Page 167 of Everything She Feared

“But another thought, like a voice, said no, don’t do it. I knew, Mom, it would be wrong. So I didn’t do it. I just kept telling Anna to stop backing up. But she didn’t listen and she fell. Then everything happened so fast, like an awful, awful dream! I thought, she fell because of me, because I was thinking about it. What is wrong with me? I was so scared. Why did I have those thoughts? Why didn’t she listen to me and not go so close to the edge? I saw her hanging on to the branch. She was looking up at me, crying for help, then I ran and ran!”

Katie sobbed.

Sara put her arms around her.

“Okay, it’s okay. Honey, bad thoughts are bad thoughts. Everybody has them at some point. I’ve had some but it doesn’t mean I want to hurt people. Oh, sweetie, I know you feel it’s wrong to have them but you must never do what they say—and you didn’t. You didn’t because you’re not a bad person. I’m so happy that you told me.”

Sara’s phone rang. But she’d left it downstairs.

Thinking it could be her mom, or Rose Aranda, she pulled away from Katie.

“That could be important. Stay here, I’ll get my phone.”

Sara hurried down the stairs with a measure of hope rising in her heart. Grabbing her phone from the kitchen table, she was drawn to the window by the headlights of a car stopping in front of her house. Without looking at the caller’s number, she answered.

“Sara Harmon?”

“Yes.”

“This is Hetta Boden at Silverbrook Hills.”

Hetta Boden.Sara winced. If that woman was calling about payments—but her tone was different; it sounded frayed, urgent, and there was background noise.

“Yes.”

“Ms. Harmon, Sara.” Boden sounded uncharacteristically human. “Sara, I’m so, so very sorry to have to inform you that your mother has passed away.”

Sara’s knees buckled.

Her mother’s face, voice, her fragrance, her touch blazed through her. Steadying herself on the counter, a bile-soaked cry erupted from her gut, shooting up the back of her throat.

“Oh, God.”

“I’m so sorry, Sara.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“The paramedics took her. I think they were still attempting to revive her all the way to the hospital.”

“What hospital?”

“Sunline—”

The doorbell rang along with insistent knocking, distracting Sara.

“Hold on, Hetta, please, I need to—please hold on—oh, God!”

Still gripping her phone, her mind reeling, Sara, fearing it could be related to her mother’s death, went to her door and opened it.

At first, she saw a stranger standing alone before her, a woman in her fifties in a rain-slicked raincoat and hat. Through her shock and grief, Sara recognized her from Silverbrook Hills.

“Bella?”

Bella Spencer saw Sara’s anguish, and the phone in her hand. “I can see you must know about your mother already. I’m so sorry, Sara. Silverbrook sent me to help.”

“What happened? My God, I was just with her!”

“Her heart, maybe. I’m so sorry. They sent me to come here as fast as I could, to watch Katie for you.”

---