“Sit,” she said to me.
Listening to her, I sat beside her bed. She didn’t speak, and the longer I sat in silence, the more I swayed left to right anxiously before I couldn’t take it any longer and leaned forward, asking, “Did you want to threaten me too?”
She smiled, not a full grin, but a small smile.
“Look in the Bible.” She tilted her head toward her bedside table. Reaching for it, I nearly dropped it, causing a letter to fall out. “It’s for you.”
Curious as to how she wrote it, I put the Bible in my lap along with my…well, her flowers, reading.
To the woman who has come to replace me in my son’s heart,
“This is from his mom?” My eyes shot up at her.
“Read, Ivy. The damn woman always knew exactly what to say.” She frowned, annoyed, and it was kind of funny.
To the woman who has come to replace me in my son’s heart,
Know you are not good enough. You will never be good enough. I went to hell with a smile on my face for my son. Ethan has a place in my heart no other human being can ever touch. And so you will never live up to the woman I’d imagine for him because the truth is no one will ever be good enough. Don’t take comfort in that admission. Before you act, imagine if I were to judge…imagine that horrid mother-in-law in every film, know that I would be worse, and try to impress me anyway. You are now the head woman of this family. Act like it and make them talk about you as they talked about me. Make them remember you as they did me. Haunt the woman who will one day come and replace you as number one in your own son’s heart as I did Evelyn and as Evelyn did Margaret. Make them fear you as much as they fear him. I trust my son enough to know he didn’t choose a pretty idiot with a heart of gold…he does not need that. That will only lead him to death. No, instead, feed his dark side, enjoy being there with him. Don’t change him. I made him and he is perfect. There is nothing to change.
If you can, maybe I’ll hate you less…
Thought about it. I’ll still hate you.
Melody Nicci Giovanni Callahan
“Well, she’s just great.” I couldn’t help but smile. For some reason I could feel her anger, pain, and love through it perfectly. I could also see where Ethan got his personality from.
“Burn it,” she said.
“What?”
She nodded. “It’s for you only.”
I thought about it. I looked back down at the letter, at the woman I was, as she said replacing her, and stood up, placing the Bible and flowers back on the bedside table. Leaning over to her, I kissed the side of her head.
“Evelyn, thank you, but I’ll keep the letter—”
“You can’t…Ethan will see...”
“I know.” I nodded. I pressed the button for her morphine. “I’m going to show him. Like she said I’m the head now. Don’t tell me what to do with my letter. Just rest and don’t die for a long time.”
She glared at me, but I just winked at her.
“Sleep tight,” I said when the pain medicine started to work. Before getting up and walking toward the door.
“She’s sleeping,” I told them and walked up to Ethan, lifting the letter. “She wanted me to burn this.”
His eyebrows frowned together as he took it. His eyes skimmed the first line before realizing who it was from…slowly he read until he relaxed and then that smug smirk of his returned to his face. I could tell from the expression on his face he held his mother’s words as gospel.
“You think you can do it?” he asked.
“I already am. Thank you very much,” I answered, snatching it back. I folded it, throwing it into my small purse. At least something else but a lipstick was there.
“Do what?”
Both of us, almost as if we had forgotten everyone was around us, looked at Donatella, whose eyes were glued to my purse.
“Nothing.” I obviously lied and I did it cheerfully, facing Ethan again. “Does this wedding come with food or am I supposed to just keep being a jewelry holder?”
Ethan looked at me as if I were mad, seeing as how I’d stuffed myself with fancy rich people pasta, bourbon meatballs, grilled scallops, popcorn, and ice cream at the mansion before coming over here.
“Say anything that I’ll take as you calling me fat.” I dared him to comment.
“And you’ll do what?”
“Oohh…dumb question.” His uncle Neal groaned, putting his hands over his mouth. Declan just covered his mouth with his hand, shaking his head at him.
“You’ll regret that one, believe me.”
“Is this secret marriage meeting done?” Sedric asked curiously before walking over to me and putting his hand over my shoulder. “If so, I’m totally liking where cousin-in-law’s mind is at with this food business.”
“Hands,” Ethan said to him.
Sedric made a face and lifted his hands up in surrender.
“It’s already here,” Coraline replied, checked her phone, and not a second later the elevator pinged. When the doors opened the guards, much more of them now that so many of us were here, scanned them before letting them forward.
“Set up in the room,” Coraline directed her private chefs.
I was thinking pizza but apparently I was still thinking small as I watched the men in white chef hats roll their carts toward the room. There was even a wedding cake with the initials E.I. on the top.
“Well, come on.” Cora looked back at the rest of them.
“What would we do without you, Mom?” Darcy tried to hug her, but Declan stuck his hand out, pushing him and taking his wife forward, making everyone laugh.
I saw Wyatt trying to make his escape. I was sure Ethan saw too but didn’t say anything.
So while everyone was walking forward, I said, “You said you’d help the victims, right?”
He froze and looked at me, dressed in his blue scrubs.
“Well, a church fell on me this morning. My wedding is being done in a hospital room and no one from my side of my family is here. You’re adding insult to injury by leaving…do no harm, Doc,” I said, trying to act really hurt.
“You’re going to be a pain. I can tell,” he muttered to himself before walking past me toward his grandmother’s room.
“Takes one to know one.” I spun back on the balls of my feet.
Ethan watched him go in.
“Don’t glare at him. You know you want him here,” I whispered, taking his hand.
He glanced down at it and then at me, saying, “How the fuck are you still hungry?”
“I almost forgot I was annoyed with you. Thank you, dick.” I snapped, pulling my hand away and marching to the room by myself.
ETHAN