Page 92 of Darling Beasts

I shook my head, reminding myself I was no longer thirteen years old, and now I knew better. Mom wasn’t selfish. She must have believed she was in control of the chaos. We’d all done it to some degree or another. “One last thing...” I said and eyed Talia again. She was awfully quiet, and I wasn’t sure how to take it. “I’m sorry for questioning the cancer narrative. It wasn’t fair.”

Talia lowered her chin. I watched as a single tear dropped onto her clasped hands. A second tear, onto one of her platinum Cartier LOVE bracelets.

“The cancer thing,” Talia said, and my heart boomed in my ears. “You thought it was an excuse, a way to make her death more acceptable. The truth is...” She swallowed, a big lump that seemed to stick on the way down. “You might be right. I don’t know if her cancer came back. I only heard about it after the fact, same as you.”

Chapter Sixty-Four

Talia

“There weren’t any signs of cancer,” Talia said, zipping her diamondTpendant up and down its chain. “None that I saw, but we never discussed health stuff. I left in August, and she died in October, so it might’ve come back in between. I had my doubts but accepted Dad’s explanation.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Gabby asked. Talia couldn’t look at her. She couldn’t bear to see her expression.

“I’m not sure,” Talia admitted, and it was the truest thing she could’ve said. “Probably because it was only a suspicion. Also, I really needed to believe the cancer narrative? Otherwise, I would’ve been consumed by guilt. I was already worried you and Ozzie blamed me for not preventing what happened.”

Gabby didn’t say anything, and Talia’s body tensed. She’d been right all along.

“Your silence tells me everything,” Talia said, jaw quivering. “We all agree. I should’ve stopped it.”

“Talia! The silence is because I’m literally speechless. How could you have stopped anything? You weren’t even there!”

“But I knew she’d gone off her meds.”

“Wealldid. It wasn’t exactly a secret.”

“Still. I was older,” she said, “and didn’t intervene. I figured she wasn’t hurting anyone, and she wasn’t visiblydepressed.”

If anything, it was the opposite. That summer, their momhad never been more vibrant, more interested in the world. Never more interested in Talia, she was only realizing now.

“But what could you have done?” Gabby asked. “If Mom wasn’t listening to her doctor, she wouldn’t have listened to you, and definitely not Dad.” As Gabby spoke, Talia’s heart swelled with gratitude. She hadn’t understood how badly she’d needed to hear someone else say these things. “Mom was the adult—”

“Technically, so was I.”

“Okay, but barely. And if you somehow managed to talk her into going back on her meds, how long would it have lasted? You couldn’t stay at the Ranch forever.”

“But I left,” Talia said, wondering why the hell she seemed so intent on proving she deserved to be hated. “I went to school and stayed there, even when it became clear something was seriously off.” As each week passed, Daphne got harder and harder to reach, or she’d call at odd hours and jabber away. Mindy said she was working a lot, hardly leaving the barn.

“What were you going to do, fly all the way back?”

Talia finally looked at her. “Mom begged me not to leave. She wanted me to stay until the end of the year.”

Talia watched a jolt of shock run through her sister. Gabby would blame her after all, and fair enough. But just as quickly, Gabby composed herself. She grabbed both of Talia’s hands.

“Listen to me. You couldn’t have changed anything. Not if you stayed another month, a year, two years. It wasn’t your job.”

“If not me, who? Mom and Aunt Dee weren’t speaking, and her lifestyle wasn’t conducive to forming lasting close friendships.”

Gabby smirked. “Nor her tendency to ask friends if she could paint their children nude. I’m sorry!” she said, laughing when she clocked Talia’s wide, alarmed eyes. “But you have to admit, most people would find that off-putting.”

“You’re not wrong,” Talia said, and a smile snuck out. “Ihope you don’t think I’m being weird, implying I was heronlyfriend, or the one thing she had to live for.”

“I don’t think you’re being weird. Not about this, anyway.” Gabby playfully bumped Talia’s knee with hers. “And youwereher closest friend. Closest everything.”

With these words, Talia was swamped by a sudden and overwhelming sadness. She was supposed to be Daphne’s favorite and had been trying to prove she was a good daughter, thebestdaughter, for decades now, and to what end? If something happened to Dad—God forbid—she’d technically be an orphan stuck with siblings she’d alienated most of her life.

“It’s kind of insulting, actually,” Gabby said, yanking Talia out of her own head. “To listen to you blame yourself for what happened to Mom when I directly caused an injury to our dad.” Gabby laughed, but concern was written all over her face.

“I’ll repeat your wise words. Dad’s the adult and you’re the child. It’s not your fault.”

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