Chapter 13 Laurie
Laurie
I’m going to Scotland. I’m not sure when I’ll be back or if I’ll have reception. Sorry for the late notice, Mom. But I need to do this. I’ll see you soon! Love you!
Laurie imagined her sister’s gloating face as her only daughter was swallowed into Maureen’s viper nest.
That snake bitch!
“John!” she shrieked, beckoning her husband from his hideaway. “Get in here!” Her voice came out so high there was only an infinitesimal chance her aging husband, who’d missed more and more of her summonses lately, actually heard her. She dropped her pitch, seething. “Now!”
The recliner chair’s mechanisms complained as he shifted his weight forward, and she returned to the text from Delilah.
She’d been obtuse to think she was the only one who’d received the unexpected letter and unsolicited photos, or that there wasn’t a worse intention behind them—considering they’d come from the sister who’d stolen the only inheritance their absent father had left behind.
Clearly, Maureen wouldn’t be happy until she’d taken everything Laurie had. Even her daughter.
John moseyed down the hallway. “What was that, honey? I couldn’t quite hear you.”
“It appears our daughter is abandoning us.” She shoved her phone out in front of her and watched his eyes moving slowly back and forth. “Did you know about this?”
John pushed his glasses back up his nose to sit squarely in front of his emerald eyes.
Occasionally, Laurie would catch a glimpse of those eyes in a certain light and be sent back in time.
She would be twenty-two again, swept off her feet by the man of her dreams, who made her laugh until little crumbs of mascara ran down her cheeks with her tears.
But now she was in her fifties, the man she’d fallen in love with was losing his hearing and his hair, and she resented the eyes he’d given their daughter—eyes wielded in defiance against Laurie since the day Delilah, currently abandoning her on a plane, was born.
John drew a tedious breath and tutted the way he did when he was pondering something. “I didn’t know, but I’m having difficulty grasping the crisis here.”
“Our daughter is being manipulated by my sister.” Her lip curled on the last word.
“Her aunt?” John asked casually—like it was an innocent enough thought. Like he wasn’t talking about the sister who’d been her best friend once—who’d promised not to leave. Like he wasn’t talking about the biggest heartbreak of Laurie’s life.
“Yes, darling.” She seized her phone. “Her aunt, whom she hasn’t seen in twenty years because her aunt stole my inheritance and disappeared into the woods of a sad, soaking, gray little country full of toothless men in skirts.”
Her husband blinked at her. “And you’re worried our daughter might . . . fall for one of the toothless, soggy men in skirts?”
If there was one thing Laurie wasn’t worried about, it was that her daughter might actually manage to find an honest-to-god relationship.
She’d been pining after that Trey for so long sometimes Laurie would see Delilah’s eyes follow the boy around a room and feel nauseous.
It was impossible to understand how Delilah could love Trey so entirely but refuse to make the needed changes to appeal to him.
Laurie had even purchased Delilah a gym membership for Christmas last year.
She didn’t think she’d gone once. Watching her daughter approach thirty without a dating history or any real hope for happiness kept Laurie up at night sometimes. She was running out of ways to help.
She took a deep breath, trying to center herself as the hum of hot, sharp worry grew anyway. “No, John. I’m not worried about Delilah and her . . . love life. I’m worried that my sister will fill her head with poison until my daughter hates me.”
John rubbed his chin. “That doesn’t sound like your sister.”
Laurie could feel the rage gathering just under her skin, buzzing like bees in her skull. She glared at her husband, barely contained.
John pulled his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Okay. Your sister is a snake. But Deli is not easily swayed.”
They were too much alike, John and her daughter. They got along too easily. They never fought. It put Laurie on edge, and it made John an unreliable ally at best and a traitor at worst. She tilted her chin up in challenge, daring him to take Delilah’s side.
He sighed. “You’re right, dear. Of course you’re right.”
Laurie smiled in her small victory, clipping her tone. “And are you going to stop her?”
“How?”
She fought to keep from falling into what John called her “Preschool Teacher Voice.” “Talk. To. Your. Daughter.”
John rubbed his glasses against his shirt, no doubt adding more micro-scratches to the lenses. Laurie bought him a microfiber cloth months ago, but she’d never seen him use it. Even when she gave him everything he needed, the man would still do things the wrong way.
“I can try, darling, but I don’t know how much I can do. She has a mind of her own.”
“Yes.” Laurie waved a dismissive hand and returned to her screen. “You’ve made quite sure of that.”
As John began back down the hallway, Laurie opened her recently called list and stabbed at the name at the top. She fumed as the phone rang.
“Hello?”
Laurie sat up a bit straighter. “Mom?”
“You called my house, Lorraine. Were you expecting someone else?”
Laurie suppressed the urge to scream for the thousandth time that no one called her Lorraine. “Delilah has left the country without so much as a note.” She heard the rustling of blankets as her mother sat up in bed. “She’s run away.” Laurie paused. “To Scotland.”
Her mother sucked in a breath. “Maureen?”
“Yes.”
“No!” Rosemary McDonnell was wide awake. “That bitch!”
That, Laurie thought as her husband shook his head in retreat—so slightly he probably thought she wouldn’t notice—is more like it.