Page 24 of The Scars I Bare
After becoming Mrs. Blake Ashcroft, I’d perfected the art of lying, of creating the perfect cover story, and now, after all this time, I wasn’t sure what was left of Cora Carpenter.
If anything.
But there was more to it. In my effort to create a new life, free from Blake and his family’s influence, I hadn’t thought about my own.
The family who still believed I was a happy, healthy, and thriving wife and mother. One who took family vacations but always forgot the camera. One who was never happy enough with her home remodels for a visit.
I needed to protect them as well.
From what exactly?
From me.
From the mess I’d become. From the horrors I’d endured. From the failures I’d been shielding from their eyes. It might not be the right choice, but it was the one I’d made.
It kept them happy.
It kept them safe.
And, for now, it was the only option I could mentally deal with. I kept telling myself, maybe someday, I’d come clean. Maybe someday, I’d tell them the truth.
Someday was not today, and I had only one thing on my to-do list.
Lizzie.
Lizzie was my priority. To keep her happy, safe, and healthy. No matter the cost. No matter my cost.
For now, I seemed to have achieved that. So, for the foreseeable future, I’d get out of bed, I’d do my job, and slowly but surely, I’d figure everything else out.
Starting with today.
The getting-out-of-bed part was easy. Having a rambunctious five-year-old who woke up at the crack of dawn after sleeping in the same bed made it damn near impossible for me to do anything but get up.
But the everything-else part?
That was where it got murky.
Lizzie and I made it through breakfast time, helping ourselves like Molly had instructed since I had to be out the door and at work earlier than most of the guests liked to rise. But, beyond that, I began to fumble.
Although Molly had offered to help out with Lizzie as much as possible over the next week before school started, today was an exception.
Or at least, I made it one.
Being on a remote island definitely had its perks, but when it came to supplying an inn, the location wasn’t one of them. Molly often had to make routine trips up the coast for food and other staples, and although she’d offered to take Lizzie with her, the idea of my little girl even an hour closer to her father made my blood pressure rise.
“Are you sure?” she’d asked over the phone, checking one final time to see if I’d changed my mind. “It’s really no trouble. I’ll even take her out to lunch. My treat.”
I’d swallowed deeply, looking over at Lizzie as she finished her cereal, knowing there was no possible chance my workaholic ex-husband would be out and about on a weekday, let alone at a fast-food joint.
But, still, I couldn’t agree. “No, it’s fine. Really. I’ll figure something out.”
Taking a deep breath, I’d ended the call, and I had done the only thing I could do.
I carried on.
“Lizzie, get your shoes,” I instructed as she hopped off the worn seat of the kitchen table. “You’re coming to work with me today.”
Letting out that same breath, I said a prayer to anyone who was listening, although I’d never been much of a religious person.
