Page 91 of The Seven Miracles of Beatrix Holland
“You did.”
“Damn straight I did. Me and Naya, no one else.”
“How could you possibly have let Cordelia go?”
He looked up at the sky as if hoping the answer would be written in the clouds. “She said she’d take you both if I fought her. And I knew by then what she could do.”
“You knew about the magic.”
“Trickery, you mean. She was good at the sleight of hand. Astrid abandoned you, never forget that. She left you behind without a backward glance.”
It still stung, but not in the way he was probably hoping it would. “I admit you and Naya did a good job of bringing me up.”
“We did.”
“You always said family was the most important thing. Me, you, and Naya.”
“Yes.” Her father scowled. “I know what you’re trying to do. Don’t bother.”
But she kept going. “If family was the most important thing, why keep me from half of mine?”
“I chose the best mother in the world to raise you.”
“I thought my own mother was dead. Because you lied. Then you substituted another woman in her place.”Sorry, Naya.
Her father’s neck turned red, and then purple. “Naya was everything to us. You know that. You’re just trying to make me feel like I did the wrong thing.”
“By not telling me I had a mother and atwin sister? You did the wrong thing. Do you have any idea how I grieved Astrid?”
“You didn’t even remember her.”
“I knew how her absence felt, though. You wouldn’t even tell me how she died. It took me begging for you to even tell me she’d had cancer.”
At five years old, when she’d asked how her mother had died, Dad had said,When you’re older, I’ll explain it to you.At ten, he’d told her that Mom had cancer. At thirteen, he’d told her it was lung cancer.
Her father rubbed his jaw. “I hated lying to you.”
“Yeah, well, I hate that you did, too. You have no idea how much I knew about lung cancer as a thirteen-year-old.” Beatrice had insisted that Naya and Dad get the house tested for radon and had held her breath when she walked past people smoking on sidewalks. When she was a high school sophomore, James Reyes had offered her a cigarette. She’d batted it out of his hand and said, “The risk for lung cancer is twenty to forty percent higher in smokers than non-smokers, and tobacco use is responsible for seventy-nine to ninety percent of lung cancer.” He’d said in response, “Give me fifty cents for wasting that smoke, you little freak.” She’d had a three-inch binder full of research on somatic mutations in the TP53 and EGFR genes, filing each new bit of information by date of publication in plastic sheet protectors.
“Oh, Beatrice.”
“Did you even love Naya? Or were you just trying to find me a mother so you could have less guilt over keeping the secret of my mother and sister from me?”
He looked stricken. “I can’t believe you would say that. You know I worshipped that woman.”
Dad had thought Naya hung not just the moon, but also the sun and probably every single star, too. No one knew that better than Beatrice did. Why, then, did she keep twisting the knife? She couldn’t help herself, though—the words just kept coming. “I’m not sure about any of your motives anymore. You’re so careful with money—maybe you just didn’t want to pay for a nanny for me. Easier to marry someone?”
“Button, no.”
“My name is Beatrix. Isn’t it?” Would claiming her birth name give her distance from this man, the one who’d ostensibly taught her that honesty was key?
“No.” He ground the word out. “You can’t use that name. That’s her name. Please, please use the one I chose for you. You’re my Beatrice. My Button. That’s why I’m here—”
“You said that you came to bring me my stuff.”
“I did.”
“Could have FedExed it.”
