Page 68 of Promise Me This

Out of the corner of my eye, my own movements reflected back at me draw my gaze to the antique mirror hung on the wall. I look haggard, with purplish bruises visible beneath the rim of my glasses and a week’s worth of stubble accumulated on my chin. My scar has completely disappeared beneath the unruly overgrowth of facial hair.

The pendulum of my emotions is making me dizzy. How is it that in a little over a month I’ve managed to swing from hating Leo and wanting her gone to being eaten alive by guilt at having driven her away?

“What do I do, Mam?” I croak. “How do I fix this?”

She clicks her tongue at me, not in chastisement but in sadness. Her mouth forms a grim line. With a heavy breath drawn in through her nose, her chest inflates, and then it all flows out of her. She seems smaller afterward, somehow.

“When she’s ready, the two of you will talk.” Her gaze drifts down to her hands where they lie folded in her lap. “I’m not saying things will be perfect. A grief like that never goes away, and from what I’ve seen, she’s carried it alone for a long, long time. But when she’s ready to talk to you, remember how it felt to lash out at her without an ounce of grace for how she’s suffered. Remember how it felt to judge her too harshly. To reach for anger rather than compassion. Don’t repeat your mistake.”

I stay planted in place for so long my feet consider growing roots. Mam never looks up or explains why she thinks Leo has suffered alone. After all, her daughter had to have come sometime after her marriage. After I blocked all knowledge and news of her out of my life. Surely her husband was there for her, at least in the beginning.

Anger lashes through me at the same time my thoughts whisper, What if that bastard let her suffer alone?

As if she senses this, Mam looks up, and the rest of her message lands like a cool balm on the burns of my rage. Don’t repeat your mistake.

With a tight nod, I slip out of the room and up the stairwell, settling my pathetic peace offering in front of Leo’s door. I pause to listen, but there is no sound coming from the room. After a long moment spent weighing my options, I walk away from the gift bag, knowing it’s not enough but hoping nonetheless.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Leona

My eyes burn from straining to see in the low light cast by the oil lantern on the bedside table. If I turn on the overhead lights, I’ll certainly be able to see the baseboards I’m scrubbing a bit better, but then the light will filter under the closed door and nosy innkeepers might be tempted to see who’s occupying what should be an empty room.

The lamp will have to suffice.

The nightmares are worse since my confrontation with Callum. Suddenly it’s no longer me who can’t get to the baby as the doctor takes her from the room. Instead, with strength that defies logic, I hold Callum’s arms in a vise grip, stopping him from going after our daughter.

As the images press on my brain, I scrub harder, trying to make something, anything clean in the midst of this fucking mess.

I had my chance to tell him, and I chickened out. I convinced myself he was better off not knowing, and then the universe handed me my karma on a silver platter. It was certainly efficient, I must admit. Efficiently excruciating.

Lost in my thoughts, I miss the creaking of the door as it opens behind me. I’d probably have missed the bedsprings groaning beneath Siobhan’s weight, too, if I hadn’t turned to rinse my sponge in the bucket of warm, soapy water at my side.

“Siobhan, Christ,” I gasp, dropping the sponge into the water and splashing myself in the process. “You scared me half to death.”

“Only half?” she says, chuckling. “So still no ghost for the inn, I suppose. Better luck next time.”

I grimace at her before looking away. I’ve managed to keep contact to a minimum this week while I figure out what the hell to do. Or at least, while I come to terms with what I know I have to do.

I have to tell Callum the truth, and then I need to leave this place. Staying so long has only increased the amount of pain that I will inevitably cause. I can’t keep stretching out the days, spending time with Siobhan and the guests, when that will only make things worse in the end.

Siobhan sighs heavily as if I’ve said my thoughts aloud. I bring a soapy hand to my lips, checking to see if they’ve moved against my will.

“You know, Leona, my son can certainly be a stubborn arse, but he means well.” She shifts on the bed, but I don’t dare turn around. I can’t face her. Not without spilling all my secrets. “He just loves so hard that it sometimes gets away from him and he ends up doing things he wouldn’t otherwise be doing. Or saying. Do you understand?”

My teeth clamp down on the inside of my cheek. I know exactly what she means. I’ve been on the receiving end of that love. There was a time when I thought I was capable of giving it right back, but not anymore.

“Callum says you lost a child.”

The bucket of water nearly topples over when I try to grip it for strength. Glancing over my shoulder at Siobhan, I’m met with an expression of somber understanding. Not undeserved pity, like Callum wore, or tired sympathy like the nurses who delivered Poppy tried to offer. Her face is open and anguished in a way that feels familiar.

I nod, because it’s all I can do, and she smiles gently in return.

“I suspected you and I were the same, though I’ve never wished to be wrong about anything more.”

My face must betray my confusion, because her head tilts to the side and she pats the mattress beside her. I do as she asks, rising to my feet with a scream of pain shooting down my back before settling onto the uncomfortable springs next to her.

Her wrinkled hand comes to rest on my knee, and I cover it with my own.

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