Chapter Twenty-Eight Tranquility Estates, Vermont Present Day
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tranquility Estates, Vermont
Present Day
Once upon a time, Chrissie had read a relationship article that stated the best way to hold difficult conversations was while taking a walk.
There was something in the act of moving in the same direction, side by side, both parties heading to the future together, that made it easier to tackle subjects that were too much to take on head-to-head.
That it also gave her a chance to hold her daughter’s hand hadn’t been mentioned in the article, but it probably should have been. She couldn’t remember the last time she and Kat had held hands, let alone in a sylvan setting like this one.
“Are you sure Aunt Scarlett will be okay alone at the cabin this long?” Kat asked as they headed along a path marked with signs promising a lake at the end. Her fingers squeezed against Chrissie’s. “She said she wanted to rest for a while, but—”
“She’ll be fine,” Chrissie promised. “And if she’s not…
Honey, you know that her plans haven’t changed, right?
You and I never talked much about the cancer she had as a kid or the way her grandmother died or even my brother, Malcolm, but she and I have experienced a lot of death in our lives.
This is her decision, and it’s one she didn’t make lightly. ”
“Oh. Okay.” She hesitated, her voice sounding so small that it made Chrissie’s chest clench. “What was he like, your brother?”
Chrissie hesitated, too. Of all the loss she’d experienced in her life, that one didn’t hurt nearly as much as it used to, but to say so felt wrong somehow. Like promising that with time, this pain would dissipate the same way.
“He was quiet,” she said. “Smart. Gentle. I don’t remember much else, to be honest. I was very young at the time, and so much of his life had been spent in and out of hospitals, that we barely got a chance to know each other.”
“Is that why you never talk about him?”
Chrissie took her time stepping over a fallen tree covered with moss.
All of her parenting instincts urged her to gloss over this bit, to shove through to the real heart of the matter, but she pushed those instincts aside.
Kat was no longer the small, vulnerable child she’d sworn to protect.
She was a strong and beautiful young woman who’d just had her world turned upside down—and who was navigating her way through it with a surprising amount of grace.
“That’s part of it, yes. But I also don’t like talking about him because I’ve spent my whole life feeling responsible for his death.”
This made Kat halt in her tracks. “Wait—why?”
They weren’t anywhere near the lake yet, or even in a comfortable clearing, but Chrissie allowed them to pause next to a spindly birch grove.
“They wanted to give him a bone marrow transplant, and as his sister, I was his best chance at a match. But I wasn’t, and he died before they could find a different donor.
” She paused, surprised at how readily the story fell from her tongue to her daughter’s understanding ears.
“Even though my parents never expressly blamed me for not being able to help Malcolm, I always felt the accusation simmering under the surface. They pulled away from me after his death—mostly to protect themselves from feeling that kind of pain again—but I had no way of knowing it at the time. I just assumed they were done with me.”
“Is that…” Kat hesitated, her lower lip between her teeth as she struggled to find the words. She drew a deep breath and tried again. “Is that why you don’t talk to them? Or let me talk to them, either?”
“Yes and no.” Chrissie had never spoken the words aloud before, but she was done trying to shield Kat from the worst the world had to offer—mostly because she was coming to learn that the worst and the best often went hand in hand.
“Yes, my relationship with them suffered because of Malcolm. And no, that’s not the entire reason why I have nothing to do with them now.
The truth is, they never approved of me adopting you the way I did.
They couldn’t understand why I’d give up college and a career and dedicate myself to a child who didn’t share my blood. ”
“Oh.”
The way Kat said this was so bewildered that Chrissie felt all the anger and frustration of her childhood come rushing to the surface.
“Don’t think for one second that I regret their loss. I did share their blood, but they still never gave up anything for me. I’ll introduce them to you if you want, but Scarlett’s grandmother was the one who raised me, not them. Everything I am today is thanks to her.”
“Oh.” This time, the word felt less bleak and more like a growing acceptance. “So you and Scarlett were like sisters.”
“We are sisters. We always have been and always will be.”
Kat nodded, accepting this statement as well as the ferocity with which it was uttered. “And my dad was your high school boyfriend.”
