For a second, I felt sorry for the child inside her. Not because of me. Because that baby would enter a family where happiness meant silence, loyalty meant obedience, and love meant standing in the right photograph.
“Then build one,” I said.
Claire blinked through her tears.
“What?”
“Build a happy family. Start by telling the truth. Start by not making your child earn affection. Start by not calling pain inconvenient.”
She looked away.
My mother stepped forward again.
“Holly, come home.”
The words stunned me.
Not because I wanted them.
Because she said them like a command, not an invitation.
Home.
The Crawford house had never been home. It had been a museum of Claire’s achievements and my failures. A place where walls listened and repeated everything to my mother.
“I am home,” I said.
Gerald looked at me.
His eyes shone.
My mother’s face hardened.
“So that’s it? You’ll throw us away for a stranger?”
I shook my head.
“No. You threw me away for a lie. I’m just refusing to crawl back into it.”
She stared at me, breathing hard.
Then her mask returned.
Cold. Smooth. Cruel.
“You think he wants you?” she said. “You think this touching little reunion will last? He wants the idea of a daughter. Not you. Not the reality. You are difficult, Holly. You are needy. You exhaust people. Eventually, he will see it too.”
For one heartbeat, I was ten years old again.
Standing in a hallway while my mother told me I was hard to love.
Then Gerald’s hand closed around mine.
Not gripping.
Grounding.
“I have seen enough,” he said.
My mother looked at our joined hands.
Something broke in her face.
She turned, putting her sunglasses back on.
“Fine.”
Claire followed, still crying.
At the car, my mother paused.
“You will need us someday.”
I looked at her.
Maybe once, that would have frightened me.
Now it sounded like a curse from someone whose magic had expired.
“No,” I said. “I needed you at 2:14 a.m.”
She had no answer.
She got into the car.
The sedan backed out of the driveway and disappeared down the road.
The wind chimes sang softly above us.
My knees nearly gave out.
Gerald caught me before I fell.
“I’ve got you,” he said.
And he did.
Recovery was slow.
Not the poetic kind of slow. The ugly kind.
The kind where I needed help showering. The kind where walking to the mailbox felt like crossing a desert. The kind where I cried because I dropped a spoon and could not bend down to pick it up.
Gerald never made me feel small.