Don't Let Go(51)

Arms caught me, wrapping around my middle.
“I’ve got you,” came Noah’s voice against my ear. He held me tight against him, one arm around my waist and one holding my head as sounds started coming back into normal tones. “Just breathe, baby, I’ve got you.”
He called me baby, I thought, my woozy thoughts swimming around in the delicious aroma that was Noah.
“I need to go—home,” I managed to say as my feet felt solid floor again.
“We’re going,” he said, lifting my chin to look at my eyes. “Are you okay to walk?”
I blinked and nodded and pulled gently away from him, feeling the odd mix of my body coming back to life as my soul shut down. It was the last straw, the last thing my mind was willing to take on, and my heart felt like it turned cold in my chest.
“Noah,” Johnny Mack said from behind us. “There’s something I need to tell you. I was going to make it a surprise, but now I think I should tell both of you—”
“Save it,” Noah snapped before he led me out the door.
He put me in the car and we drove in silence to my house. I had nothing left. No more tears, thank God, I was completely out of those. Nothing but betrayal and rage coursed through me as we passed the houses I’d seen all my life. As we passed the old one I’d shared with Hayden. That’s where I should have stayed, I realized. I should have sold Mom’s house when she died and stayed where we were. Away from the negativity and rules and controlling influence that her house still held over me.
She had ruined my life.
We pulled into the driveway, and I stared at the house I now despised with everything in my being.
Noah’s phone sang “Love Shack” and he hit the button to silence it.
“Shayna?” I asked, and he nodded. “You can call her back.”
He texted something quickly. “Told her I’ll call her back later.”
“I should have brought you home,” I said, not recognizing the hollow sound of my words, my voice.
Noah shook his head and handed me the keys. “I’m not leaving you here alone,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “I’ll walk the two blocks later if I have to.”
My phone buzzed from my purse and I dug it out to see Becca asking to spend the night with Lizzy. Not a shocker. And probably a good idea, considering my mood.
“I’m not good company right now,” I said, eyeing the house as if my mother were standing on the porch.
Ignoring me, he got out and walked around to my side, where I still sat, and opened my door. “Come on.”
I swung my legs out and stood, letting him shut the door behind me as I walked up to a place that didn’t feel like mine anymore. Not that it ever really had, but I was at least making headway. Now none of that mattered. My mother still lived there. Working me like a puppet, just as Noah had said.
I unlocked the door, hearing and feeling him behind me, and heard the ka-thunk of Harley jumping off the couch.
“Hey, my Harley girl,” I said as she wiggled over to me, swinging her giant tail. I felt love and relief seep back through for just a second as her unconditional love melted my heart a little. I knelt and buried my face in her neck. “You and the girl child are the only things that make this home,” I mumbled.
Standing as Harley then made her way to Noah to get bonus points, I kicked off my shoes and looked around the room at all I had done to try and make it our home. It was lipstick on a pig, as Nana Mae would say. Nothing changed the guts of the thing. I narrowed my eyes as I scanned the room with a different perspective.
Somewhere in these guts were photos of Seth. Hidden away because I couldn’t handle it. I clenched my teeth together at the anger those words fired up in me. Photos and correspondence, whatever the hell that could be. But how? We’d gone through every possible drawer and file, both at the house and at the bookstore, when she died. And then many of the older pieces of furniture had been put to the street in favor of ours. I couldn’t imagine what I could have missed—
My eyes landed on the bookshelf. Or rather, my mother’s corner of it. The section I never really touched, but pretty much just jammed together to make room for my own things.
Walking slowly to it, I stared, adrenaline boiling my blood as I remembered my mother lying in a hospital bed telling Becca and me that she loved us and never mentioning one word about “Oh, by the way, there’s something kind of important you might want to find.”
“That bitch,” I whispered.
“Jules,” Noah said.
“No, Noah,” I said, hearing the shake in my voice as the irony spread through my system like poison. “My mother sent my son away, cutting all contact for me but holding on to it for herself.” I turned to face him, my whole head feeling like the top of a volcano. “For herself. She still had a grandchild, but I couldn’t be a moth—” My words gave way as my chest pushed the air from my lungs. “She gave it to your dad to send to you on the other side of the world, but couldn’t share it with her own daughter, right here in the same house.”
He just met my gaze and didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say.
“She knew his name,” I said, the rage bringing tears back to my throat. “For years I’ve wondered how your dad could hate me so much, and now I have to wonder how my own mother could have so little f*cking faith in me.”
Noah moved toward me but I turned around. Turned to stare at her books and her beloved atlases and precious antique glassware. All collecting dust because I never did more than hit it with a feather duster. I never liked being around it. I always assumed that was due to so many unresolved, unfinished issues with my mother. Or my own guilt over the resentment I felt. Whatever the reasons, I left her things alone.