Page 79 of Forbidden Lessons

Tears fill her eyes. She blinks them back almost bravely, as if she doesn’t want the love of her life to witness such hysteria.

Who knows?

Maybe Evelyn was capable of loving someone at some stage in her life.

But in my experience, the only thing inside her chest is a lump of charcoal.

“How dare you speak to your mother like that?” she whispers, voice shaking as much as the bony hands she clutches at her chest.

I release her, straightening to my full height so I can gaze down at her in all her pathetic frailty.

“You were never a mother to me.” I shrug, flicking my hand at her as I turn to leave. “Eat, don’t eat. I couldn’t fucking care. You’re just prolonging your own suffering.”

At the doorway, I pause, a rueful smile touching my mouth. I lay my hand on the door frame, glancing back at her over my shoulder.

“I almost pity you for not being able to appreciate the fucking irony.”

“Bastian!”

I ignore her wail, so sorrowful that the nurse I pass on my way out gives me a double take.

Go on. Call me Lucifer.

It’s taken me over a decade to draw that witch’s claws out of my heart.

I’m sure as hell not letting her sink them back in again.

I stalk past the reception counter, my ears buzzing with suppressed fury. I’m nearly at the exit when I hear someone calling my name. Not Evelyn. In her condition, her voice would never carry this far.

Turning, I tug at the sleeve of my tweed jacket. “Yes?”

The receptionist holds up a package wrapped in black paper embossed with vintage gold florals. “Your mother wanted you to have this.”

I consider leaving without taking it.

But one of the few things that kept me going through life was curiosity.

The woman behind the counter grimaces apologetically as she holds out the package. It’s the right size, and almost heavy enough, to be a ream of printer paper.

“We thought it best to keep it here, in case she forgot to give it to you.”

“Christmas isn’t for months yet,” I say dryly.

I’d open it, but that feels like giving in to her. My curiosity, however, is having a field day. I suppose that’s the only reason I came here in the first place when they called. I couldn’t care less if Evelyn withers away to a husk. She’s using her own money to pay for this place, not mine.

Jonathan’s abrupt departure thirty-four years ago spurred her to become a strong, independent woman.

Sometimes, when I’ve had too much whiskey, and the night is pressing against the window panes, and the relief of being alone is warring with the pain of having no one, then, sometimes, I wonder if my father ever thinks of me.

How different my life would have turned out if he’d been in it.

He could have stopped her. Or he might have joined her. I could be a different version of myself.

Or not here anymore.

Not all Evelyn’s offspring survived childhood.

That, I suppose, was the point.

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