trust?”
“I believe I got this one right.” She held the card out to me, and I grabbed it so hard that it bent nearly in half, but my eyes didn’t leave her face. “Talk to her,” she said. “She’s our only hope to getting through to you, if she tells you the truth. I think now, she finally will. I didn’t write her number down. I assume you have it.”
I glanced at the card, and what I read, what she’d written, caused a theatrical double-take before I dropped it on the floor. Then I looked back at Frederica. Her satisfied smile held only kindness and understanding. She reached down and retrieved the card, then slid it gently into the thumb crease of my now tightly fisted hand.
“ What ?” I managed, shaking my head. The one word emerged as an ineffective squeak.
“Like I said,” she said, “it’s a family business.”
>=<
For the first time in my life, I knocked on the door. After so many years of banging in and out, the entitlement had suddenly disintegrated. Perhaps I didn’t know this house—and the other person who’d lived in it—as well as I thought I did.
When she opened the door and I saw her face, the first face I ever saw, I felt a flash of that moment when I held the tooth—that overwhelming strength of innocence and purity, that childhood sensory perfection—but it passed before I could hang on to it.
“So, where do you hide your wings, Mom?” I asked.
Please, my mind cried. Please, Mom, ask me what I’m talking about, look at me like I’m nuts, tell me I’m hungry and overtired, and that everything is the same as it’s been my whole life.
“I think you should come in and sit down, Gemma,” she said.
Unfortunately, I didn’t wait until there was a chair under me before I took her advice.
CHAPTER 5
I gnoring Mom’s offer of assistance, I somehow dragged my beaten self up onto the blue sofa. Mom watched me collapse against the cushions, then closed the door and stood in front of it. She fidgeted, then wrapped her arms across her chest—not defiantly, but defensively.
Any other day, she’d be pushing a glass of wine into my hand, giving me a chunk of fresh bread from the bakery up the street, and chattering about the day’s antics of one of the naughtier children in her class.
But this wasn’t any other normal day. At least, not normal as I’d always defined it. When normal changed this much this fast, what could be the meaning of strange?
“I made a turkey,” my mother finally ventured in a small, weak voice.
“Oh, you made a turkey, all right. About thirty years ago,” I said. “And here I am.”
“Gemma, don’t…”
“Do not ‘Gemma’ me that way. Don’t imply that I’m the unreasonable one. However,” I amended, “I’m okay with you saying my name as in, ‘Gemma, I can explain why for your entire life, I withheld a crucial and bizarre detail of your existence.’”
Rather than taking the cue I provided, Mom remained silent. I regarded her the way a detached scientist might regard a newly impaled butterfly on a cardboard display. Women walked into the homes they grew up in and expected comfort and familiarity, but what I found in the living room this time was Bethany Fae Cross, a woman with a collection of secrets and complications so enormous, yet so invisible to me up until today.
Perhaps not just because she was fae, but also because she was a mother.
She moved to the sofa and sat beside me. I scooched a few stubborn inches away from her, but she reached her hand across those inches and brushed a few errant strands of hair off my cheek. I was almost surprised to notice it was the same hand I knew. It hadn’t suddenly morphed into Frederica’s dainty long-fingered hand. Mom’s fingers were short and strong. I’d more than once felt her grip on my upper arm to restrain me from crossing the street without looking both ways. The skin of her fingertips was tight and tough, cultivated in a dishwasher-free domicile. Her nails were
“I believe I got this one right.” She held the card out to me, and I grabbed it so hard that it bent nearly in half, but my eyes didn’t leave her face. “Talk to her,” she said. “She’s our only hope to getting through to you, if she tells you the truth. I think now, she finally will. I didn’t write her number down. I assume you have it.”
I glanced at the card, and what I read, what she’d written, caused a theatrical double-take before I dropped it on the floor. Then I looked back at Frederica. Her satisfied smile held only kindness and understanding. She reached down and retrieved the card, then slid it gently into the thumb crease of my now tightly fisted hand.
“ What ?” I managed, shaking my head. The one word emerged as an ineffective squeak.
“Like I said,” she said, “it’s a family business.”
>=<
For the first time in my life, I knocked on the door. After so many years of banging in and out, the entitlement had suddenly disintegrated. Perhaps I didn’t know this house—and the other person who’d lived in it—as well as I thought I did.
When she opened the door and I saw her face, the first face I ever saw, I felt a flash of that moment when I held the tooth—that overwhelming strength of innocence and purity, that childhood sensory perfection—but it passed before I could hang on to it.
“So, where do you hide your wings, Mom?” I asked.
Please, my mind cried. Please, Mom, ask me what I’m talking about, look at me like I’m nuts, tell me I’m hungry and overtired, and that everything is the same as it’s been my whole life.
“I think you should come in and sit down, Gemma,” she said.
Unfortunately, I didn’t wait until there was a chair under me before I took her advice.
CHAPTER 5
I gnoring Mom’s offer of assistance, I somehow dragged my beaten self up onto the blue sofa. Mom watched me collapse against the cushions, then closed the door and stood in front of it. She fidgeted, then wrapped her arms across her chest—not defiantly, but defensively.
Any other day, she’d be pushing a glass of wine into my hand, giving me a chunk of fresh bread from the bakery up the street, and chattering about the day’s antics of one of the naughtier children in her class.
But this wasn’t any other normal day. At least, not normal as I’d always defined it. When normal changed this much this fast, what could be the meaning of strange?
“I made a turkey,” my mother finally ventured in a small, weak voice.
“Oh, you made a turkey, all right. About thirty years ago,” I said. “And here I am.”
“Gemma, don’t…”
“Do not ‘Gemma’ me that way. Don’t imply that I’m the unreasonable one. However,” I amended, “I’m okay with you saying my name as in, ‘Gemma, I can explain why for your entire life, I withheld a crucial and bizarre detail of your existence.’”
Rather than taking the cue I provided, Mom remained silent. I regarded her the way a detached scientist might regard a newly impaled butterfly on a cardboard display. Women walked into the homes they grew up in and expected comfort and familiarity, but what I found in the living room this time was Bethany Fae Cross, a woman with a collection of secrets and complications so enormous, yet so invisible to me up until today.
Perhaps not just because she was fae, but also because she was a mother.
She moved to the sofa and sat beside me. I scooched a few stubborn inches away from her, but she reached her hand across those inches and brushed a few errant strands of hair off my cheek. I was almost surprised to notice it was the same hand I knew. It hadn’t suddenly morphed into Frederica’s dainty long-fingered hand. Mom’s fingers were short and strong. I’d more than once felt her grip on my upper arm to restrain me from crossing the street without looking both ways. The skin of her fingertips was tight and tough, cultivated in a dishwasher-free domicile. Her nails were
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