CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Nora
A few days had passed since Liam brought me back to his house, and my body was finally beginning to believe that it was allowed to rest. My arm still hurt when I moved too quickly.
The wound pulled sharply beneath the bandage whenever I reached for something or tried to lift my hand above my shoulder.
But it was no longer wild and frightening. I sat near the window with a blanket around my shoulders, watching the pale afternoon light stretch across the floor. The house was quiet in a way that felt different than before.
A cup of tea rested beside me on the small table. It had gone cold while I stared out the window, lost in thoughts I couldn’t untangle. I wrapped my fingers around the cup anyway, letting the cool ceramic ground me in the present.
I was alive. That still felt strange. Some nights, I woke suddenly with my heart racing, certain I was back in that locked room with Victor Hale somewhere beyond the door.
I would reach for my injured arm and feel the clean bandage instead of the rough cloth he’d wrapped around it, and slowly the panic would fade.
Liam made sure I was cared for. Doctors came and went quietly, checking my wound and changing the bandage with careful hands. Paddy brought meals even when I said I wasn’t hungry, and Diggs lingered near the doorway whenever he thought I looked too pale.
No one said it out loud, but I could feel the protection around me.
The house no longer felt like a place I was being hidden away in.
The walls that had once seemed too close and guarded now felt solid and steady, like arms wrapped around me when I was too tired to stand on my own.
I leaned back against the chair and closed my eyes for a moment.
For the first time in a long while, there was space inside me for something other than fear. I could feel the exhaustion, the grief, the anger, and the relief all sitting together in my chest.
It was still heavy and complicated, but no longer crushing me completely.
I didn’t know what would happen next. Victor Hale was still somewhere out there, and the thought of him hadn’t stopped haunting me. But I was no longer alone with that fear. Liam was here, my mother was alive…all was well.
***
I stood outside my mother’s room for several seconds before I found the courage to knock. My hand hovered near the door, trembling slightly, and I hated how difficult this simple moment felt.
I took a slow breath and knocked softly.
“Come in.”
The sound of her voice made my chest tighten. I opened the door carefully and stepped inside. She was sitting upright in bed, wrapped in a light blanket, with a book resting unopened on her lap.
The bruises on her face had begun to fade, but they hadn’t disappeared. She looked smaller than I remembered, weaker somehow, and the sight of her stole the anger from my lips before I could speak. For a moment, neither of us said anything.
My mother looked at me with uncertain eyes, like she was afraid I might turn around and leave before she had the chance to say a word. I stayed near the doorway, holding my injured arm close to my body while the silence stretched between us.
“You’re healing,” she said finally, her voice soft.
I nodded. “So are you.”
A faint, tired smile touched her lips, but it disappeared almost immediately.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I suppose I am.”
I moved a little farther into the room, though every step felt heavy with years of things we’d never said to each other. The distance between us was only a few feet, but it felt much larger, filled with memories, disappointments, and hurt that neither of us knew how to cross.
“Can I sit?” I asked.
My mother looked surprised by the question. “Of course,” she said quickly. “Please.”
I sat in the chair beside her bed and kept my eyes on my hands for a moment. She did the same, smoothing the edge of the blanket with nervous fingers. The silence returned, but it was different now. It wasn’t empty. It was full of words waiting to be spoken.
I glanced at her and saw how tired she looked, how fragile she seemed beneath the soft light of the room.
She wasn’t the strong woman I remembered from my childhood or the frightened one I’d left behind years ago.
She was simply my mother, sitting beside me with too much regret in her eyes.
And for the first time, I allowed myself to see her that way.
My mother kept smoothing the edge of the blanket across her lap, her fingers moving over the fabric again and again, as if the small motion could steady her.
I sat beside her in silence, watching her hands and listening to the faint sound of her breathing.
She opened her mouth once, then closed it again.
I looked down at my own hands, unsure whether I wanted her to speak or remain silent.
Part of me still carried the anger I’d buried for years, the anger of a child who’d waited for protection that never came.
Another part of me was simply tired, too tired to keep holding every wound alone.
My mother finally lifted her eyes to mine.
“Nora,” she said softly, “I’ve been trying to find the right words since they brought us here, and every time I begin, I realize there are no words big enough for what I need to say.”
I said nothing. I could feel my heartbeat in my throat. She swallowed hard and continued.
“I failed you,” she whispered. “I failed you in ways that can’t be undone, and I know that saying I’m sorry doesn’t erase any of it.”
The honesty in her voice startled me. I’d prepared myself for excuses, for explanations, for the familiar way she used to soften Victor’s cruelty by pretending it wasn’t as bad as it was. But she didn’t look away from me. She didn’t hide behind silence.
“I was afraid of him,” she said. “Afraid of his temper, afraid of what he would do if I disobeyed him, and afraid of being alone. I let that fear control me, and because of that, I allowed him to control our lives.” Her hands trembled as she spoke.
