I Left Them in Grief Chapter 08

I Left Them in Grief Chapter 08

“Maeve,” I said, “grab the bread paddle from the back. We’re clearing the room.”

Before I could move, two figures appeared in the doorway.

They hovered there, small and uncertain.

“Mom…?”

Callum and Elodie.

They’d grown since I last saw them–taller, both of them–but something in the way they held themselves had shrunk. Shoulders pulled in, eyes down, like kids who’d learned to make themselves small.

Elodie’s hair was gone. She used to be so proud of it, those long waves she’d fuss over constantly. Now it was cropped as short as her brother’s.

When she saw me, her eyes flooded–and she ran straight at me, arms out.

“You’re alive–Mom, you’re really alive, I missed you so much-” Her voice broke.

“After you were gone, Selah changed completely. She’d hit us, she wouldn’t let us eat, it was so bad–please come back, please-”

Callum’s voice followed, quiet and wrecked. “After you died, Dad sent us to boarding school. The other kids never let us forget we didn’t have a mother. They made our lives hell.”

Once, hearing that would have shattered me.

It didn’t anymore.

When Elodie threw herself at me, I stepped aside. She stumbled forward and hit the floor. She looked up at me like she didn’t recognize what she was seeing.

“I’m not your mother,” I said. “Don’t call me that.”

I looked at both of them, calm and even.

“The woman who gave birth to you jumped from a window two years ago. She’s dead.”

Callum’s face crumpled. “No matter how angry you are, we’re still your kids–you can’t just say that-

“Why can’t I?”

I didn’t bother softening it.

“Callum, do you remember what you said to me? That a woman who’d harm her own child didn’t deserve your love. You stood right in front of me and said that.”

I held his gaze. “You both told me–over and over–that Selah was the only mother you wanted. Did you stop

for even one second to think about what that did to me?”

I turned to Elodie. “When Selah blamed me for things I didn’t do, right to my face–you were there. Did you say a single word in my defense?”

Callum’s mouth opened. Nothing came out. He just stood there, silent, with nowhere to put it.

Elodie sat frozen and didn’t make a sound.

“You didn’t come here because you realized you were wrong,” I said.

“You came here because Selah turned out to be a disappointment, and now you need someone else to run to. You figured out that without me around, no one was going to protect you. So here you are.”

I looked at all three of them.

“But you don’t get to treat someone like nothing and then show up expecting them to save you. You made

your choices. Now live with them.”

pointed at the door. “Get out.”

“Please-” Brennon surged forward. “They’re just kids, they didn’t know any better. Come home and raise them yourself, you can start over-”

“Why would I pour anything into two people who never once had my back?”

I walked into the kitchen and reached to the back of the highest shelf. I came back out with a small bottle- dark glass, a skull–and–crossbones on the label.

“This is industrial–strength rat poison,” I said, holding it up.

One capful is enough to kill someone. If none of you leave right now, I’ll drink the whole thing–and you can take my body back with you.”

I met Brennon’s eyes.

“I chose what looked like death once to get free of you. Don’t think for a second I wouldn’t do it for real.”