“Was it really okay?” I asked as the car pulled away from the curb.
“Do I ever bullshit you?”
“No.” It was the truth. Darien never did. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat.
“We did it,” Darien announced in a statement that was four parts relief and only one part smug.
“We did.” And it would probably be a few days before it sank in properly.
I eyed the house in front of me like it was the door to hell, regretting now that I was here, having told Darien that this was something I needed to do on my own and turning down his offer to accompany me. I’d picked up the phone to call my mother more times than I could count over the past few months, but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to press the last button that would connect us. Perhaps I’d felt I needed that judgment from the courts, that without it, it was nothing more than me insisting, yet again, with no evidence that I was innocent.
Well, now I had it. Only instead of calling, I’d come here in person. It was unlikely given the time of day that she’d be in, my subconscious probably picking the time deliberately so I could say,oh, well I tried,but I had no luck.In which case, I should probably turn and walk away now and save myself the trouble.
I was still frozen in place when the neighbor’s door opened and Mrs. Featherstone stepped out. She didn’t notice me for a moment, all her attention on making sure she’d locked her door properly. When she did finally look up, she had the good grace to color slightly. “Oh! It’s you. I suppose you’re here to see your mother?”
“Is that allowed?” I could have been nice. I could have let bygones be bygones. I chose violence instead. Or if not violence, snark. I figured she’d earned it, and I wasn’t sure that even a paragon of virtue like Darien would argue with that.
Her already red cheeks became redder. “I… er… suppose I owe you an apology given recent events?”
“I suppose you do.” She nodded and made to continue walking, and I laughed. “Was that it?”
She stopped in her tracks and turned back to face me. “You could be gracious.”
“I could, but I’m choosing not to be. Must be all those years I spent in prison. It changes a man.”
She drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t much, Mrs. Featherstone barely reaching my shoulder. “I am sorry. I treated you unfairly, and I made assumptions I shouldn’t have done.”
“And you set reporters on me.”
There was a moment where I thought she might deny it, but then she grimaced. “I did. I didn’t want you staying here. It was wrong of me, and it wasn’t my decision to make.” The glint of tears in her eyes had me feeling like a complete shit for hassling a woman in her seventies. Is that what I’d come to? She’d only done what most of the population would do. “It’s fine.” She didn’t look convinced. “It is. In some ways, you did me a favor.”
“Oh?”
“I ended up staying with the man of my dreams.”
“Is that the young man you were holding hands with on the news?”
“It is.”
“He’s very handsome.”
“Handsome. Kind. Sweet, and many other things.”
“Will you marry him?”
Wow! Despite the question hitting like a baseball bat to the solar plexus, I didn’t have to think hard about the answer. “If he’ll have me. Not yet, though. But maybe one day.”
Mrs. Featherstone’s smile looked genuine. “I suppose I’ll see you around here more often from now on?”
My gaze drifted to the house, the door looking no more inviting than it had prior to this conversation. I answered honestly. “I don’t know.”
A taxi drew up in front of the house, and Mrs. Featherstone made her excuses and hurried over to get in. I watched the car until it disappeared around the corner and then went back to staring at the house that had been my childhood home. Before I could think better of it, I unlatched the gate and marched straight up to the door. I didn’t bother to knock, pulling the key I’d never gotten round to returning out of my pocket and unlocking it instead.
I knew as soon as I stepped inside that the house wasn’t empty like I’d expected it to be. There was just an energy about it that said someone was here. And given the house only had one occupant, chances were it was my mother. Acting on instinct rather than rational thought, I didn’t let the door swing shut on its own, pulling it to, so there was nothing more than a quiet click when it closed. I trod silently—or as silent as you could be when you were over six foot—as I traversed the hallway. The kitchen was my first stop, but it lay empty,with not a single cup or plate out of place to show that anyone had used it that day.
A slight noise had me heading for the room at the back of the house my mother favored because of its view out over the garden. It was a different room from the one that held such good memories from my first sexual encounter with Darien.
The door was open to reveal a mess, my first thought that there’d been a burglary. Except burglars didn’t go to town in one room while leaving the kitchen and all its expensive gadgets untouched.
