Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
I smiled despite my sense of impending doom. “Good to hear, darling.”
“I’m not going to oversleep, I promise.” She spoke fast, and I imagined her packing her bag—stuffing things into a suitcase, not carefully folding. I wondered if Jacques was there, lying on a bed, smoking a cigarette and drinking espresso. I hated Jacques, having never met him, having no basis to form that opinion, just on instinct.
“I don’t think you’re going to oversleep,” I lied. She would totally oversleep. And she’d call me, frantic in a cab to the airport, asking if we could rebook her flight if she missed it.
Not that she made a habit of doing such things—this was the first time my daughter was getting herself to an international flight in a foreign country—I just knew my daughter.
“I’m calling to… um, talk to you about something else, hon,” I said, gaze flickering to Swiss. His hand found my thigh and squeezed.
“Oh my god, do you have cancer?” she exclaimed. “I knew your voice was not bronchitis. Okay, so you need to stop eating any and all processed foods right this instant. And apricot seeds. They have been proven to be more effective than the poison drug companies peddle,” she ranted, working her way up to hysteria. I knew if I let her keep going she would be booking me into some alternative medicine retreat somewhere I couldn’t eat Oreos.
“No, I do not have cancer,” I interrupted quickly. “Your father and I are divorced, and I’m living in New Mexico with a man I’ve fallen in love with and plan on marrying.”
Swiss raised his brow at everything I’d blurted out in one sentence. We’d spoken about how this conversation might go. Or rather, I’d paced the bedroom, while he laid in bed naked, and muttered my ‘script’ under my breath.
That was not part of my script.
My script took about twenty-seven minutes. I’d timed it.
It was careful, thoughtful and eased Violet into the truth.
What I’d just blabbered was not careful or thoughtful. It certainly did not ease Violet into the truth.
There was dead silence on the other end of the phone.
Dead silence.
Never in her life had my daughter been struck speechless. She had a response for anything. She was the best on her debate team, she sparred with strangers who had years on her. She was sharp, brave, and a little argumentative.
But… nothing.
Shit.
“Okay, honey, I hadn’t exactly planned on saying that all at once,” I said, leaning into Swiss. “I was going to ease you into it. And I understand this is hard to hear on the other side of the world, especially since when you left you had no idea anything was happening, and now you’re coming home to a whole new normal.”
More silence.
I took a breath, needing to throw up. “Your father and I obviously love you very much,” I said, Swiss’s hand flexing on my thigh at the mention of her father. “Nothing will ever change that. Your home will always be your home. You can spend your holidays with whomever you wish, wherever you wish, and you have a room here…” I looked down the hallway, where I very much hoped my daughter might be sleeping sometime soon.
If she ever spoke to me again.
“I understand if you’re mad at me,” I pressed on, still hearing nothing on the other end of the phone. “You are entitled to feel however you—”
“Are you happy?” she interrupted, and for the first time in recorded memory, her voice was unexpressive.
I blinked. Of all the things I’d expected, that question was not one of them.
I looked at Swiss once more, his jaw hard with worry. He knew that this was haunting me, that I was losing sleep over it, therefore he was losing sleep over it. He didn’t even know Violet, but he cared about her. Because she was something to me. Everything to me. A part of me.
“Yes, sweetie,” I whispered, not taking my eyes off Swiss. “I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. Except, of course, the day you were put into my arms.”
A knife sank into my belly with those words, with the precious memory of that day. Seeing her beautiful, wide, inquisitive eyes blinking up at me, her little fist tightening around one of my fingers.
Swiss didn’t get that. He didn’t get any of that.
And a part of me, a large part, wanted to give him that. Wanted to give myself that as an adult that was sure of herself, not as a child terrified and unaware of the horrors to come.
“You’ve been sounding different,” Violet said, still in that flat tone that stilled my heart. “For months, I knew something was going on, knew that you were different.”
I fought to swallow down the lump that had somehow lodged itself in my throat.
“Sweetie…” I began.