Page 33 of The Last One You Loved
Gemma started to say something, but Eva cut her off. “It’s not a problem.”
Those stupid tears I’d let out yesterday and that had been prickling at me all morning tried to escape again. I clenched my fists and bit my cheek. Letting them out wouldn’t solve or change anything. I forced an even brighter smile to my lips.
“I’m gonna go help Mila,” Gemma said and excused herself, and I could see she was still hesitant about my staying. I couldn’t blame her.
Eva started to clear the table, and I joined her.
“I’m not sure how any of you can be this nice to me. I ignored all your calls…your care packages. Why don’t you hate me?” I asked Eva once the table was emptied.
She looked up from where she had her hands in the soapy water. “You lived through hell, McKenna, and like anyone who does, you had to find your own way out. A way to heal and live. We were a reminder of those painful events. But I won’t deny being hurt or deny I hoped you’d make your way back to us someday.”
I bounced on my toes, tugged at my hair, and then looked around the kitchen at the tools and ingredients spread on the counters.
“Where do you want me to start?” I asked.
“I need to get it organized in my head first. Give me about ten minutes, and then I’ll put you to work. Why don’t you take your coffee into the family room and rest for a moment?”
I grabbed the cow mug and found my way into a room filled with even more memories. At least this space hadn’t changed very much. The furniture had been upgraded, but it was almost all newer versions of what had been there before. I’d played video games with Maddox on a similarly overstuffed couch and done homework at a bulky, square coffee table. Maddox and I had run up and down the dark wooden staircase, tracking in mud and dirt from the fields, and Eva had never yelled about it. A large Christmas tree had always sat in front of the huge bay window during the holidays, and I figured it would be up in a matter of days, knowing how much Eva loved Christmas.
Since the moment I’d met the Hatleys, they’d always had a present for me under the tree. I hadn’t been able to keep many of the presents because Mama had taken them away when she found them. She didn’t want me to have anything new…anything that gave me pleasure. She wanted me to be as miserable as she was. My heart thudded with twisted pain. Being hated so much had made it hard to accept being loved.
One of the walls in the family room had been converted into a gallery of picture frames. I found my way over, surprised to see my face amongst the other Hatley siblings. Mixed in with the pictures of my past and the family were newer pictures of Maddox and Mila.
In one, he was holding her as a tiny little thing, maybe a year old or so. She had a crocheted blanket clutched in her hands below enormous eyes that stuck out of a body that was too thin. She must have been sick… That twisted something in my gut, but in all the later pictures, she appeared healthier and full of smiles. And Maddox… God, every time the camera caught him looking at her, his expression was full of love and awe. I remembered that look directed at me once upon a time. It crawled through my heart, snagging at my veins and ripping more holes in them.
What I didn’t see in any of the pictures was Mila with a woman. Just like there were no pictures of Maddox with one either. There were no wedding photos—not that they needed to be married to have a child, but still. There were no images of her at the hospital giving birth or tucked into the table during the holidays. Mila’s mother’s absence was almost as telling as if she’d been there.
I paused at a picture of Mila sitting on Maddox’s lap on the tailgate of the Bronco with its top off. She was laughing at the person taking the picture and had a child-sized fishing rod dangling from her grasp. Right next to it was a picture of Maddox and me taken on the day he’d bought the Bronco. He had his arm around my shoulder, and we were both smiling like goons.
The bright memory unpeeled itself from the vault I’d locked it away in. We’d driven with Brandon two towns over to pick it up. Maddox had been so dang proud of the fact he’d earned the money for it himself by bussing tables, schlepping stables at the Abbots’, and even working as a lifeguard at the high school pool during the summers.
The next picture was Maddox and me right after we’d first met. I’d been invited to his birthday party, and the only reason Mama had let me go was because CPS had been at the house the day before, and she was trying to make it look like she was a good mother. I’d been in awe of everything about the Hatley house and family, and I’d shut down a bit, hiding out on the porch, away from all the commotion. Maddox had found me on the steps, and someone had taken the shot of us, knee to knee, with his arm around my shoulder just like in the picture of us with the Bronco. In this photograph, I had messy pigtails that I’d done myself, a checkered shirt that had a hole in the sleeve, and jeans that were too small. I remembered being embarrassed about them because they wouldn’t button anymore. Maddox hadn’t cared. He was still smiling, but I’d been expressionless.
My eyes went from my non-smiling face in that picture, to me smiling with him behind the Bronco, to Mila smiling with him on the tailgate. And I suddenly saw it. The elusive thought that had hit me earlier. The shape of her eyes, her dark brows and blonde hair, even the shape of her cheeks and jaw. It all slammed into my chest with a gasp. She looked like me. She could almost be a doppelgänger of me as a child. Not only did she look like me, but she also looked like Mama.
Holy shit!
I shook my head. No way…
My chest burned. My eyes watered. I could barely breathe. A ragged gasp escaped me.
Eva was suddenly there, and I turned wide eyes to her.
“Who’s her mother?” I choked out through a throat that threatened to close completely.
Eva’s expression turned soft with concern. “You need to talk to Maddox about that.”
“Eva…”
She cut me off with a wave and a hand on my shoulder. “I can’t talk about it, McKenna. Maddox isn’t supposed to either, but if you want the truth, that’s where you have to go for it.”
I turned and nearly ran for the door.
“He’s at work.”
I turned back at the last moment. “And where exactly is that?” I demanded.
“He’s the sheriff, so I expect you’ll find him at the station.”
