“You do?”
“Yes.”
“But?”
“But Shanahan will file a report, I’ll get a probation surrender notice, and everything I’ve found again will be gone.”
“Why gone?”
“Because I can’t put you all through that again.”
“Is it your decision to make?” she asked. In the old days, the question would have scolded with more than a little indignation. Hearing only calm now, I really looked at her. Her skin was pale with just a hint of natural color. Her hair, a darker auburn than it used to be, waved gently behind her ears. She seemed confident, like she knew exactly what she was talking about.
Then she smiled. “Do me a favor, sweetheart? Take off that makeup? It’s made a mess of your eyes.”
It was also irritating my eyes. So I went into the bathroom, removed it, rinsed, and moisturized. When I returned to the bedroom, my mother was sitting on the bench at the foot of the bed. She patted the free space beside her. Hungry for her touch, even for just a little longer, I sat close.
“Better,” she said as she studied my face. Her eyes first, then her un-casted hand went to my scar. “Better.”
“Will it ever be over?” The nightmare of Lily’s death.
“It’ll fade more each year.”
“But if a judge overturns my probation, and the press and the gawkers and the Mackenzie Cooper Law—”
“It’s a good law,” she broke in. “It’s probably saved more than a life or two. And it has your name. Isn’t that a good thing?” When I eyed her in disbelief, she moved right on. “No matter what happens, it won’t be like it was. This time you’ll have all of us behind you.”
“No—”
“Yes.”
“But I don’twantthis.Youcan’t want this. It isn’t why you’re here.”
“Of course it is,” Margaret said, as though only an idiot would think otherwise. “I might have stayed back home. I could have managed—oh, not as well, but I’d have eventually gotten going. Then you arrived and, in spite of my having been the worst possible mother to you at the worst time in your life, you invited me back here. That tells me something.”
I paused, waited, asked, “What?”
“That there was a method to His madness.” The light in her eye was a throwback.
I got it. Religion and Margaret had always been entwined, which was why what I had seen at her house—or not seen—had been so jarring. “God?” I asked.
She nodded. “I thought He’d forgotten about me. But there you were, walking into my living room and whisking me up here. I didn’t want to come at first. I don’t deserve your help. I don’t deserve Edward’s, either.I was fixated on that until it struck me that there was a sign in your coming. He was giving me a second chance. This time it’s just me, just me, and I’m not blowing it.”
Her fluency, her belief—all I could do was stare at her in amazement.
“And if you dare,” she scolded with indignation, indeed, “say you don’t deserve this, I’ll scream. If I can move past that, can’t you?” She didn’t give me time to answer. “Do you forgive me for what I did to you?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
“Then why isn’t it true the other way around? If I love you, why wouldn’t I forgive you?” She hurried on again before I could respond. “You’ve worked hard for this new life.” For a second, she considered. “Maybe I have, too, all those years of keeping the family going. I like it here, Maggie. I want to stay for a while—well, maybe not in this suite, because I still think it’s far too generous of Edward, and I have a business to run in Connecticut. I love that, too. I can go back and forth. But I want to be with you,” she said, and those spring-green eyes didn’t blink.
Gradually, they blurred, because I was crying again. She put an arm around my shoulder and drew me close enough to smell the one visceral scent that had been with me from birth.
I didn’t hear a knock at the door, but several beats later, she held me back. The end of her cast touched my cheek as her thumbs brushed at my tears. Then her full right hand cupped my cheek and, in a whisper she said, “It’s Edward. He’s a good man, Margaret Mackenzie. He loves you, too.”
