Page 75 of Resurrection

Her mother gives an unsteady laugh. “Quite a lot. If I ignore whatever is happening long enough and hard enough, everything is fine. It’s always just fine.”

Sounds unhinged to me. Or heavily medicated.

“What or I guesswhodid Dad do all those years ago? According to him, this problem is your fault.” Carys slides her hand along my leg.

Whenever I was the go-between for Lorcan and my father, I never minded. I liked the power of knowing the minds on each side. Much easier to fuck with people when you’re in their head. But Carys hates the tug-of-war. Has always hated that role with her parents. Once her younger brother died, her position only got worse.

Opal’s teacup wobbles as she lifts it up off the table. With a huff, she pushes the cup onto the surface and fishes around inher purse. Her fingers latch onto something like a lifeline, relief descending. She pops the top on the pill bottle and takes two.

Medicated it is. Interesting. Whatever she’s working up the guts to tell her daughter must be a doozy.

Opal presses the heel of her hand to her forehead, and there’s a hint of panic on Carys’s face. The medication must be a surprise. I squeeze her shoulder. Our eyes lock, and then I kiss the top of her head.

“What’s going on, Opal? We can’t help you if we don’t know what’s happening,” I say.

“Help me?” She laughs. “Finn Donaghey is going to help me?” Another unsteady laugh tumbles out. “Though I am strangely happy you’re here.” She meets my gaze. “I always wondered if you’d circle back. My daughter was so smitten with you. Didn’t matter what you said or did.”

“I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk about him,” Jay reasons from the armchair, cutting her off before she says something stupid to piss me off.

“No, no.” She stares at Carys, and tears pool in her eyes. She sniffs and hesitates for another moment. “You have to understand this was forty-seven years ago. I didn’t have the same options women have now. I—I was trapped, and your father saved me.” She rests her face in her hands, and when she glances up, her mascara has smeared. “Or I thought he was saving me.”

“Mom, what are you talking about?”

Opal sniffs and takes the tissue Jay passes her. “I was married before. I was married when I met your father. I married too young. He was an abusive man. He used to hit me all the time. I was hospitalized several times. But he was powerful, influential, unstoppable. No one messed with him.”

“Oh,” Carys breathes out the word and straightens on the couch. “I can’t believe this has never come up.”

“Your father saw me at a cocktail party with my husband. The attraction was instant. He wanted me. I wanted a way out. Charles had enough money and influence to help me escape. At first, he was so charming.” Her face is full of naked pleading. “You know what he can be like. When the light in his eyes is on you, it doesn’t feel like it could stray.” She bunches up the tissue in her hand. “Then, later, I thought,” her voice cracks, and she focuses on her lap before she continues, “‘well, at least he doesn’t hit me.’” One shoulder raises in resignation.

“That’s awful,” Carys says while I make slow circles with my thumb on her arm.

Opal takes a shaky breath. “That’s not the worst part.”

Carys frowns. My family is pretty fucked up, so while this is interesting, it’s not earth-shattering. Not the commentary either of them wants to hear right now. Sometimes I can keep my inner asshole under control.

“I had a three-year-old daughter.” Opal’s voice hitches on the last word, and she almost doesn’t get it out. “And I left her behind.”

“Oh, Mom.” Carys scurries away from me to hug her mother. “Your husband wouldn’t let you take her or see her? You must have been devastated.”

I sigh as she comforts Opal. She has such a good heart. If she considered the situation, she’d come to the conclusion I’m making. Her mother wouldn’t be angry at Charles if her ex-husband kept the child from her. Would she feel guilty? Maybe. This guilty? Nope.

“I always wondered if that was why Lucas, your brother, died.” She chokes on the words. “I abandoned one child—so God takes another to show me what I should have felt the first time.” She frames Carys’s face. “Nothing can happen to you. I can’t lose you too.”

“But if he wouldn’t let you take her…”

Opal’s expression is tortured. “I wish I could lie to you,” she whispers. “But there’s too much at stake.”

There’s a loaded silence, and I want Carys to put this together. Opal doesn’t want to admit the truth. She won’t get there without a nudge in the right direction. “It wasn’t her ex-husband who stopped her from taking her daughter,” I say. “It was Charles.”

Carys turns to me and shakes her head. “Dad wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t. Why would he do that?”

Her mother’s defeated gaze meets mine over her daughter. Even now, she wants to believe the best of her father. Or at least can’t come to terms with the worst.

My old man was a son of a bitch who killed his first wife to take a second. But he didn’t abandon me. Lorcan’s mother tried her hardest to parent me, but my father kept reminding her I was his son, not hers. Whenever she tried to step in, coddle me, she was forced out. But she never stopped trying. Not even on her deathbed when she told me to leave the past buried.

Her death ruined me as much as my mother’s. Looking back, I loved her, and she loved me. The problem was I didn’t know what to do with those feelings once I had the truth. She asked my father to put her, his mistress, first, and he did. I raged against her love, seeking revenge and a warped justice. Fat fucking lot of good that reaction has done me.

“He did,” Opal whispers. “I agreed. He wanted a fresh start. A clean slate.” She takes a deep, wavering breath. “I wanted to be safe for the first time in years.”

---