The Poison Season(75)

Fiona gasped, her own hand flying up to cover her open mouth. “How?”

Above her fingers, Fiona’s eyes were wide and shining with tears. Leelo couldn’t tell if it was fear or shame, maybe both. This was a secret Fiona had spent all of Leelo’s life burying, and now Leelo was deliberately bringing it out into the light, where it sat between them as naked and vulnerable as a baby bird.

She hated doing this to her mother, but she needed her to know that she would love her no matter what secrets she kept. Just as she hoped her mother could still love her once she knew about Jaren.

“I found the cottage, and the book of poetry,” Leelo said, and before she knew it, everything was pouring out of her in a rush. “I won’t be angry, Mama. Just tell me the truth. Was Nigel Tate’s father?”

Fiona’s face had gone pale and shiny with sweat, as if she were about to be ill. “Leelo,” she breathed.

Leelo went down to her knees before her. She took her mother’s hands, trying not to notice how they were smaller than her own. “It won’t change the way I feel about you. Or him. He will always be my brother. But is that who you sent him to? Is Tate with his father?”

“Oh, child, this wasn’t how I wanted you to find out. It all happened so long ago.”

“Please, Mama. I need to know the truth.”

Fiona swallowed thickly and dabbed at her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. “I know. It’s...difficult.”

Leelo lowered her head to her mother’s lap. “It’s all right, Mama. I’m almost a grown woman. I can handle more than you think I can.”

“It’s not just that, love. It’s difficult for me to remember that time.” She began to comb her fingers through Leelo’s hair as she spoke, the way she had when Leelo was a child.

After a moment, Fiona inhaled deeply and released her breath in a slow stream that cooled Leelo’s cheek. “It was more than a decade ago, now. We had a harsh winter that year. The entire lake froze for the first time in living memory. It was so bitterly cold that the Watchers refused to stand their shifts after multiple people lost fingertips or toes to frostbite. But an outsider hunting a man-eating wolf that had been terrorizing a village crossed the ice, not realizing where he was in the snowstorm. He fell into a ravine and injured himself badly. He sent his dog away when he saw a figure approaching the next morning, assuming the person would kill them both.”

Leelo lifted her head a little. “It was you?”

Mama sighed. “It was. The outsider was nearly unconscious and half-frozen already. I considered leaving him to die. But when I got closer, I could see that he was a young man, only a little older than me. Then he opened his eyes and looked at me, really looked at me... I can’t explain it, but I couldn’t just abandon him, darling. I helped him out of the ravine, and we managed to get to a part of the island I thought no one would go, especially during such a brutal winter. At first, it was little more than a lean-to made from fallen boughs. But over the following weeks, I managed to pilfer supplies from your father’s workshop, and as Nigel healed, he built the little cottage.”

Fiona was quiet for a moment, and Leelo was afraid she wouldn’t tell her the rest, the part she needed to hear most of all. “And you fell in love?” she prompted.

Leelo felt her mother’s legs trembling beneath her, and she sat up to find her weeping. “It’s all right,” Leelo said, sitting on the bed beside her and wrapping her mother’s thin frame in her arms. “It’s all right, Mama.”

After a few minutes, her tears subsided. “I’m sorry. I know this must be a lot for you to take in.”

“Will you tell me about him?” Leelo asked.

“About Nigel? Are you sure?”

She nodded. “He was Tate’s father. Of course I want to know about him.”

“Well, he was tall. He had dark hair and eyes, like your brother.”

Leelo smiled to herself. So much for those traits being inherited from their grandfather.

“It’s hard to remember much, to be honest. I just have those stolen moments together over one brief winter. In the end, I suppose it didn’t amount to very much time. But it felt momentous.”

“I understand,” Leelo whispered.

“He was kind,” Mama said finally. “That’s what I remember most. He wasn’t at all like I’d been told about outsiders.”

Hot tears seeped from the corners of Leelo’s eyes. “Is Tate with him?”

“I hope so, my darling. I hope so.”

Leelo believed that her mother hadn’t meant to hurt anyone by her affair, but she wasn’t sure she could understand betraying Kellan. By all accounts, he had been a good husband and father. “Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“Did you really love my father?”

“I did. Very much.”

Leelo released her breath. “But differently than Nigel?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Were you ashamed?”

Fiona was quiet for a long time. “Was I ashamed of my infidelity? Yes, of course. I made a vow to your father, and I broke that vow. Shame is a very powerful emotion. It eats at you like poison, killing you slowly from the inside out. But if you’re asking me if I regret it, then the answer is no. Nigel gave me Tate, and he showed me a different kind of love, the kind we choose rather than the kind we are given. I did love your father, but I don’t know how much he ever really loved me. He stood by me, even when he knew what I’d done. But sometimes I wonder if not standing by me would have meant he truly cared.”