A sad smile fell across her face but was gone as quickly as it had come. “I’ve been dreading this day for so long that I forgot all about it. Stupidly, I thought that maybe it would never happen. That I could go on living in this bubble I created all those years ago and we’d all be fine.”
“We’re not fine, Mom.” He saw that now. Clearly. All of them were missing pieces of themselves.
She licked her bottom lip nervously and met his gaze. “How is he?”
“Sick.” He saw the surprise.
“Cancer?” she asked.
Gus nodded. “Yeah.”
“What did he say to you the first time he saw you?”
“He doesn’t know who I am. I was a kid when we left.”
She frowned at that. “You’re telling me that you saw Porter and he had no idea you are a Boone.”
The hole inside Gus expanded a bit more. He tried to clamp down on his anger, but it was hard to do, and when he spoke, his words sounded harsh.
“Why would you sayBooneand notson?”
Her eyes fell away from his, and uneasily, he got to his feet. Gus crossed the room and looked out over the lights of the city. “Has my entire life been a lie?” he asked, head to the side.
“Who did you talk to?” she asked softly.
“Misha.”
“Of course. Misha. Does she still live on Crooked Lane?”
“Yes.”
“I always liked her. She loved you all so much. I used to think it was because she never had children of her own, but it was deeper than that. I think she was in love with Porter.”
“I’m not here to talk about Misha.”
“I know.”
He turned back as she got to her feet and crossed over to the kitchen. His mother opened a bottle of wine and poured herself a generous glass before holding the bottle aloft. He shook his head because he needed it clear.
Clarice took a couple of sips and then set the glass down on the counter. She tucked a piece of golden hair behind her ear and played with the stem. “She told you about Marshall.”
“She did.”
“What did she tell you exactly?” His mother was curious and scared. He saw the fear shadow her eyes a darker hue.
“I want you to tell me what happened. I’m not putting Misha’s words in your mouth.”
She took a big gulp and then laid her palms flat on the counter. When she spoke, her voice was so low he had to concentrate in order to hear her properly.
“I met Marshall in a pub. He was there celebrating some hockey game win, and I was slugging green beer. It was St. Paddy’s Day.” She exhaled and shrugged, eyes shiny as she looked at Gus. “He had an aura about him. This electricity or pull that no one could resist. He was larger than life. Loved to laughand have fun. And he played the best pranks.” She bit her bottom lip before grabbing up the wine glass. She walked past Gus and stood at the windows, seemingly lost in thought.
“We had the kind of connection that most folks only dream about, and we fell in love hard and fast. In the beginning it was amazing.” She sounded wistful. She sounded sad. “But then he decided to enlist. Porter and I didn’t want him to go. Neither did their father. But he wasn’t the kind of man to listen if he was fixed on something. We got engaged and I stayed in Fire Lake while he went off to fight his war.”
“He was reported MIA.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “Porter and I were heartbroken. We both loved him so much. It was a terrible time and we kind of fell into a relationship of sorts. When I got pregnant, he asked me to marry him and I said yes. I couldn’t see a life beyond Fire Lake, and I felt some kind of comfort living in the same house that Marshall had grown up in.”
“Did you love him?”
