“Of course, you know what psychosis means.” Bitterness rose like bile in my throat as I realized, “You hid behind your translation of scripture and the Ordnung. But you’ve always known more than you let on while purposefully keeping me ignorant and blind.”
“Stop, just stop! I’m not some kind of evil mastermind,” Claudine insisted. “I was a girl, barely older than you and completely abandoned after a one-night stand I shouldn’t have ever agreed to!”
Her voice faltered. “I was all alone, with no family in Canada. My own mama was too disappointed to talk to me. Trust, she didn’t drop everything to come to me, like I did to follow you over to Scotland. And I had no way of tracking down your father. It was like he disappeared into the ether. Again.”
Claudine’s eyes went glassy, as if she’d time-traveled to the past. “And I really didn’t know what was happening when both you and me started shifting in my tiny studio apartment just a few months after I gave birth to you. No daycare. No way to work during a full moon.… I did what I had to do after I scented that pack of wolf shifters at the farmer’s market—where I was working part-time because I couldn’t hold down a nursing job anymore. I was barely holding on…”
Claudine folded her arms under her chest. “You’re acting like I had a plan in all this. But you destroyed all my plans. Everything I’d worked toward.”
I sighed. Remembering that plane conversation with Declan.
“I think it must have been very scary to wake up a bear one morning,” I said to her. “And I know there’s a reason—several of them—for why you did what you did.”
“Thank you,” Claudine started to say.
“But Claudine, none of those reasons were valid,” I let her know. “None of your excuses will ever make up for how you raised me to think I was unlovable, dirty, and not worth even a speck of softness or your love.”
“I loved you,” Claudine insisted. “I loved you so much. I just…”
Claudine stopped, and I could tell the truth had finally caught up with all of her excuses.
I’d forgiven Tadhg. In the end, it was easy to give him another chance. But I’d never, ever forgive her. And I believe this was the moment when she finally saw that.
“I know you probably don’t know much about bears, but you’ve got to be smart about this,” I advised. “You and your friends have kidnapped and held hostage a bear. A pregnantmamabear, whose mate and cubs you’ve put in danger.”
My eyes glittered with barely contained rage as I informed her, “So please believe me when I tell you, I will not hesitate to murder you and everyone else in this house save that little innocent girl if you do not let me out of these chains by the time I count to five.”
Claudine unfolded her defensive arms, her eyes going wide. “You can’t be serious!”
I blinked as serenely as my moon god and answered, “One…”
“Sadie, listen to me.…”
“Two…”
“You have to understand why I?—”
“Three…”
“But…”
“Four…”
Claudine fished the key out of her apron pocket and let me out.
For the rest of my life…
Whenever I came upon a dilemma that appeared to have no answer.
When one of my children yelled at me in a hormonal fit, raising their voices at me in a way that both reminded me of Claudine and sparked thoughts of how I would never, when I’d been their age…
When waves of the bad kind of shame rose like ghosts that could be banished but never fully exorcised…
Whenever I was put in a situation that required giving myself grace that I hadn’t been conditioned to ever have…
I imagined that sound. The metal release of shackles unlocking.…
And the answer became apparent.
