“I was having a rough time, Echo. I needed to focus on myself,” she said simply and without apology.

“But I needed you. I told you that, right?” At least I thought I had left it in the message.

“You did.” She continued to link one clover to another. “You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman.”

“Except for the scars.” I bit my tongue the moment the comment slid out. Mom stayed silent and my foot rocked back and forth. I yanked a large blade of grass from the ground and methodically peeled it apart. “I don’t know much about the restraining order. Surely it’s gotta end soon.”

Maybe the hole in my heart wouldn’t feel so huge if I could see Mom every now and then.

“Bridget showed me your artwork,” Mom said, ignoring me again. “You’re extremely talented. What art schools did you apply to?”

I paused, waiting for Mom to lift her head so I could look into her eyes. Was she evading me? A warm breeze blew through the cemetery. The length of Aires’ coffin separated us, yet it felt like the Grand Canyon. “None. Dad didn’t allow me to paint after what happened. Mom, did you read any of the letters I left for you?”

The ones that begged her to meet with me so I could finally understand what happened between us. The ones that said I missed having a mom. The ones that told her how broken I was because in a span of six months, I lost both her and Aires.

“Yes,” she said, so softly I almost missed it. Then she sat up straighter and spoke in her professional gallery curator voice. “Stop trying to change the subject, Echo. We’re talking about your future. Your father never understood us and our need to create art. I’m sure he jumped at the opportunity to cleanse you of anything that had to do with me.

“Good for you for sticking it to him and continuing to paint. Though I wish you would have stood up for yourself more and applied to a decent school. I guess you could try for spring admission. I have significant pull in the art community. I wouldn’t mind writing you a recommendation.”

Writing me a recommendation? My mind became a blank canvas as I tried to follow her train of thought. I’d asked about the restraining order out loud, right? “I don’t want to go to art school.”

My mother’s face reddened and an undercurrent of irritation leaked into her movements and words. “Echo, you aren’t business school material. You never have been. Don’t let your father bully you into a life you don’t want.”

I’d forgotten how much I hated the constant tug-of-war. Ironically, I spent my entire life trying to make them both happy—my mother with art, my father with knowledge—yet in the end, they both threw me away. “I take business classes at school and I’ve aced every single course.”

She shrugged. “I cook, but that doesn’t make me a chef.”

“What?”

Mom looked me square in the eye. “It means you’re just like me.”

No, I’m not, cried a small voice inside my head. “I paint,” I said aloud as if to prove that was our only link.

“You’re an artist. Just like me. Your father never understood me, so I can’t imagine he understands you.”

No, Dad didn’t understand me.

“Let me guess,” she continued. “He’s on you all the time. Whatever you’re doing, it’s not good enough. Or not to his standards and he just keeps on you until you feel like you’re going to explode.”

“Yes,” I whispered and felt my head sway to the right. I didn’t remember this about her. Yeah, she’d taken the occasional verbal punch at my father and she’d always wanted me to choose the path she envisioned for my life over Dad’s, but this felt different. This felt personal.

“I can’t say I’m surprised. He was a failure as a husband, and he completed his failure by being a terrible father.”

“Daddy’s not that bad,” I mumbled, feeling suddenly protective of him and wary of the woman sitting across from me. Never did I think this meeting would be easy, but neither did I imagine it would be so strange. “What happened between us that night?”

She dropped the clover strand and once again avoided my question. “I went away for a while. At first not voluntarily, but then once I understood what happened, what I did … I, um … I stayed. The doctors and staff were very nice, nonjudgmental. I’ve been faithfully on my medication ever since.”

A low, dull throb pulsed near my temples. Goody for stinking her. She took her meds and all was right with the world. “I didn’t ask that. Tell me what happened to me.”

My mother rubbed a hand to her forehead. “Your father always checked on me before he let you visit. I depended upon that. Owen was supposed to take care of me, you and Aires and he messed it up for all of us.”

What the hell? “How did he mess it up for Aires?”

Her eyes narrowed. “He allowed Aires to join the military.”

“But that’s what Aires wanted to do with his life. You know it was his dream.”

“That wasn’t your brother’s dream. It was something that witch your father married planted in his mind. She was the one that filled Aires’ head with stories about her father and brothers and their careers. She didn’t care if he died. She didn’t care what happened to him.

“I told Aires not to go. I told him how much his decision would hurt me. I told him …” She paused. “I told him I’d never speak to him again if he went to Afghanistan.” Her voice broke and all of a sudden I wanted to leave, yet I couldn’t move.

