Page 31 of Web of Dreams (Casteel 5)
my girlfriends, silly and full of giggles. Her eyes were
twinkling as she smiled up at the ceiling. I stood there
speechless, staring down at her. Could it be that she
was unaware Daddy had told me everything? "Daddy told me about your telegram," I blurted. She looked up at me, her smile slowly fading,
the glimmer in her eyes dying. The vigor and
brightness lifted from her face. It was as if she were
coming back to earth, back to reality. Her eyes grew
cold, her mouth tight. She took a deep breath and sat
up slowly and with great effort. Then she took off her
cap, unpinned her hair and shook her head to let the
strands fall free.
"He was supposed to leave it to me to tell you,"
she said with remarkable calmness. "But I'm not
surprised. I'm sure he put it all horribly, making it
sound like the failure of some business venture. What
did he tell you, our marriage was bankrupt?" "Oh no, Momma, Daddy is heartbroken," I
cried. She smirked and got up to go to her vanity
table. "Did you really go to Mexico and get a divorce?" Some stupid childish part of me was still
hoping beyond hope that perhaps it wasn't all true. "Yes, Leigh, I did. And I'm not sorry." Her
words felt like needles being poked in all over my
body.
"But why did you do it? How can you do it?" I
screamed, enraged at my mother. I hated how little
she seemed to care about how I was affected by her
selfish decision. She sat down and turned to me. "Leigh, I was hoping you would be adult about
all this now," she said calmly, but firmly. "I have been
wanting to do this for some time, but I held off until I
thought you were old enough to deal with it on a
mature level. I've gone through months, years of
added suffering just so you would be old enough to
