The Winter Sister(85)

“Yes, it is. It absolutely is.”

She shook her head, her eyes darting back and forth across the rug between the two beds. Her forehead wrinkled; her mouth sagged at the edges.

“And you know it is,” I added. “I can see it all over your face. You’re not stupid, Mom. If she’d known he was her brother, then she never would have been sneaking out to see him. Which means she never would have been out the night that somebody killed her. You know that! You know it!”

Mom covered her face with her hands, shielding herself from my words. “Stop it!” she cried. “I know! I know! Jesus, just—stop, okay? I know.”

Then, for almost a minute, she wore her palms like a mask, her breath muffled and raspy. I watched her, noticed the knobs of her knuckles—even larger now, it seemed, than just a few days ago—and I waited for her to speak again, my throat and wrists quivering with pulse. Finally, Mom dropped her hands into her lap, and I saw there were tears in her eyes, tears on her cheeks and chin.

“I never claimed to be perfect,” she said, her voice all gravel. “I know I’ve made mistakes. Why the hell do you think I drink?”

I’d never heard her speak like this—acknowledging her faults, her addictions—and I grasped at the chance to flash a light down the endless cave of that subject. I wanted us to enter it together, even if it meant we’d never find our way out. I knew her question had been rhetorical, but I answered it anyway.

“Because you couldn’t deal with losing Persephone,” I said.

“Oh, I always knew I’d lose her,” she scoffed. “I just didn’t know how or when. But I couldn’t—I can’t—deal with the part I played in it.”

She looked down into her hands, her fingers curling toward her palms like shriveling petals.

“What do you mean you always knew you’d lose her?”

She shrugged. “I lost her father. And even on nights when I had him, he was never really mine. It made sense that I’d lose her, too.”

I narrowed my eyes. “How does that make sense?”

Mom clenched her jaw so tightly I could almost hear her teeth grinding together. Then, wiping at the tears that lingered on her cheeks, she said, “You don’t know anything about the Emorys. About Will’s father. He was ruthless. He did everything he could to make sure that Will stayed away from me and married someone else. If he’d ever found out Persephone was an Emory, who knows what he would have done to get her in his grasp.”

I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense. You said Will wanted Persephone to be kept a secret because she’d be a scandal to his family. And now you’re suggesting they would try to take her from you?”

She let out a breath. “Both things were possible,” she said. “It was possible that if the town knew about Will having a daughter with me, they would turn on him in a second. You know how Spring Hill is—all holier-than-thou types. I’m sure they’d be able to overlook it if the affair were with one of their own—but me? South Side Annie O’Leary? No way. They’d eviscerate him. They’d send a strict message that those from the north side of town do not sully their reputations by fraternizing with diner waitresses.”

She paused to breathe again, taking the air in sharply, as if stringing together so many words had exhausted her.

“But it was also possible,” she continued, “that, regardless of the scandal, Richard Emory would want his granddaughter. That he wouldn’t be able to stand the idea of an Emory—someone from such a godly bloodline—slumming it with the likes of me. That he’d find some way to portray me as an unfit mother, bribe or blackmail the right people, and take her away from me. And obviously I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let Persephone live with Richard. It would have been like sending her to the Underworld!”

My mouth was open, ready to respond, but at the mention of the Underworld, I froze. She said he wasn’t good enough to be her child’s father, Jill had remembered Mom explaining about the man she’d met in her classics class. So she was rescuing Persephone from a life in the Underworld.

“Did Jill know about this?” I demanded. “About Will being Persephone’s dad?”

I braced myself for the possibility that Jill might have lied to me. It seemed so unfathomable; she’d always been honest with me about everything. Still, Jill was an O’Leary woman. She would know how to keep her sister’s secrets.

“No,” Mom said. “Jill thought it was someone from college. I told you, I couldn’t tell anyone.”

“Not even your sister?”

“Especially not my sister! You know Jill. If I’d told her, she’d have barged right into the situation and tried to fix everything. But she’d only have done more harm than good. Just imagine if she told Richard to stay away from the baby! He’d have snatched Persephone up in an instant.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Come on,” I said. “He wouldn’t have taken her.”

“Yes, he would have!” she cried. “Will told me so himself!”

I paused. “What?”

“He told me that if his father ever found out, Richard would do anything he could to make sure I never saw Persephone again.”

I felt my skin flush, my pulse quickening again. “He was lying to you,” I said. “Manipulating you. He would have told you just about anything to make sure you didn’t screw up his career. I mean—just—think about this, Mom!”