Page 56 of Danger Close (Mourningkill #3)

Mommy

Teri

“Mom?” Trinity was at the guest room door, as I started to pack what meager things I had to go back to Philadelphia.

Cobra never came to the hospital. Every time the curtain was pulled, or the door opened, my heart leapt to my throat, eager to see him.

But it was never him. I was grateful for my daughter, who stayed beside me.

I had to shoo her away so she could get some sleep.

But she refused. It wasn’t until Greg showed up, and promised to stay with me that she finally went back to her husband.

Spending time with your mother in the hospital was a rotten way to start a honeymoon.

Don’t spend your honeymoon with an abandoned woman. Surely, it’s bad luck.

I would not force myself on Cobra.

I would not force myself on his ideal life they’ve created for themselves.

“ Oui ?” I answered my child when she called to me a second time.

I didn’t look at her as my bandaged hands fumbled to unfold the clothes Cobra had initially kidnapped me in. I’d have to change into them.

Nothing I was wearing belonged to me. They’d come from Cobra. I doubt he’d want anything of his to cover me now. I’m sure he’d rather I become a far off, distant memory.

“You’re leaving?” Her voice almost sounded sad, but I knew that it was probably just my medications working.

“It’s time for me to go back to Philadelphia. I’m sure I’ve been fired from work for not showing up. Not that it matters. I’ll find something else.”

“Mommy, your hands…”

“It’s just a flesh wound.” In the literal sense, at least. I had done nothing but rip muscle, fat, tissue… While it ached, and the nerves to my ring finger and pinky on my right hand might require rehab, I’d figure a way around it.

“Mommy…”

“I have to get changed, darling. Can we talk later?” I swallowed down the pain building in my throat.

“Mommy!” The whine in her voice broke my heart.

I turned around and looked at her, and balked when there were tears in her eyes.

My daughter didn’t cry. She might complain. She may rage. But cry? Never.

“ Cherie ,” I whispered. “What’s wrong?”

“Did he really hurt you?” She swallowed, and pressed her lips flat. “Did Ray hurt you? Did he…”

“Trinity.” I reached out my arms, and hugged her. “ Mon Dieu .”

I had to stand on my tiptoes to embrace her around the shoulders, and it felt ridiculous. So I stepped back, just embarrassed that I had even tried.

That was not me. Not us. That wasn’t our relationship.

“I can’t really comfort you or hold you. You’re so much taller than me.” I cupped her cheek. “So much like your father.”

“Did Ray hurt you?” And just like her father, she could not be stopped from finding the answers she wanted.

“Yes.” I stepped back, and sat down on the bed.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” She looked so hurt, and that hurt me. “I understand not telling me when I was ten years old, but… but now? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I placed my thickly bandaged hands in front of me, palm up on my lap. Blood seeped through the white cloth, past all the gauze and cotton beneath.

“Because…” I swallowed.

There are moments in a parent’s life where the child you raised stands in front of you, and you realize they’re fully grown. We have to swallow our pride, and our memories, to treat them as the person they are, rather than the child we remember, further making us irrelevant to them.

“Because I did not want you to be like me.” Trinity sat down beside me. She was a head taller than me, a grown woman. But in so many ways, I still saw her as a child. A doe-eyed young thing with brown hair like her father.

She dyed her hair black which looked fine on her. But to me, she was perfect just as she was born. Even more so, now, since I had a new adoration for her father.

Though, I was sure he no longer felt the same about me.

“My father did not love my mother. He would also hit her. And he did not want me. It is a wound that has never fully healed, and I thought… I thought Cobra had left me. Left us.” I shrugged.

“You loved Ray. I did not want you to think that the one father you had didn’t want you.

I’d rather you hate me than… than to think you had been unwanted. ”

Trinity placed her head on my lap, her hands beneath her cheek and pulled her legs up onto the bed, her shoes dangling off the edge.

She was far too tall for it, but she folded herself to make it work.

I tucked her hair behind her ear. She was too large, like the German Shepherd outside that thought it was a lap dog.

“I thought I was saving you from becoming like me,” I said, idly. “I wanted to protect you from getting hurt. From needing and wanting love so desperately that you let someone hit you, because you fear being alone.”

There’s nothing quite as glorious as looking into the face of your own child. There’s a soul-deep satisfaction in simply watching them breathe. I’ve never found a name for that feeling. Maybe no word exists for it.

“ Maman ,” she said, using the French pronunciation. “My ex-husband, Heath. He… he used to hit me.”

I tensed. It was like the porcelain of my exterior irreparably cracked. A vase that could no longer contain what it was meant to.

“I divorced him, though. Charlotte helped me. And when he came after me again, I…” She swallowed. “I killed him.”

My hand stilled. Questions… So many questions. Where’s the body? Do we need to get rid of it? What about the evidence? Were there witnesses? Who do I have to kill to make sure she never saw the inside of a jail cell? Or did I need to pay for a lawyer? I’d find a way…

“It’s handled. Dad had it handled.” I watched her jaw tick. “But I stood up for myself.”

I nodded, and the crack was repaired, just a little. Someone still hurt her. But she had the means to take care of herself, and the support I never had.

She pushed herself up, her long hair cascading over her shoulder as she looked at me.

I cupped her cheek with my bandaged hand and looked into her eyes. The perceptive, mutli-colored eyes that she got from her father. She also got his face, and much of his body. Thank God, she got almost nothing from me. She was better this way.

“You don’t have to protect me anymore,” she said.

“I know.” I tried to smile, but it made me sad.

Another reminder of my own irrelevance to my child. Another reminder that she did not need her mother.

“You have everything you need here,” I kissed her forehead, needing to rise a bit off the bed to do so. “It’s time for me to let you live your life.”