. “What?”
“You don’t understand what I had to do after we lost your father. Xavier made promises. I trusted him even though he constantly threatened me about my mother.”
“Your mother?” I sat on the bed and pulled her down beside me. “What are you saying?”
“Your grandmother was very rigid. She was the big sister and always trying to drag Xavier to church. To police how he acted even in his business life.” Isabel scoffed. “None of this would exist—the money, the property—if your grandmother had gotten her way.”
“You lost me.” Part of me was grateful for that.
Mom continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “You wouldn’t understand. I tried to do what Xavier wanted. He never cared what it cost me, but I expected gratitude. A payoff at the end.”
The idea that Mom sided with Xavier against my grandmother was too much to take in. I needed time to dissect that later. Now, I tried to find a new angle. “Tell me why you attacked Daniela.”
I expected denial. Shouting. None of that happened.