“I should have protected you,” she continued.
“I should have taken you and left before he could hurt you, before he could make you believe that fear was normal. Instead, I stayed. I stayed when I should have run, and I watched you carry burdens that no child ever should.”
My throat tightened painfully. I remembered the nights when I’d hidden in my room, listening to Victor’s voice rise through the house while my mother stayed silent. My mom saw something in my face and flinched.
“I know what you’re remembering,” she said quietly.
“I know you remember every time I looked away, and I remember those moments too, Nora. They haunt me every day.” Tears filled her eyes, but she didn’t let them stop her.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” she said.
“I’m not asking you to forget what happened, or to pretend that I was a good mother when I wasn’t.
I only need you to know that I see the harm I caused.
I see it clearly now, and I’m ashamed of it. ”
The room felt suddenly smaller, filled with the weight of truths we’d both avoided for years.
“I loved you,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“I loved you so much, but I let fear become stronger than that love. I let fear make me weak, and you paid the price for it.” A tear slipped down her cheek.
“I’m so sorry, Nora,” she said. “I’m sorry for every time I failed you, every time I left you alone in that house with him.
I can’t change the past, and I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness.
But I needed to tell you the truth, because you deserve at least that much from me. ”
I stared at her, unable to speak. Her apology didn’t erase the years of hurt inside me. It didn’t fix the fear, the loneliness, or the anger that had followed me long after I escaped Victor Hale.
But for the first time, my mother wasn’t hiding behind excuses. She was simply sitting in front of me, broken and honest, telling me she was sorry. And somehow, that made the pain feel both heavier and easier to carry.
I sat in silence after my mother finished speaking, unable to find the right words. Her apology still hung in the room, heavy and painful, and I could feel it settling somewhere deep inside me.
For years, my anger had been simple. It had protected me when I was too young to protect myself. I’d held onto it through every lonely night, every memory of Victor’s voice, and every moment my mother looked away when I needed her to choose me.
That anger had helped me survive. Now, as I looked at her sitting in front of me with tears in her eyes and regret written across her face, the anger felt different. It was still there, but it was no longer the only thing I felt.
My mother kept her hands folded tightly in her lap, as if she was afraid to move. I looked at her for a long moment before answering.
“I’m angry with you,” I said quietly. “I’m angry for everything you allowed to happen. I’m angry that I had to grow up afraid in my own home, and I’m angry that you didn’t take me away from him.”
The words hurt to say, but they were true. My mother closed her eyes, and a tear slipped down her cheek.
“I know,” she said softly.
“I can’t pretend that didn’t happen,” I continued. “I can’t sit here and tell you everything is fine now, because it isn’t. What happened to us changed me.”
She nodded slowly, accepting my words without trying to defend herself. For the first time in my life, I saw the exhaustion in her face and the way her hands trembled when she spoke. I saw a woman who’d been broken by Victor Hale’s control, even if that didn’t erase the harm she’d caused me.
“I don’t know if I can forgive you yet,” I admitted.
My mother opened her eyes and looked at me with a sadness so deep it almost made me look away. “You don’t have to,” she said. “Not now. Not ever, if you can’t.”
I swallowed hard. “But hearing you say it,” I whispered, “hearing you admit what happened without making excuses…it changes something.”
She stared at me, surprised.
“It doesn’t erase the past,” I said. “And it doesn’t make the pain disappear. But for the first time, I feel like you’re seeing it the way I’ve always seen it.”
My mother’s lips trembled, and she covered her mouth with her hand. I reached for the glass of water beside her bed and handed it to her. Our fingers brushed for the briefest moment, and neither of us pulled away immediately.
Beneath the old anger, I felt sadness for the woman sitting in front of me…and a small, reluctant understanding that we’d both been shaped by the same darkness in different ways.
The room grew quiet after my last words, and I could feel my mother watching me carefully, as if she was afraid to speak and ruin the fragile peace between us.
Slowly, I reached across the small space between us and placed my hand over hers. My mother went still. Her fingers trembled beneath mine, and when she looked down at our hands, tears filled her eyes again. I didn’t take her hand because everything was healed.
I took it because I was willing to try to move forward.
My mother turned her hand gently and held mine, as if she could hardly believe I was allowing her to touch me. The moment was small and fragile, but it carried more truth than any promise we could have made.
“I don’t know how long this will take,” I said quietly. “But I don’t want to keep carrying all of this pain by myself anymore.”
“I know,” she whispered. Her grip tightened around my hand, and I saw relief and sorrow mix together on her face.
I squeezed my mother’s hand once before gently letting go. Then I stood, walked to the door, and looked back at her one last time. When I stepped into the quiet hallway and closed the door behind me, I realized that I no longer had to carry my memories alone.