Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Yes, I could understand why a person like Grace had ended up in the institution. Perhaps she’d stalked someone, or taken revenge on another person for either herself or someone else. But none of that changed anything she’d told me . . . or what she’d just suggested.
“No one will ever know,” Grace murmured again. “If you turn her in, she will get out one day. She’ll breathe the free air she stole from Bea for years, and she’ll live in the house that she stole from Bea, with the man she stole from Bea. All their inheritance, every cent of it, is in Darcie’s fucking name. Helpful Uncle Landis again.”
Darcie began to speak, sobbing, begging, but I couldn’t hear her. All I could hear were Bea’s sobs as she lay lost and alone. All I could see was the agony in her eyes as she decided to take the only way out open to her. “Did she try to hang herself?”
I felt no surprise when Grace shook her head. “She had a stockpile of drugs, took them all. She was almost gone by the time they found her.”
My sweet Bee-bee.
Maybe she hadn’t been as strong as she should’ve been, but not everyone was strong. As not everyone could bring light into the room with a smile. That had been Bea’s gift. Kindness. Warmth. Joy.
For strength, she’d had me.
And then, she’d had Grace. “You kept her alive.” I knew that because Bea was alive; she wouldn’t have made it on her own. “Thank you.”
“She’s so . . . bright. Like sunshine.” Grace’s words glowed with devotion. “I couldn’t let her light go out. I tried to inspire her by saying we’d get revenge, but Bea was so broken that it didn’t matter to her. She’s not like me—she’s not driven by anger. Instead I made her think I’d die if she wasn’t there with me. So she stayed. Not for herself. For me.”
Yes, that sounded like Bea. Dazzling and a bit of a wild child with a penchant for petty thievery—and loyal. A friend who’d never let go if she thought you needed her.
“Even after I got out,” Grace continued, “I kept it up, told her that if I didn’t have the goal of getting her out of that place, I’d end myself. I know it was manipulative, but it was the only thing that worked. I smuggled a phone to her so I could stay in constant touch, make sure she never forgot.”
“You did the right thing. You kept Bea alive.”
Putting my hands on the steering wheel, I stared through the silver sheet of rain to the lights of the settlement a short distance away. So easy it’d be to say that we’d started out later than we had, or that we’d become scared at the bridge, hesitated too long. So long that Darcie hadn’t made it.
No one would ever know.
52
Clara
Today is a good day. We are all to have tea in my salon. My haven of beauty and tranquility in this house full of secrets and loneliness. My children’s laughter will fill the air, and perhaps even my husband will attend.
He was . . . more himself this morning when I asked him. More the Blake I married. Stern but kind. I know it will pass all too soon, but for today, he is that man and I hope he does join us. It will do good for the children to spend time with their father as he once was.
And Lizzie . . . Lizzie smiled with such innocent joy when I mentioned it. She did not argue against having to spend time with her siblings, even said that she’d been waiting for just this kind of an opportunity when all her siblings were together. She wishes to give them a surprise gift.
I am hopeful that my eldest has turned the corner, leaving behind the jealousies and anger of the past. That she has prepared a gift for the little ones, it fills my heart.
Oh, how I look forward to this afternoon when my entire family will be gathered in the sun.
53
It was surreal to think that twenty-four hours ago, I was stuck in a house on the edge of nowhere, my friends dying around me. Today, I sat in the searing whiteness of a hospital room, dozing fitfully in a leather armchair a nurse had draped with a soft sheet so that the cracked leather on the arm wouldn’t catch at my skin.
When I woke with a jolt a few minutes after midnight, I saw that Kaea’s breathing was even, his stats stable. The same nurse had taught me how to read those stats after I kept asking her about them, and I’d memorized the ranges she’d told me were good.
But Kaea wouldn’t come out of this undamaged.