Brothers of Paradise Series

I have never once spoken to Mom about Hayden. When I was younger, there had been times when I suspected… but she never let on that she knew about us. But she must have known-and known all along, because there’s only one person in this household who empties the mailbox.

I find her sitting on the porch with the light on. She’s reading a magazine, her hair-the same color as mine-braided down her back. It’s hard, sometimes, to realize that we look so similar but are so different. She’s never understood my love of art, for example, or Rhys’s rebellion against status and prestige.

“Sweetheart? I didn’t know you were coming today.”

My hand clenches and unclenches at my side in anger and fear, fear of what I’ll find out tonight. When I speak, I don’t recognize my own voice. “Ten years ago, Hayden left to join the Navy.”

Mom puts down her magazine. Her gaze is curious. “Yes, I suppose.”

“He put a goodbye letter in our mailbox, addressed to me. You took it.”

“Oh, Lily,” she says with a soft sigh, turning to look out across the ocean. “Yes, I did.”

I sink into the chair next to her. “Why?”

“He wasn’t right for you.”

“That was for me to decide. I spent years wondering why he left. Years! And you knew the whole time? How could you keep that from me?”

She’s quiet for a long time-so quiet that I wonder if she’ll even deign to answer me. But when she does, her voice is low and thoughtful.

“I had someone like that once, sweetheart. Someone who wasn’t good for me. Who couldn’t give me the future I wanted, but who I loved more than anything.”

I just blink at her. “In France?”

“Yes. We went to the same high school.”

I’ve never heard this before. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, Mom’s life started when she met Dad on one of his business trips, just the way she wanted it. She rarely mentions her life before.

“He would disappear for months and then return, asking me to take him back… asking me to give him another chance. He was charming, and tortured, and I loved him very much.” Her voice grows hard. “He kept saying that he would change, but he never did. It was always the same story with him. And there was no ambition. He would have ended up a bum, and me right there along with him.”

“That wasn’t Hayden.”

“It looked like it. I escaped that fate, and I’d be damned if my own daughter fell victim to it.”

“But I wasn’t you, and Hayden wasn’t him. History wasn’t repeating itself.”

Her frown deepens. “He had just crashed a car with you in it. You were considering going to community college and breaking your father’s heart over this boy.”

“The truck driver was driving drunk! The police confirmed it!” I can’t believe this conversation. For ten years, she had known, and never said a word. “And what university I chose was my choice. Hayden broke my heart when he left, and you’re saying you’re happy he did?”

“Happy? I’d just listened to a doctor tell me that he was unsure my daughter would ever walk again. Yes, I was happy when he left. I was relieved. I only wanted the best for you.”

“So why take the letter? Why not let me have an explanation?”

Her eyes soften. “A clean break, sweetie. You were healing physically. I wanted you to heal from him, too. And you did.”

It hurts. It hurts like it had when he left, when I cried into my pillow for weeks, when Mom checked in and pretended as if I was only sad because of the accident. She’d known exactly what I’d been upset about-and she’d never let on, never helped me through it.

“Did you read the letter?”

“No.”

“Do you still have it?”

Mom looks at me for a long moment. It’s like she’s evaluating if she can say no-if I’m still eighteen and impressionable.Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

I’m not.

“Yes,” she says finally. “Are you sure you want it?”

“Yes.”

I follow her into the house, as she walks up the stairs and into the master bedroom, heading straight into the adjoining walk-in closet. I’d played there as a child before I accidentally ruined one of her shoes. It feels like an age ago, a different time.

Mom rummages through the wooden dresser. “I know I put it in the back here somewhere…”

I watch, arms crossed, as she runs her hand along the back of each drawer. Beneath my anger I can feel the hurt, running deep, threatening to consume me whole.

“Ah, here it is.” She fishes out a yellowed envelope from the back of her sock drawer. One word is scribbled on it-my name-in messy handwriting. My eyes burn suddenly with the threat of tears as I take it from her. For a long moment, both of us are quiet, just staring at the envelope in my hands.

Mom clears her throat. “He’s back now.”

“Yes.”

“And he’s made something of himself.” There’s a faint pause, and then she looks away. “Served in the military.”

“The Navy,” I correct softly, still staring down at the envelope.

“Lily, ma chérie, I’m sorry. Genuinely. I never wanted to hurt you.”

I grip the envelope hard and swallow against the lump in my throat. “But you did.”

“Yes.” Green eyes search my own. “Can you forgive me?”

“Tell me something. Do you still think you made the right call? Would you do it again?”

Mom looks at me, her gaze sad. “Yes,” she says finally. “I didn’t make him leave, but I tried to make sure you moved on. You were too young to throw away college for a boy.”

“All right. Then I can understand why you did it, but I can’t forgive you.”

“Lily, I-”

“No. I’m done for tonight.”

I turn on my heel and walk away from her, down the hall, the stairs, out into the warm evening air. Away from that beautiful house, with its memories, beautiful and painful alike. The envelope feels red-hot, lying on the passenger seat as I drive the short distance home.

When I’ve parked on the driveway, I rest my head against the steering wheel and take a few deep breaths. It’s too much-all of it. Mom’s decision. That she’d known all along.