I released my seat belt and leaned into Declan, my heart in my kiss.“I love you, you know?”I whispered.
Grinning, he kissed me back.“I know.”
Laughing, I grabbed my backpack and slid out of the truck.
“Hey, don’t forget to let me know if your Aunt Elizabeth is giving you a ride,” he called through the open window.
I nodded and waved goodbye.When Mom opened the front door, Declan turned the truck around, waved to us both, and drove back out onto the winding road.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Darling, are those exercise pants?”Mom was wearing a blue linen dress and heels.
I looked down at myself.“Huh.I guess they are.Sometimes shared visions put us on the ground.I wanted to make sure I could move easily so I didn’t jar the little one.”
Mom raised a brow at that.“Is this the kind of sloppy, casual attire we can expect for the entirety of your pregnancy?”
I shrugged.“Prolly.”When Mom opened her mouth to complain, I said, “Stop and think.Do we actually have to dress up for these meetings, or is that what Gran preferred?You’re the head of this family now, Mom.You set the rules.If you say I have to dress up, I will.I want you to decide what’s important to you, though, not Gran or Great-Gran.”
She pursed her lips and said, “I’ll think about it.”
FOUR
The Three
My cousin Faith was already sitting in the living room in the chair I usually took.I’d always taken it because it gave me distance from Mom and Gran, who often seemed to direct their complaints toward me.I understood wanting distance, but I didn’t want Faith to feel herself an outsider.
She was sixteen and quietly gorgeous.She had dewy, glowing, light brown skin—a perfect combination of her parents—with bright green eyes and shoulder-length micro braids.She was my Aunt Elizabeth’s youngest.Her older brother Frank was getting ready to begin his senior year in high school, and the two of them worked a couple of days a week for me in the gallery.
If I hadn’t already known my Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Robert were kind, loving people, their children would have tipped me off.Of all my cousins, Faith and her brother were my favorites.
“Mom, I’m rearranging your furniture.”I motioned for Faith to stand up and then picked up the chair, moving it closer to the couch.
Mom rolled the tea cart in.“Arwyn!No heavy lifting,” she scolded.“What are you doing?”She poured three cups of tea while she watched me.
I slid over the other club chair as well, so both were across the coffee table from the couch.“You’re not Gran, Mom.This room was arranged to put Gran at the center.She always sat in the rocking chair by the fire, away from us.She sat higher in her rocker than the rest of us on couches and chairs, allowing her to look ever so slightly down on us.And I always sat where Faith was, a chair so far away from the heart of the room, I might as well have been in the kitchen.”
Brow furrowed, Mom’s gaze traveled around the room as I spoke, handing first Faith then me a teacup.
“It reinforced that I was the outcast,” I told her.“On the periphery at best, and I should remember that.”
Mom shook her head.“No, darling.Your grandmother loved you.”
I shrugged, plopping down in one of the chairs while motioning to Faith to take the other.“Maybe.If she did, though, it was in spite of their plans for me.”
“Their?”Mom hadn’t moved, her hands clutched tightly in front of her.
“Great-Gran, Gran’s sister Margaret.I don’t know, but I felt suspicion and hostility when I got close to them.The calculation in Great-Gran’s eyes was hard to miss.I was the family’s secret weapon, and she was trying to decide how best to train and use me.”
I stood again, putting my teacup on the table, and pulled my mom to the couch and her own teacup.“That’s not you, Mom.Great-Aunt Margaret might like to throw her weight around, but she was never as powerful as Gran, or you for that matter, so she can fuck right off.”
Faith made the quietest of gasps.
I turned as I sat back down.“Am I wrong?”
Faith looked back and forth between Mom and me.“She was one of the most vocal about my mom marrying my dad.”Her voice dropped to a whisper.“I heard Mom and Dad talking late one night after a family party.”She glanced at me.“You know my dad treats humans because the family didn’t want a Black healer helping them.”
My mom started to protest, but I nodded and Mom’s eyes went wide.
