Chapter Twenty-Nine
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
March 2029
“PLEASE TELL ME YOU’RE coming to your niece’s birthday.” Eileen doesn’t waste time getting straight to the point when I answer the FaceTime call. I can’t remember the last time she called me out of the blue like this.
I was disappointed I didn’t hear from her when everything went down with Brina last month, but I wasn’t completely shocked, either. We’re both busy. Not long after Nick went missing, Eileen opened a salon on the Upper East Side, and when she’s not with her girls, she’s behind the chair or handling the business. On the screen, the streets of Manhattan pass behind her, either on her way to the salon or to pick up Ophelia from school. Judging from the lack of Fallon on her hip, I’d guess it’s the salon.
“Hello to you too, Lina,” I say, sitting back in my chair at the DV Designs Denver office. I have two hours before I need to leave so I’m back in Haven to pick Elena up from school. Beau offered, knowing I had a lot to do today, and while I appreciated the offer, she and I were going to have some uninterrupted mommy-daughter time this weekend. That included a movie marathon tonight, a trip to the neighbors’ for horseback riding lessons tomorrow, and a spa day on Sunday.
“Nina, I’m serious.” Eileen pauses at a crosswalk, glancing both ways before she jaywalks. “Ophelia wants you and Elena here next weekend. And, personally, I don’t want to be the one to tell her you’re not coming because you and Kai aren’t getting along.”
“You and I aren’t exactly on the best terms, either.” I stare her straight in the eye. She blinks away, closing her eyes with a deep sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me, Lina?”
“It wasn’t my place, Nin. Your mother is a…touchy subject. For both of you.”
That’s an understatement.
“I can’t say I was happy about his decision to let her meet the girls, but—”
“But you let it happen.”
Eileen sighs. “Despite everything, she is your mother, and if Kai wants to have a relationship with her—”
“He can,” I say, and it seems to surprise her. Her brows raise and her steps halt in the middle of the sidewalk. “If Kai wants to have a relationship with her—and only God knows why—he can. That doesn’t mean I must subject myself to the same fate.”
“What does that mean, exactly?”
“It means that as long as I know she’s going to be somewhere, I’m not coming, and neither is my daughter.”
Eileen is still skeptical. “You’re being surprisingly…calm about this.”
“Lina, I know Brina Villa won’t be able to keep the ruse up for the rest of her life. The mask will come off eventually and she’ll remind my brother why he stopped talking to her in the first place.”
“I don’t like it when you say things like that,” she says with a deep sigh. With her eyes still closed, she circles back to the reason for her call. “Can we expect you next Saturday or not?”
“Will Brina be there?”
“I don’t…I don’t know. Maybe?”
“Well, then you have your answer.”
“Nina, please don’t separate the girls! They’re going to be heartbroken if we—”
“I’ve made up my mind, Eileen. As long as Brina is there, we won’t be.” There’s a knock on the open office door, and I’m surprised to see my brother standing there. “What are you doing here?”
“I forgot to tell you,” his wife says over the phone. “Your brother is in town.”
I hang up the phone without saying goodbye as he walks inside, closing the door. Kai and I haven’t talked outside of an occasional text or email, keeping it strictly business after our argument last month. I think this is the longest Kai and I have gone without talking since Daddy died. As much as it hurts to think we’ve taken five hundred steps back from where we’ve come, erasing all the work put into our relationship, I don’t know any other way to get my point across.
“Can we talk?” Kai asks. Hands shoved deep into the pockets of his dress pants, my brother stands in the middle of the room, looking like a scolded toddler.
“I guess that depends on you.”
“I’m not sorry for talking to her, Nina, but I am sorry for hurting you and lying about it. I should’ve told you.”
“And you think it would’ve made it any better?”
“No, but maybe you wouldn’t have been so angry.”
I laugh in disbelief, letting my tongue run across the back of my teeth. He thinks I wouldn’t have been so angry. No matter when he told me, my reaction would have remained the same.
“She wants to know her grandchildren, Nina. That’s it.”
“I said before and I’ll say it again, if you truly believe that, you’re dumber than I thought. Kai, she wants the company. She wants—”
“She has no right to the company!”
“You think that will stop her? This is Brina Villa we’re talking about. She will find a way, she always does.”
