Love Survives (Love's Suicide #2)(116)

Kat was starting to lose her grip. I felt her body shaking beside me. “So she caught you? Is that what happened?”

“Yes,” my mom sobbed. “We’d been having a heated argument, and I followed your dad into his bedroom. We could hear you three in the tree house and thought we were alone. He rejected me, Katy. You’re father told me he couldn’t do it. He said he wouldn’t ever leave your mother.”

“Then how did she catch you? She caught you talking about it?”

My mom got quiet, like it was too hard to talk about. “Mom, answer us. What did you do?”

She shook her head. “I was so hurt. I’d ended my marriage for him and he wouldn’t leave her. So, out of desperation, I threw myself at him, begging for one last night together.” She was quiet for a second. “And he didn’t resist.”

When Kat got up and ran into the bathroom I knew what was about to happen. I took it upon myself to scold my own mother.

“How could you do something like that? She trusted you. Dad trusted you.” I was heading into the bathroom to check on Kat, who I was worried more about.

“Brooks, don’t walk away. You need to hear everything.”

B came into the bathroom with a doll in her hand. “Mama, boosh hair.”

I watched Kat, with tears streaming down her cheeks, brushing a baby dolls hair. B didn’t like seeing her mom so sad. “No cry.”

I waited for B to run back out before addressing her mother. I leaned against the doorframe and listened as she spoke. “I can’t listen to her.”

“I know what you mean, but I need to know the whole story. This doesn’t just involve you or my dad. It involves all of us, even Branch.”

“I just had to bury Bobby, and now she’s making things worse. I can’t do it, Brooks. Find out what she has to say and then make her go. Buy her a ticket and send her home.”

“Kat, this time I’m asking. I need you.” She wasn’t in this alone. It involved me too. My mom had secrets, and now that they’d been revealed I was having trouble accepting them.

I helped her stand up and watched as she began comforting me.

I felt like it was important to let her know where I stood. This would change nothing for me. “No matter what she has to say, however it affects us, it won’t change anything for me. If you want space, I’ll give it to you. If we can’t move forward, I’ll accept it.”

Even though she didn’t answer, Kat took my hand as we went back out into the living room to face my mother.

“Why was my mother in that building, Danica? I need to know.”

“After she walked in on us, we didn’t exactly have the words to explain. She put on a pretty face and told me to leave, without saying anything else. I think that hurt me more than anything; the fact that she refused to look at me. I felt so ashamed and regretted everything immediately. I don’t know what they talked about, or how she managed to get through the night without anyone knowing. I went home and made dinner, just waiting for her to confront me. I even called you boys in early that night, in fear of having to leave and spend the night away from the house. Your father was a mess. I’d broken his heart, and he wasn’t willing to accept that we were through. The thing is, I never stopped loving him. I just got so caught up in the affair.”

It crushed me to think about my dad going through all of this. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for him to have the woman he loved and his best friend sneaking around to be together. Kat squeezed my hand to remind me she was there, but it really wasn’t helping much, not with this situation.

“The next morning he left for work and finally was able to call. He said that you were all going to be moving, and the house was going to be up for sale within the week. He told me that I was a mistake and that he’d spend the rest of his life making his mistake up to your mother.”

She put her head down and cried harder. “That’s the last time I heard from your father, but not the last time I heard from your mother.”

My mom looked right at Kat. “Katy, that morning she drove you all to school, and none of you probably caught on that anything was wrong. She was going to meet your father so that they could talk.”

“How do you know that? Because I know she wouldn’t have called to tell you that.”

“The school called me first, letting me know that I had to come get the boys. They asked if you’d be coming home with me, too. As angry as she was at me, I knew you were her first priority, so I called her. When she answered I could tell that it was bad. She didn’t get on the line and start cussing me out, or accusing me of ruining your family. She was calm, almost like she knew what was happening and that they weren’t going to make it. I’ll never forget the words she said to me.” She paused and kept her gaze on Kat. “Take care of Katy, Dani. Keep her safe and love her forever. Make sure Brooks never takes her for granted.”

I think we both started crying at the same time. It was like we were living that moment again, but now with complete understanding of how it all came to be. “Shh,” I whispered as I tried to console her.

I wanted to make this easier for Kat, but had no idea how. Her heart had been ripped in two the day she lost her parents. It was hard to remember her mother. I had a few instances where she made it a point to pull me aside and say something about Kat, but it was too long ago. I’d been through too much to remember back that far.