Page 75 of If You Fight

“I’m sorry, Serena.”

“I’m okay. It taught me a lesson I’ll never forget. I can’t afford to be weak ever again.”

My words made a look of sadness fill her eyes. “I wish you never had to learn that lesson, but in your father’s world, it’s one everyone learns at one time or another.”

We sat silently across from one another, each of us knowing all too well what happened when you allowed yourself to feel even the slightest weakness around my father. We’d both learned the hard way.

“I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me for not being there all these years. I wonder if I had been if things would have been easier for you.”

I shook my head, unwilling to live in the past for another minute now that I had my mother back in my life again. “I don’t blame you for anything. I blame him. He took you away from us and made sure you stayed away. I can’t forgive him for that. I won’t.”

She squeezed my hand and frowned. “Don’t let what he is infect you. You somehow came through all those years with the ability to love. Don’t let it be ruined by your hatred of him.”

“I can’t forgive him for keeping you here all these years. He sticks you in this carriage house, intentionally leaving the bigger house empty. He’s heartless, and one of these days, he’s going to pay for what he did to you and us.”

She looked around the tiny kitchen and smiled. “For a long time, I hated this house. It was a gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless. I was trapped here. He had people watch me twenty-four hours a day for years. I felt like a prisoner, put away for a crime I never committed. But then I guess I just accepted things, and it became my goal to wait him out. I would outlive him, and all I could hope for would be that you and Janelle would be willing to see me when the time came.”

Suddenly, my conversation with the gardener outside made me worry for her safety. “I told that Michael guy my name. What if he calls him? Are there still men who watch the house here?”

My mother smiled sweetly. “Not for years. I don’t even think your father cares if you see me now. I imagine he thinks the damage is done and you won’t be able to forgive me for all he’s convinced you I did. And as for Michael, don’t worry. Your father has never treated him with any bit of kindness, like he does with most of the people who work for him. Michael won’t be interested in helping him anytime soon.”

“But what if he mentions someone named Serena came to see you? I’d hate for you to suffer because of me.”

“Don’t worry. He won’t. Your father doesn’t frighten me anymore. Let him rant and rave. I have my daughter back and just in time for me to become a grandmother.”

The sound of those words made me happy. My mother had her daughter back, and I had my mother back.

And nothing my father could do would change that.

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