A weird sort of edgy calmness took over my brain. “Those were your last words to Aires?”

“It’s your father’s fault,” she said flatly. “He brought her into our lives and now my son is dead.”

This time, I spoke as if she hadn’t said anything. “Not ‘I love you.’ Not ‘I’ll see you when you get home.’ You told him you’d never speak to him again?”

“That witch broke up my home. She stole your father.”

“This isn’t about Ashley or Dad or even Aires. This is about you and me. What the hell did you do to me?”

Wind chimes from a neighboring grave site tinkled in the breeze. My mother and I shared the same eye shape and color. Those dull and lifeless eyes stared at me. I hoped mine looked happier.

“Does he blame me for that night?” she asked. “Did your father even bother telling you how he just dropped you off? How he didn’t answer the phone when you called for help?”

“Mom.” I paused, trying to find the right words to explain. “I just want you to tell me what happened between us.”

“He didn’t tell you, did he? Of course he didn’t. He’s shoving the blame onto me. You don’t understand. I lost Aires and I couldn’t cope. I thought if I could paint, I would feel better.” She tore handfuls of grass from the ground.

“Dad’s not shoving anything onto you. He’s accepted responsibility for his part, but I don’t remember what happened with us. I fell into your stained glass and then you lay next to me while I bled.” My voice rose higher as I continued to speak. “I don’t understand. Did we fight? Did I fall? Did you push me and why didn’t you call for help and why were you telling me bedtime stories when I was bleeding?”

She tore at the grass again. “This is not my fault. He should have known better. But that’s your father for you. He never tried to understand. He wanted a cookie-cutter wife and divorced me the moment he found one.”

“Mom, you came off your meds. Dad had nothing to do with that. Tell me what happened.”

“No.” She lifted her chin and jutted it out in the stubborn style I remembered so well.

I flinched. “No?”

“No. If you don’t remember, I’m not telling you. I heard he’s got some overpriced, fancy Harvard therapist helping you.” A bitter smile curved her lips. “Did your father find something else he couldn’t fix with money and control?”

For a fleeting moment, the cemetery resembled a chessboard and my mother moved her queen. If Aires and I were pawns in our parents’ game, had she noticed that I quit playing?

“Heard?” I repeated as her answer struck me. “There’s a restraining order. How did you hear anything?”

Mom blinked several times and the color seeped from her cheeks. “I wanted to know how you were doing, so I contacted your father.”

A sickening feeling slid down my throat. “When?”

She lowered her head. “February.”

“Mom … why didn’t you call me? I gave you my numbers.” I paused, unable to keep up with the emotions and questions flying in my head. February. The word vibrated through me. That was the month my father took away my cell and my car without telling me why. He’d lied to me so he could conceal me from her. “I wanted to talk to you. I begged you back in December to call me. Why would you call Dad? I mean, you could have gone to jail. There is a restraining order!”

“No, there isn’t,” she said simply. “The order was rescinded thirty days after you turned eighteen.”

Now I felt as if someone drop-kicked me in the stomach. “What?”

“It was the terms of the order when the judge signed it over two years ago. Your father tried to have it extended until you graduated, but enough time had passed that the judge no longer saw me as a threat.”

I couldn’t breathe and my head shook back and forth. “You mean you could have contacted me since February and you didn’t?”

She hesitated. “Yes.”

“Why?” Was I that unlovable? Weren’t mothers supposed to want to see their daughters? Especially when their daughters asked them for help? Not knowing what to do with myself, I stood and wrapped my arms around my shaking body. “Why?” I screamed it this time.

“Because.” Mom stood and raised her hands out to her sides. “Because I knew this is how you’d react. I knew you’d want to know what happened between us and I can’t tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll blame me and I can’t take any more guilt. It wasn’t my fault, Echo, and I’m not going to let you make me feel that way.”

A Mack truck hit my body and my shoulders rolled with the impact. What an unbelievably selfish answer. “You don’t know that’s how I’ll react. I’m not happy you went off your meds, but I get that you didn’t understand what you were doing. I understand that you weren’t in the right frame of mind that night.”

She released a loud sigh and it echoed in the lonely cemetery. “I do know how you’ll react, Echo. I told you before, you and I share the same skin. Once we’re betrayed, we never forgive.”

The dark sludge that had inhabited my veins since I found out my father’s role in that day moved slowly in my gut, chilling me from the inside out. “I’m not like that.”