Page 137 of Lost
Or it could be that my pack just can’t get enough of me. That could be it.
“I’m wearing clothing, Mother,” I say, my heels clicking along the marble floor as I walk toward the sitting room.
“If I were you, I’d wear something that didn’t accentuate my hips, Hollis. Your ass is also unseemingly large in that skirt. You should burn it immediately,” she hisses.
“If I burned it immediately, I’d be even more unsuitably dressed,” I remind.
My mother is willowy and tall, and wears dresses that accentuate her delicate appearance. She doesn’t have much cleavage to speak of, or curves. In her mind, that’s what I should look like as well, and she’s never been able to let me live down the fact that I don’t.
“Very cute,” she mutters. “All of that fancy education, and you use it to turn on me.”
While I had tutors, I don’t think they’re the reason for my scathing access to sarcasm. After I left home, I didn’t see a reason to continue higher education.
“Let’s not do this,” I say, finding a spot on the couch that I like. The heavy perfume my mother insists on wearing seems to be less prominent here.
Sitting across from me, she shakes her head, her blond hair not moving from its elegant chignon. “I heard you have a pack now. Your choice is less than acceptable, Hollis.”
“They’re my scent matches, Mother. I highly doubt that my ‘choice’ had much to do with that,” I say drolly.
While biology has a part in this, I did still choose Pack Ledger. Anything else would have been unacceptable to them or myself.
“If you hadn’t left home, you’d never have met them and?—”
“And that direction of conversation is depressing,” I add. “There’s not a single alternate reality where I wouldn’t leave home, Mother.”
Cian and my grandparents join us at this point, with Reggie following behind my father who is rounding out the group.
“Can I get anyone anything? Tea?” he asks.
“I suppose tea will be necessary,” my mother says, watching as everyone takes their seat. “What’s going on?”
“Annabelle, calm down,” my grandmother grumbles, making my lips twitch. I love her so much. “We are here for Hollis. You tend to fly off the handle about things.”
“Are you telling me that I’m hysterical, Aine?”
“If the broom fits, fly it,” Grandma says, shrugging.
I can tell my mother is about to lose her shit, so it’s time to get this conversation back on track.
“I don’t know if you know this or not, but I’ve been looking for my sister,” I begin.
“You don’t have a sister,” my father says. “Why are you looking for a ghost? This type of behavior can’t be healthy. Maybe you should see someone about this.”
“Paul, are you telling my granddaughter that she needs to see a quack who will tell her what you want him to?” Grandpa asks. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Enough,” Cian grunts. “I also have believed for some time that Maree could be alive. Gaslighting Hollis in front of me will simply prove that you’re what I believe you to be: a fool.”
“Cian is correct. Hollis is right to continue to look, why both you and Annabelle have stuck your heads in the sand under the belief that your daughter is dead, is beyond me” Grandpa says.
“She is dead,” my mother wheezes. “We looked for several years until an investigator brought us a photo of our dead baby. She was found in a trash can in Minneapolis. You can say that it could be any child, but it broke my heart. I couldn’t look anymore after that.”
“You didn’t tell me that,” I accuse, head tilted to look for any chance that she’s lying to me.
“It’s true, though,” my father says. “When were we supposed to tell you this? When we found out when you were three? The investigator found the files in a Jane Doe folder at thepolice station. We all know what shit the police force is in Minneapolis.”
“That may be true, but there had to have been a time you could have told her,” my grandmother says. “You’d have been wrong in this assumption that your daughter is dead, but it’s still something that my granddaughter should have been told.”
Reeling, I think about what my mother said. If this is true, it does explain why she may have shut down about my sister’s existence. However, it doesn’t excuse her from being such a shit mother to me.
