Page 95 of Clearly Charmed

‘Bryce? Well, of course! He wasn’t honest about who he was when we first met. And over the last few weeks, he’s basically interrogated everyone in town about us.’ I left out how he’d made me feel cherished, even loved, the night we found Mara. The deep brutal ache that coursed through my bones when I’d discovered what he’d written in his journal about us. There were some details of my life my grandmother did not need to know.

‘I wasn’t talking about Bryce,’ she said.

The next breath stuck in my throat and I couldn’t speak.

‘Max was the first man you ever loved. The first person you trusted who was not a member of this family. I’d imagine that when he walked away from you, it made you question your instincts.’ She glanced to where one of Belladonna’s gauzy scarves lay across the back of the couch. ‘Made you feel abandoned again.’

‘This is not about Max.’

‘Isn’t it? Bryce may have not been truthful at first, but I had a front-row seat to the way he watched you at the table. That man is dedicated to his work, but he senses there is an important connection between you two. That’s why he’s trying so hard to figure out a balance between how to save his career and still have you.’

‘He did say he’d show me the final article before it went to his editor. That I could delete whatever made me feel uncomfortable. Promised he’d figure this out.’

‘That’s quite an offer.’

‘I still don’t trust him. How can I after… well, everything.’

‘That may be my fault.’ Belladonna stepped out onto the porch. Now I remembered where Aster got her stealthy approach. I had not heard a single footstep before she appeared.

To my shock, she wasn’t dressed in a frilly patchwork skirt and sheer blouse, but in a simple gray jumpsuit instead. Her face was void of her signature spidery eyelashes and thick black kohl. It was a shock to see her without a full face of makeup, and it made her look much younger than fifty.

Belladonna walked past me and that scent of hers, amber and patchouli, clung to the dry air. ‘Mother has told me about Bryce. About the article and your fears. And…’ She actually looked stricken. ‘Aster’s prediction about him.’

‘This has nothing to do with you.’ It was hard not to lash out at the lazy way she made herself at home in a place she could never bother to stay in for more than a few weeks.

‘It has everything to do with me.’ Her gaze darted to Clo like they were sharing some secret knowledge, which only made the rage in my veins bubble hotter. ‘From a very young age, I made you take on too much responsibility. In my deluded way of thinking, I considered you an old soul. Made it easier to take off on my own selfish wanderings, because I’d convinced myself you could take care of Camellia and Aster.’

Clo tried to reach out and take my hands again, but I shook her off. This was all bullshit. Belladonna had never admitted she was wrong about any of her choices.

‘Your mother has been going to therapy,’ Clo said quietly.

‘It’s been hard, but I’ve begun to accept that I did many unforgivable things to you and your sisters. To my own mother.’ Her lower lip trembled. ‘And to my sweet and patient father.’

Her face may have been clean. The clothes on her body different. But those were all façades. It didn’t mean at her core she’d changed who she really was.

‘You can deliver as many apologies as you want, but they don’t change the years of pain you’ve caused Aster or Lia or Clo.’

‘Or you,’ Belladonna added.

‘Keep me out of this,’ I seethed.

‘That’s not possible. From what Clo has shared, that man from vet school, Max, he hurt you. You pretend to be strong. Act like it doesn’t matter, but it does. You’ve managed to build this impenetrable wall around you, because you’ve spent your entire life battling me, and the horrible things I’ve done to you. That is a regret I will have the rest of my life. I can’t change it, but you can choose to be different from me. To open your heart in a way I never could.’

Her words were too much like what Bryce said to me about being scared.

‘And why is that?’ I lashed out. ‘Why couldn’t you stay with my father or Lia’s father or Aster’s? None of us even know their damn names.’

Belladonna walked forward and laid a shaky hand against the worn railing. That faint scent of burning wood filled the air again. The once quiet lake now swirled with a choppy current.

‘Dandelion, honey. Take a breath. Listen to what she has to say,’ Clo said in that soothing tone.

‘No. This conversation has been brewing for years. Every time I try to have it with her, she runs away. That’s not happening this time.’

I waited for my mother to make an excuse. To turn and run. Instead, she planted her feet, set her shoulders, like she was ready to take whatever hard truth I was about to deliver.

‘Did you not care enough about us to tell us who those men were? Think we didn’t deserve to know them? Have them in our lives? You stand there and claim you don’t want me to be like you, that you want me to open my heart, but how can I do that when I never had a real male role model? Sure, I had Grandpa Beau but he was not my father.’

‘I promise if you give me some time, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.’ She cast another weighted look at Clo that made me uneasy. ‘I owe the truth to you and your sisters.’