Chrissie nodded.
“But he and Scarlett hooked up one time.”
She nodded again.
“At her grandmother’s funeral.”
A laugh escaped Chrissie before she could stop herself. It seemed Scarlett had held nothing back. How incredibly typical of her.
“You have to remember that we were only a few years older than you at the time. Alone, grieving, with no idea what to do or how we were going to do it. I don’t blame Aunt Scarlett at all. You know what she’s like. Wild and impulsive and—”
“A lot like me,” Kat finished with a wry smile.
Chrissie nodded and started moving along the path again. This time, it was more for her own benefit than Kat’s.
“If Grimshaw had done the decent thing and stepped up—or even acknowledged his part in all this—I’d have found a way to involve him in your life.
But he was just as young as we were, when all is said and done.
Kat, this part might be hard for you to hear, but he’s made it very clear over the years that he’s not interested in having a relationship with you.
Maybe that will change someday, but I don’t want you getting your hopes up. He’s not the man I wanted him to be.”
For the next few minutes, the crunch of their feet was the only sound between them. Which was why Chrissie was so surprised when Kat suddenly broke it.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”
“About your father? Or about your…mother?”
Kat stumbled over this last bit, but she caught herself just as quickly.
“About any of it. Aunt Scarlett—Scarlett—my birth mother—said that it was her rule that I never know the truth about my parents, and that she’d have gone to her grave without telling me, only you made her.
You said you wouldn’t be here in Vermont with her unless she told me everything. ”
Chrissie nodded. “I did.”
“But why? Why now? Why like this?”
Each question came out harsher and more gratingly, sloughing away the last of Chrissie’s reserve.
She forced the two of them to halt again, this time so she could look her daughter squarely in the eyes.
It was a thing she should have done years ago, only she’d been too scared—of changing what they had, of changing who they were.
Unfortunately, things changed anyway. People were born. People left. People died. And all they had to hold onto in the meantime were those they continued to love.
“My parents forced me to grow up way too fast,” she said without bitterness or rancor—without any emotion at all, really.
“So did Scarlett’s. Between the people who created us and the amount of time we both spent in hospitals growing up, we didn’t have much of a childhood.
I think we both, in our own ways, were determined that you’d never suffer the same way.
Only somewhere along the line, we forgot that you’re a responsible, well-adjusted, amazing human being who deserves the chance to form her own opinion about things. ”
Now her voice cracked. Now she started to break.
“I wanted you to have a chance to say goodbye to Scarlett properly—knowing her for who she really is, and understanding the sacrifices she made in loving you so much.” She dashed a hand at her eyes, but the tears were already starting to fall.
“And I wanted you to realize that you’re not nearly as alone as you think you are.
I’ve always known that there would come a time when you won’t need me anymore—when you won’t want me—but I was hoping we wouldn’t get here so soon. ”
“Mom.”
Chrissie held up a hand to stop Kat from saying anything more. She needed to get this out before she lost the courage—or, worse, the words.
“I am your mother. I will always be your mother. From the moment you were put into my arms, I knew I’d do anything in this world to keep you safe and happy and loved.
None of that has changed.” She swallowed around the lump in her throat.
“But you’ve been my whole life for so long—and I’ve been yours—that I forgot there’s a big world out there waiting for us both.
Scarlett made me realize that on this trip. And so did you.”
“Me? What did I do?”
“Easy. You asked for more—no. You demanded more.” And just like that, the lump in her throat dissolved to nothing.
“We’ll find you a family, Kat. We’ll make one if we have to.
We’ll surround you with so many people who love you and want what’s best for you that you’ll long for the days when the only person whose back you had to sneak around behind was mine. ”
She paused, thinking of Walsh cooking to show how much he cared.
Of Lily, dreaming of her mother’s hug. Of River, gratefully accepting the gruff affection of a great-aunt she barely knew.
Of Scarlett, lying in her deathbed and confessing everything for no reason other than because Chrissie asked her to.
Then she started walking again, her almost-grown daughter’s footsteps keeping time with her own.
“If it’s all right with you, Kitty Kat, we’ll find me a family, too. I think that sounds awfully nice right about now.”