My head shook, rejecting any justification.
She glanced at me as if she could read my thoughts. “I’m not sayin’ any of that gives me an excuse, Shea. I’m standing here taking responsibility for what I’ve done.”
“Why now? Why did he come after me now?”
She turned her attention away, back to my daughter, as if she couldn’t stand to look at me while she spoke the words. “Martin Jennings has always viewed you as a threat. As a loose thread that needed to be snipped. With everything I’ve gone through with him all these years, my guess is when he found out you were with Sebastian Stone, he thought it was time to take action. Martin couldn’t stand aside and wait to see what happened with the tie between Sebastian and Mark. He didn’t know what Mark had revealed to him or anyone else. He didn’t know if Sebastian had sought you out because of something Mark had said to him. He needed to end your relationship with Sebastian any way he could. And what better way to take you out than through your daughter?”
She shook her head. “He loves instilling fear, controlling people that way. He gets off on it in some sick way.”
An incredulous snort shot from my nose. As if I didn’t have front-row experience with that.
Her voice spread through me like ice as she continued, “But make no mistake. He would have dealt with you if it weren’t for the fact he didn’t know if or who you’d confided in. Or if you hadn’t made that complaint to the police.”
I shot her a glance full of old hatred.
She caught onto it immediately. “Yeah…told you it was stupid. What you did was stupid. Trying to leave when he didn’t give a second thought to hurting you. But it gave you leverage he didn’t anticipate. Still, there’s no doubt in my mind it didn’t stop him from planning…conniving and figuring out how to erase the threat he viewed you to be. Until that boy Mark stumbled upon it.”
She huffed like it wasn’t all that big a deal. “He would have taken me out a long time ago if he didn’t believe I was just as dirty as him.” Self-deprecating laughter rolled from her like a toll of death. “And I won’t deny that I am.”
I stood there reeling. Trying to wrap my head around what my mother had dragged me into, where all the greed and selfishness had led us both.
Kallie swooped down the slide and my mother choked over a sob, ushering in an entire shift of her demeanor.
“I’ve done so much bad.” Bitterness made its way in. “Believe me, I’ve gotten everything I deserve. Don’t have a damned thing. Nothing. Not a dime of that money I wanted so bad, and I sure as hell don’t have the family I didn’t realize I needed. But it’s too late now, and now I’m going to be gettin’ more.”
I looked at her, wind stinging the tears wetting my face.
She met my gaze, chin raised.
“My own daughter stood in my shithole apartment and demanded to know if I ever loved her…if I ever cared at all. You demanded to know if I had any decency left inside me. Truth is, there was never a whole lot of that to begin with.”
Her voice grew thin and wispy. “But I do love you, Shea. Always have. But that took a back seat to everything I thought I had to have, and then got completely forgotten when every day was spent just trying to survive my deplorable life.”
“All I ever wanted was to make you proud.”
She nodded slowly. “And you were right. I made that ugly, too. I’m finished with making things ugly.
Wistfully, she turned back to watch my daughter who laughed and played, before she looked back at me, expression going deathly sad. “You’re the only truly beautiful thing I ever made.”