He finally crosses the room to sit down and is anything but his normal poised and composed self. His weighed-down posture exposes the truth about how my brother has been faring, and I wonder if there’s more going on than he’s telling me. “Nina, I don’t want this to come between us again.”
“Kai, if you feel this strongly about wanting to have a relationship with her, go for it. I won’t stop you, and when she proves to be the same person she has always been…I’ll be here to pick up the pieces. But if Brina is going to be somewhere, I won’t be, and neither will my daughter.”
“Nin—”
“Did you tell her about Nick?”
“Why would I tell her about Nick?”
“I don’t know, but someone did. Why else would she show up?”
Kai scrubs his hands down his face and sighs, but it’s one of those soul-crushing sighs that only confirms what I thought earlier. There’s something else going on.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
My brother stares at the ground. He gnaws on the inside of his cheek and fiddles with his hands. Finally, his gaze raises to meet mine, and for a moment I swear I’m looking at Daddy. He takes a deep breath, and says, “She’s dying, Nin.”
The pen in my hands clatters down to the desk. What does he mean she’s dying?
“She…She begged me to meet her, and after putting it off for practically a month, I finally sat down with her at the end of January. She has cancer, Nina. Pancreatic. They’re only giving her a year. Max.”
“You’re going to bring her into Ophelia and Fallon’s life only to rip her away from them in a year? If she even makes it that long. Do you know how fucked up that is?”
“She deserves to know her grandchildren, Nina.”
“And do the girls deserve to have their grandmother ripped away from them as soon as she comes into their lives? I can’t believe you would subject your children to something like this. This is unbelievably selfish, Kai.”
“She is our mom, Davina!” He practically jumps out of the chair, slamming his hand on my desk. “And we have spent the last ten years pretending she didn’t even exist because—”
“For good reason.”
My brother’s eyes are red with unshed tears and his hand grips the edge of my desk like it’s his only lifeline. “Our mom is dying, Nina.”
And if Daddy was still alive, I know he would try to convince me to let her back into my life, too, regardless of what happened between them. He was always the peacemaker between me and Mother. He was the only one who could quell an argument before it started or end one with a single look. But Daddy isn’t alive, and even if he was, I wouldn’t subject Elena to more pain and loss than she has already had to deal with. She still hasn’t fully accepted Nick being gone. There are nights she calls out for him. Nights she comes to our room looking for him. Days she still asks me when he’s coming home. And I’m left to pick up the pieces of a three-year-old’s heart when she remembers Daddy is not coming home. Why would I want to subject her to even more of the same pain?
“Do you really hate her so much you don’t even care she’s going to die?”
I don’t know how I feel about her impending demise. I’m not sad, but it doesn’t make me want to jump for joy. Regardless, I’ve made up my mind: Brina will not be meeting Elena.
I push up from my chair and come around my desk to sit beside him. Giving his hand a gentle squeeze, I say, “Kai, I’m sorry. I am. And I get it—why you want to have her around. You and Brina were always close. You had a relationship with her, I never did, so while I may not like that she’s around, I understand.”
His head hangs low, and he bites down on his bottom lip to keep it from quivering.
“It’s not right to involve your children, Kai. You know how this ends…and it’s going to end sooner than later. This doesn’t change my mind about being around her. I won’t subject Elena to more loss any sooner than I have to.”
“I’m sorry, Nina.” Kai pushes his fingers into his eyes, hoping to prevent the tears from falling. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve…If I had just—”
“Kai, stop.” I put my hand on his knee. “I don’t blame you for what happened to Nick. My husband made his choice. He chose to go out for a hike alone without telling anyone. Nick did that, not you.” Now giving his knee a comforting squeeze, I say, “I’m sorry. Truly, I am so sorry you’re going through this.”
My brother nods, his head still hung low. I reach over and pull him into a hug, wrapping my arms around his frame. My brother clings to me as the tears begin to flow, soaking the fabric of my cardigan, and tears prick the corners of my own eyes. I hate seeing him in so much pain. I hate there’s nothing I can do to make it go away.
I wish I could say I’m upset our mother is dying—that I’m going to miss her—but the truth is…I grieved the death of Brina Villa a long time ago.