43. Scarlett #3
She exhales a shaky breath and smiles. “I was being ridiculous. Those were my fears, Scarlett. They were dumb and unfounded and, worse, damaging. I harmed the relationship I had with my son. The relationship I could have, and should have, had with the woman he chose to love. I made myself look like a fool.” She drops her chin and sighs.
“I made you feel excruciatingly unwelcome in my home during a time you should’ve been supported, not villainized.
And your only crime was loving my son.” She brings pained eyes back up to mine.
“I won’t ask you to forgive me, because forgiveness is unreasonable after my abhorrent behavior.
And I certainly won’t ask you to trust me, since I haven’t earned it.
I understand that I’m in no position to ask anything of you, Scarlett.
But I will. Since we’re talking, and you’re so graciously listening, I’ll push my luck just a little further and ask you for just this one thing. ”
I swallow a choking lump of nerves before they end me. “W-what thing?”
“That when he tells you he’s sorry for anything, for everything, that you believe him.
That when he confesses to you my violation of your privacy, my insistence on tracking your incoming and outgoing communications, you let him off the hook and forgive him, because he was following orders and he never wanted to hurt you. ”
“Arabella—”
“And while we’re going, I’ll ask you to love him just as he loves you, and that eventually, when he follows you away from here, because you’ll never truly be comfortable in the place that contributed to your pain, that you please, please take care of his heart.”
Tears glisten and sparkle in her eyes, punctuated by the tremor in her jaw.
“He’ll go with you,” she rasps. “And going will be the right choice for him, because that’s the love you share.
But he’ll be hurting, too, because I’ve spent thirty years making my emotional well-being his responsibility.
” She reaches up and knuckles a stubborn tear from her cheek.
“That was wrong of me. A mother’s job is not to tie her children to the nest and convince them they can’t leave or her heart would break.
It’s her job to give them a little shove, knowing she taught them how to fly.
I’m telling you these things now, while he’s not here, so you have time to process the anger.
The hurt. The violation. And then I’ll plead his case and hope you’ll be as gracious as you’ve always been, and forgive him for the things he didn’t do. ”
“The texts and stuff?” My voice crackles with a dry ache. It splinters on my tongue. “How he was reading them, you mean?”
“On my orders,” she insists. “My fears. My responsibility. He’s not due back for a little while, my husband is on the other side of the property, and my second son is far enough away he won’t hear my yelp when you punch me in the face.”
Just imagining a scenario where I could sock Arabella freakin’ Aster in the nose makes me giggle.
“Say whatever you want to say,” she presses. “Hit me if you need to hit me. Do whatever you feel you need to do, so when Sebastion arrives back, you’ll have worked through your resentment and none of it lands on him.”
“I’ve suspected my texts and calls were being monitored for a while.”
“You…” Her eyes grow wide. “Really?”
“I mean…” I drag the sleeves of my sweater down over my hands and nibble on my thumbnail. “Yeah. I didn’t tell him it was my birthday: he still baked me a cake.”
“We baked you a cake!” Koda chirps loudly. “I helped! And then my poop the next day came out pink!”
I gesture toward the boy as though to say see? Exactly.
“I mentioned horses to my brother in text, and soon after that, I met Jasper.” I glance toward the handsome beast who watches us through mildly intolerant eyes.
We’re too noisy. “I already suspected these things,” I admit quietly.
“And yet, I chose action… falling in love, instead of inaction; freezing up. My suspicions were confirmed when I overheard you at the table last night. And still, I chose to love him.” I press my hand to my heart. “Even though it hurt.”
“Will you continue to choose him?” she whimpers. “Even though I’ve shown you nothing but hostility and hate? Even though you’d be well within your rights to walk away and forget us altogether?”
“Y—”
“Because I’ll beg if I need to. I’ll stay away, if that’s what you need. If you want to be with him, but you’re worried I’ll be the constantly interfering mother-in-law, I’ll make a promise to you now to never show my face again.”
“No, I…” Shaking my head, I take a step back and watch in real time how the formidable Arabella Aster’s hope crumbles. “I can’t accept your terms. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve stopped existing once already,” she pleads desperately. “For him, I simply disappeared. I could do it again.” She gulps. Nods. “For him.”
“But that would make him sad.” I take her hand and sandwich it between my palms. “To love someone means we want them to be happy, right? To love him is to know he loves the mother who died three decades ago to keep him safe.”
She chokes out a tearful whimper. “Scarlett—”
“Maybe don’t shout at me anymore,” I snicker.
“And don’t look at me like I set your cat on fire.
Trust me to love your son enough to know he would never be happy if I let you disappear again, and I’ll trust you enough to know there are no lengths you won’t go to, to ensure his happiness.
In the end, we kinda want the same thing, right? ”
“To love him?” She swipes her cheeks. “To make sure he’s safe and happy.”
“Exactly. And if it’s not too much trouble, maybe you could have someone teach me how to buckle a saddle on a horse, because I really liked riding Jasper that time, and Koda suggested we could take him and Cinderella out on a walk together.”
“I’ll teach you,” she tearfully snickers. “Promise.”
“And when I leave here, which I will at some point, because I have a home somewhere else, you could trust that I love Sebastion enough not to tell the secret.”
She nods, swinging her head wildly up and down.
“Even though I’m pretty certain I know where we are, and if I tried really hard, I could probably find my way back.”
She coughs out a snotty, sniffly giggle. “I sincerely hope you do. You’re welcome in my home, Scarlett. Always.”
“I heard you’re pretty amazing at Super Mario, too, so maybe we could—”
“Scarlett?”
I wrench my head around and lock eyes with those of my friend. My guide. My confidant, sometimes, when my confession wasn’t as scary as my silence. But instead of staring at me, he wheels awed eyes to Arabella. “I wondered,” he breathes. “I suspected. But I thought it couldn’t be true.”
“Who are you?” Arabella becomes that fierce woman I met on my first night here.
The soldier. The soldadera who commands her own army.
Painfully grabbing Koda by the shoulder and eliciting a cry from deep in his chest, she tears him around to stand behind her back, and while I merely stare, frozen in place, and watch in horrified fascination as Detective Mills pulls a gun from his holster, Arabella angles her body and stands in front of me, too. “Name,” she orders viciously. “Now.”