“Oh, Lincoln gets over things and people quickly. Don’t give yourself that much credit.” She crosses her arms, and manages to look even thinner. There has to be a shred of something inside of her that wants happiness for her former family—that has some kind of empathy for her blood sister.
“I talked to Autumn Glass, Rena. I talked to our mom.” If she can feel a link, maybe she’ll have mercy on me. “It’s not too late for me, you can let me go before I disappear, and I can live the best part of my life.”
“What did she say? What did that witch say? Why did she give us away?” Rena cocks her head to the side. The man peeps his head out to check on us and must be satisfied, because he ducks back into the other room.
I exhale a pent-up breath. “She wanted us. Autumn gave birth at a home for girls and they forced her to give us up. She wanted us, Rena.”
“She did?” That seems to get her attention.
Turner. Turner. Turner. My heart is beating for him right now. “Rena, she wanted us like I want Turner. I can be there for him.” Be a good mother, I think, knowing I shouldn’t say that out loud, but feeling the call deep down in my bones. “Don’t you want him to feel wanted? If I leave, he’ll feel like we did our entire lives. Wondering why he wasn’t wanted.”
“He’s already fucked, Maeve. I abandoned the kid.”
“You didn’t,” I say, desperately. “You only did what you thought you had to.”
She saunters over to me and stoops down to pick up my necklace. Not the lighthouse, the new one that holds both of my engagement rings. “Talismans of my failures,” I say, using Lincoln’s words. “I can make it right.”
“You think I want you to go back to the man I love? To be a mother to my son? I’d rather slit your throat and blow my brains out first.” She pulls the necklace off with a firm yank. “He never gave me a ring.” She pulls off the ring Lincoln gave me and I shudder to know she knows immediately which one is which. She slides it on her left-hand finger, and I blink back tears.
“You can’t mean that. If you ever felt anything for Lincoln, you’d let me go.”
“Why didn’t she ever look for us?” Rena asks, admiring her hand. She lets the chain and Rexy’s ring fall to the floor. It’s just out of my reach.
“You had a closed adoption. You know that. And well, she was too busy trying to… survive to look. She had a hard life, Rena. Autumn is an awful person, but she had every reason to do the awful things she did. Raped and pregnant with twins that they tore away from her at birth.”
“She sounds like a wuss. I left a newborn of my own free will.” Even as she says it, I know she doesn’t mean it.
“Drugs did that. You didn’t,” I say softly.
“I did the drugs, you twit! No one else forced my hand.”
Rena is still looking at the ring on her hand. “Fine. You don’t care at all, got it, and I’ll go willingly without force. But let me say goodbye. I beg you. Let me say goodbye.”
“That’s not how this works. You’re disappearing, Maeve. He can’t know anything. We both know how persistent the man is, particularly when he wants something. You give him any small tidbit and he’ll never give up searching.” It’s a pseudo compliment, I realize. Rena calls out to the man in the office. “Get the plane ready we’re already taking too long.”
I sniffle. “I won’t tell him anything. I just want to tell him goodbye. He’s not coming after me, Rena. Don’t you want to know why I’m wearing that ring on my necklace instead of on my finger? I left him.” At the worst possible time, ever. “It was unforgivable what I did, really.”
She narrows her eyes. “Why should I trust you?”
“I’m your sister,” I croak. “Because we both went through awful things, and yet we’re together right now. Finally, we’re back together. The way we were always supposed to be.”
That gets her attention. Maybe if I flick her heartstrings just enough. “How was she?” Rena says, as she moves away from me to zip up the suitcase. “Autumn.”
“Like you’d expect a murdering, psychotic maniac to be… except you can tell she cared about me. Us, I mean. While I was visiting, they said it was the most normal they’ve ever seen her while she’s been in prison. She doesn’t look like the photos you see on the internet. Not anymore. Time has been hard on her.” It doesn’t take long to know why she’s asking.
“Guess I have a lot to look forward to. I have a question for you, sis.” Rolling her suitcase over to a side table, she starts gathering the drug paraphernalia that rests on it. “If you love them so much, why would you agree to this in the first place? Why leave them forever?”
It’s now that I realize what is wrong with Rena. “Because you sacrifice for the people you love. How is that even a question? If I vanish into the cartel, I was told that they would be untouched, unbothered, and able to live out a normal happy life.”
“How happy of a life can they have if you’re not in it? You made a selfish decision you thought you deserved and called it sacrifice. You’re no better than I am. We abandon those who give us standards we don’t think we can live up to.” She zips up a makeup bag she’s using to house drugs. “That’s why I was wondering about ole mommy dearest. She seemed to have high self-esteem from everything I’ve watched and read, but it sounds like that was all a front. She’s just like us. Love hungry but too afraid of disappointing people to take what’s given.”
I retreat into myself. I never thought of it that way. In fact, there’s a huge chance the drug addict in front of me pinned me with one sentence. Why are we as human’s always blind to things that hold us back the most? Why are our faults blind spots to us yet so visible to those around us? Is there a solution to letting self-awareness trickle into these places? I sigh as defeat seems more and more plausible. Rena doesn’t care, she knows who she is, where she came from, and what she wants. Me not being in their lives. For herself, it seems she wants to detonate like a bomb and be done with it all.
“Rena, you’re forgetting one key piece of information here. I live a normal life. I don’t kill people, take drugs, or dull my pain with violence. I’m not like Autumn or you.”
“You will be. Something to look forward to.” She stoops down to unlock the cuffs, and I the thought of fighting her off occurs, but dies the second I see multiple men with big ass guns come out of the office. “You’ll come without fighting? We can knock you out if this is too much for your little, withered heart.” She balls her fists and rolls them back and forth by her eyes.
“I’ll go with you,” I say, choking back tears. “Without fighting.” Inching my hand towards Rexy’s ring. I encircle it with my fingers and slowly bring my hand back to its initial position.