Page 52 of Keeping Her Safe

“Yes, but he never wanted me. Not as a baby or when Kate died.” There. Now they knew.

“Did you know about us? Well, somehow, you did. You came here.” Evie answered her own question.

“I know everything about you, Evie. You’re the pretty one with the blond hair. You are better at sports than me; you used to follow your dad around like a puppy and asked every question you could think of, even some over and over again. When you were three, you fell off the tailgate of a pickup, and you had to get stitches and had a concussion. That was the year Della went to school for the first time, and you cried every day for a month when she walked out the door.” Zephyr let a hundred other memories that were not her own leave her mind.

“I didn’t even know all of that,” Evie whispered.

“How do you know all that?” Zoey asked. “Charley could not have told you that.”

“Kate,” Della said, slamming on the brakes. In anger, she yelled, “Catherine! Kate! She was your mother?!”

Zephyr’s eyes were wide at her oldest sister’s sudden anger. It was the first time she had seen that side of her mom in any of the girls. The fear of her drunk mom came to the surface immediately after so many years. With the car at a stop, she was able to fling open the door and get away, something she had never been able to do when her mom was alive.

Falling out of the door, she knew she was overreacting but couldn’t stop herself. But her adult legs wouldn’t carry her childhood fear away. She fell against the car and leaned against the tire, hugging her legs to her chest.

“What are you doing? The car wasn’t stopped!” Della climbed out of the SUV and stood over her like their mother.

“I’ll be quiet,” she said, tucking her head in her arms. She was twelve again, and her mom’s voice was looming over her.

Feeling arms around her, she still didn’t look up, nor did she cry. Her body shook, and she tried to send the fear back to the past where it belonged. It had been years since she had left it, but this weekend had brought up so much. So much she had forgotten.

“She really did a number on you.” Della was squatting down in front of her.

“You just sound so much like her,” Zephyr whispered.

“I didn’t know that.” Della ran her hand over Zephyrs hair to calm her. Like their mother used to.

“Did she abuse you a lot?” Zoey asked from beside her.

“Only when she drank. She never hit me. Ever. She just liked to yell. It’s been a long time, and your voice is just like hers. It just all came back,” Zephyr admitted the dark side of being raised by Kate Hart.

“How did she die?” Evie asked from above them.

“A bar fight. She was just a waitress who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Shot.”

“And Charley didn’t want you, so you went into foster care.” Della pieced together what Zephyr had told them earlier.

“Yes. Brian tried, but Charley didn’t care.”

“What about when Charley died? We should have been contacted,” Della stated.

“I asked them not to. I was close to eighteen. I had figured out my future by then, and I didn’t want to find out that you were like her. Like him. It was better not knowing,” Zephyr replied.

“How old are you?” Evie asked.

“Twenty-three.”

Evie scrunched her brows in thought. “So, she must have gotten pregnant soon after she left.”

“No, she was pregnant when she left. Charley kicked her out because she was pregnant. He didn’t believe her that the baby was his. He told her if she ever came back, he would kick you guys out also. She had no way of supporting four kids, so she left you three. You were better off here,” Zephyr said as Della pulled her to her feet.

“Life wasn’t all that great here,” Zoey replied, looking at Della and smiling a secret smile.

“You were never homeless and hungry. You’ll never know what it is like to sleep in a car or eat other people’s leftovers. To be left home alone at six for hours on end so your mom can work and not pay for a sitter. You were better off here, together.”

“But if we were there, you wouldn’t have been alone.”

“But if you were there, you would not be here today. Your lives are here, and without here, who would you be?” Zephyr got into the SUV because everyone else had.

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