“Please do not feel as if I’m excusing your actions,” he says, voice cool in the warm afternoon. “Nor are you free to take this as the Guard or Subcommittee I reported to as giving you a free pass, but it will serve all of our purposes far better if we focus on the tasks at hand. That, my dear, is to deal with the Elders, as well as form diplomatic ties with the Métis. I believe you are currently residing with several representatives of the Anchorage colony.”
I can’t help but look over at Karl. He’s got his poker face on, as does Kellan, who I’ve found out, is now in the upper echelon of Guard management.
I turn back toward Zthane. “What kind of diplomatic ties?”
His smile loosens just a tiny bit. “The kind that will begin the long road to recovery between our populations.”
Will cracks my bedroom door open. “You decent?”
I shut the file that Zthane sent home with me. “What’s up?”
He leans against the doorframe and says quietly, “Your mother is here to see you.”
I sit up on the bed and stare at him, slack jawed. Surely he didn’t just say that my mother was here. My mother told me nearly a year ago that she was siding with my father, that there was to be no more contact between us until I relented and got Jonah to lift the ban he placed on Jens Belladonna. Since I’d rather cut off my legs at the kneecaps than do such a thing, radio silence had filled the space between us.
I clear my throat. “Astrid?”
Will frowns. “You mean Dad’s phone buddy? I’m afraid not. This woman introduced herself as Abigail Lilywhite.” He shuts the door behind him and joins me on the bed. “She’s sitting out there with Dad right now, but if you want me to tell her to go to hell, I’ll be glad to do so. But . . . I’ve got to be honest with you—she looks really nervous and a wee bit glum. It’s up to you, though. Tell me what you want, and I’ll make it happen.”
My mother is here.
I have no idea how she got here, how she even knew where I was staying, but my mother—Abigail Lilywhite—is here.
My knees wobble when I stand up. “No. I’ll . . . I’ll go talk to her. It’s not your problem.”
He lays a hand on my shoulder; it’s steady and warm and oh-so-brotherly. “Do you want me and Dad to stay out there with you guys? I’d offer up Erik, too, but he’s down at Guard HQ talking with Zthane. Official Métis business now and all.”
I tell him no, that I need to do this on my own. But this only has Will reminding me that they’ll be here for me in any way I need them.
My heart kind of grows twenty sizes in this moment.
Sitting on the edge of the couch in the living room, holding a cup of tea and petting my dog, is my mother. She looks exactly as I remember her—beautiful and tall, her face devoid of most expressive emotions. When I come into the room, though, she sets the cup down and slowly stands up. Cameron, who’s been sitting across from her, does the same.
“Hello, Chloe,” my mother says.
All the moisture in my mouth miraculously disappears. “Mom,” I croak in return.
Cameron quietly tells my mother it was nice to meet her and excuses himself; on his way out of the room, he pulls me in for a quick hug and kiss, whispering words his son told me just minutes before. And then I’m alone with my mother for the first time in nearly a year.
“You look thin,” she says, and it’s enough to make me want to laugh bitterly, because it’s what she said during our last meeting, too.
I uproot my feet and somehow make it across the room to sit down in the space previously occupied by Cameron. She sits down, too, and we let the familiar silence that has defined our relationship for so long fill the space between us.
I can’t take it, though. Not after everything that’s happened. I break first. “What are you doing here?”
Her eyes do not stray from the cup of tea she’s reclaimed. “Is it really that surprising that I would want to come and see if my daughter, who has been missing for half a year, is okay?”
I think prior to today, I might have accepted this comment from her. Built up hope to go with it. I might have let it slide by without much argument. But that girl . . . I left that girl behind. “Actually, yes, considering you and Dad basically disowned me.”
She winces, and it’s enough to startle me back into my chair. “Chloe . . .” She lets out a long, melancholy sigh and sets the cup back down, untouched. “Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. I know it will not mean much to you, but if I could go back and relive that day, I might do it differently.”
My unattractive gaping lets her know just how I feel about the sincerity of such a statement.
She fingers the edge of her blazer as she coolly regards me. “Your hair is different. It’s . . . I think I preferred the brown. This blonde is too brittle for someone like you.”
“Seriously? That’s what you have to say to me? Just—oh, my bad for treating you, my only daughter, like crap, and by the way your hair sucks?”
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” she practically whispers. And it hits me, really hits me, that my mother is sitting in this living room with me and my father is not. My mother, my cold fish of a mother, just actually admitted she’d made a mistake. What did I do in return?
I acted like a bratty child.