But I know I will forfeit my life if I have to give them my baby and they want nothing else to do with me. I will leave this world before returning for another Christmas dinner and seeing the tiny life I brought into the world look at me like a stranger.
I take a long, slow breath.
It hurts but I’m glad last night happened. I’m glad I wasn’t able to wreck their lives.
Feeling no better, but telling myself I do, I leave my room. I pause at the door to make sure I haven’t left anything out before closing the door and padding along the hallway.
Halfway down the stairs, my phone chirps in my pocket. It’s a familiar ting of bells that once filled me with excitement but only baffles me now as I fish it out.
“Dad?”
The last time my dad called me, it was to inform me that he and his new family were moving to Europe for a year — England — and to send any Christmas present I had ahead of time. Every year before that, I called. I visited...briefly. Simone always hadfamily coming over for dinner and my presence didn’t make sense.
So, either he’s moving back to England or someone’s dead.
“Hey, kiddo, we thought you were coming here this year.”
I went to their house last year.
“No, it’s Mom’s turn. I’ll be there next year.”
There’s a pause where I can just make out the faint hiss of conversation. I’m guessing he and Simone are discussing this information, although I can’t imagine why. The rules haven’t changed. Every alternating year.
I hit the bottom landing and shuffle slowly in the direction of the kitchen and the low murmur of chatter, but dragging my feet. Dad obviously has more to say and Mom gets moody when I talk to him.
“Isla, I think you’re confused. You’re supposed to be here. The boys have been so excited to see what you got them for Christmas.”
I pause feet from the kitchen and frown.
Simone’s two boys from her last marriage are spoiled little shits with no manners and the mental processes of a turnip. I love kids, but her two brats need therapy.
“It’s Mom’s turn,” I tell him flatly. “Nicolas and Dominic are here so I know it’s—”
“Is that why you’re abandoning your brothers? Because of those two?”
My cheeks warm at the implication. “No, but that’s how I know I’m supposed to be here.”
“As a big sister, it’s your responsibility to look after your siblings. Antonin and Louis look up to you. They’re just kids.”
Seventeen is hardly infants, but the way Simone babies them, they might be.
“I can come by after—” I attempt only to get cut off.
“It’s Christmas, Isla. We are much too busy to move our plans around to accommodate you. You are being selfish. Obviously, this is your mother’s influence. She never could raise you properly to understand the importance of other people’s time. I honestly don’t even know why you’re over there, except to throw yourself at those two…” he cuts himself off before he says the words he throws at Antonin and Louis when they act even slightly too feminine.
“I’m sorry,” is the only thing I know I can say that will calm him down.
“Well, that’s not good enough, is it, Isla? You have upset Simone and the boys, and frankly, I’m disappointed in you.”
I hate the hot well of tears that blurs the hallway and the figure standing in the open doorway to the kitchen. I blink and a single tear slips down my cheek, but it brings into focus the unforgiving slash of Nicolas’s face as he takes me in.
“Isla?”
It’s concern, the only way he knows how to show — with pulled eyebrows and bunched fists. Any other time, his stance alone would have made me chuckle, but Dad is still talking.
“You can’t go through life like this, Isla. You need to grow up. It’s no wonder you’re alone. You can’t do anything right.”
Fighting not to cry, to not let Nicolas see or hear the avalanche of truth, I turn my back to him.
