Though her head is turned toward Mom and I can’t clearly see her eyes, the anguish of causing the woman she considers a mother heartache rolls off her. She’s wavering, caving. I can hear it in the tremble in her voice. In the weakening of her tone. With her big heart, Eden would rather sacrifice her own needs and wants than inflict any emotional damage to Mom and Dan.
And Mom must sense it, too. She clutches Eden’s hands tighter, drawing her closer. “Don’t go,” she insists again, more fervently. Desperately. “You’re all I have left of Connor…”
“Well, fuck,” Jude mutters, the same mixture of sadness, helplessness, and anger broiling inside my chest darkening his harsh words.
Pressure shoves against my rib cage, an exact replica expanding inside my skull.Keep your ass still and mimic a mute, the self-preserving side of me orders. That’s what I usually do at family get-togethers, and I’m able to come through relatively unscathed, my armor just scratched, not dented.
But the other half of me—the emotionally suicidal half whose purpose and calling is to protect Eden—growls and snaps with the need to defend her. She asked me to attend this dinner to back her up, to stand by her side. I can’t sit here and be a mime when she’s hurting. Even if the cost is going to mentally bankrupt me.
“Staying here, wrapped in a cocoon, isn’t what Connor would’ve wanted for her,” I interject. “He would approve of her being independent, of her taking this step to stand on her own two feet and start her life again.”
Mom jerks as if an electrical current zipped through her. Slowly, she releases Eden and turns to me. Thick cotton fills my throat, my mouth, my nose. The pounding of my heart is a sonorous drumbeat in my head. Like the death march of a man on his last trek to the gallows.
I wait for it. Knowing what’s coming.
Because I willingly asked for it.
Twin red flags slash across her too-prominent cheekbones, all the brighter for her pale skin. Her mouth flattens until it almost disappears into a thin line, and bitterness gleams in her diamond-blue eyes. She’s a stranger at this moment, but familiar. I met this woman the night of Connor’s death.
“You’re behind this, aren’t you?” she snaps. “I should’ve known. It’s not enough that you took my son from me; now you’re trying to steal the last part of him I have, too.”
The pain. The goddamn pain. It burns, leaving its poison in every organ, so I embody it, breathe it. If I could breathe.
I expected it. Braced myself for the impact. But that preparation was for shit. I can’t move, can’t… Just can’t.
“Are you kidding me?” Jude spits, the shout hitting my ears as if it traveled through a long tunnel first. His fist slams against the table, the plates and silverware rattling in protest.
“The hell, Mom,” Simon demands, and his hurt, his disappointment barely penetrates.
I want to calm both him and Jude, assure them I’m fine.
But that would be a bald-faced lie; I’m not.
Horror creases Mom’s face, bleaching what little color she had from her skin. She covers her mouth with her hands, her eyes filling with tears. One drops, rolls down her ashen cheek as she stares at me, stricken.
“I can’t believe you would say that to him,” Eden whispers. “I asked him to come here, to support me because I knew hearing my news would upset you. If you want to attack someone, here I am. But you have no call to do that to him. To say…” The screech of wood meeting wood sounds as she shoves her chair back from the table and jumps to her feet. She glances at me, and the stark agony in her eyes accomplishes what my brothers’ rage and my mother’s regret and dismay haven’t. That anguish reaches me. Pierces the layers of numbness starting to encase me.
Before I can react, she rushes from the dining room.
Mom’s first sob is a ragged, terrible thing, and it ricochets in the room, filling it. The harsh cry burrows into the opening Eden left behind, and I can’t take it. My lungs seize, constrict, and I’m seconds away from scratching at my throat like an animal fighting for survival.
Pushing away from the table, I launch out the chair and stalk from the room, ignoring my brothers calling me back.
I don’t stop until I’m in my truck and cranking the ignition.
Tires squealing, I back out of the driveway and roar down the street.
My guilt chasing me.
Chapter Four
Eden
I raise my hand to knock on the closed door in front of me. But something keeps my fist from connecting with the thick wood.
Something.
Bullshit. I recognize what has me lowering my arm back to my side.
