ONE
Triss
Present Day
THE HUNGER IN MY STOMACH was nothing compared to the chaos going through my head. There weren’t enough hours in the day to take care of everything that needed my attention. Over and over, I went through my mental to-do list. My heart felt heavy. I was losing my mother. Each day, when I went to see her in the hospital, I saw her fading away a little more. The cancer was destroying her, and I was powerless to help. I was terrified of what would happen when she finally gave up the fight.
The light I had been stopped at turned to green, but I took my time driving through the intersection, knowing that someone would run the red light at the last second. It never failed. In the rearview mirror, I chanced a glance at the two most precious things I still had.
No matter what, I had to make sure that I didn’t lose them.
I bit down hard on my bottom lip, no longer feeling the pain as my teeth pierced through the already tortured flesh. If I started crying now, I wouldn’t be able to stop, and I wasn’t about to upset either of them.
Through everything that had happened over the last year, I had attempted to hide the worst from them. They were so little—only six and four. They didn’t need to face the reality of the cold, harsh world. Not yet. For now, I wanted them to still be kids with no worries except if I was making them mac and cheese for dinner.
“Is Mommy coming home, Triss?”
I quickly lowered my gaze from the mirror so Daisy couldn’t see the tears that had filled them at the mention of our mother. “No, baby. Not tonight.”
“Oh,” she said with a sigh that sounded older and wiser than her four years. She didn’t sound sad, just resigned. It killed me a little more inside.
In need of a distraction, I turned on the radio. My car was old and getting it to start every morning required me to sell part of my soul, but at least the stereo worked. Mostly. It was stuck on the local country music station. I had never been much of a fan, but I had learned to live with it and had slowly started to actually enjoy some of the music.
Lily was a huge fan of Hunter Hayes, so when his latest song came on, she was singing along at the top of her lungs.
Daisy covered her ears, whining about the loudness, but I didn’t try to stop either of them. This was my madness. It was hard and crazy and nowhere near perfect, but I wouldn’t give those two up for any amount of money.
It was another ten minutes before we got home. As soon as I pulled into the parking lot of our apartment I unbuckled my belt and turned to look at them in their booster seats. “Don’t let go of my hand, okay?”
I said the same thing every day, not wanting them to have a reason to forget. Ever. My apartment wasn’t in the best part of the city. Until they had come to live with me, I hadn’t really cared that the girl on the floor above me turned tricks and brought her work home with her on a regular basis. Any more than it had disturbed me that my landlord was a part-time drug dealer. I had just been happy to have a roof over my head and a place to call my own.
Without the help of my father’s money.
Without that damn check that was still sitting in the bottom of my nightstand, signed by a man I had thought I had known inside and out.
That had all changed when my mother had called to tell me she was sick. There was no insurance, and she couldn’t work any longer. She had lost the house I had grown up in, and she had no choice but to move in with me. If it had just been her, I wouldn’t have cared, but it wasn’t. Lily and Daisy were too precious to play with their safety, but money had always been tight and now it was nonexistent. I was lucky to keep the girls from going hungry, only feeding myself enough to stay alive so they didn’t have to feel the pain of an empty stomach.
It looked like my stepmother was going to finally have the last laugh, because I was desperate enough to cash that fucking check. It was six and a half years late, but she would be rubbing her hands in malicious glee that she had one won in the end.
“Okay, Triss,” they echoed at the same time, making Daisy giggle.
I got out, quickly unbuckled them and held on to their hands just as tightly as they held on to mine as we ran across the parking lot. The sun was going down and soon there would be crackheads and hookers all over the place.
Keeping the girls tucked close, we took the stairs to the second floor then hurried into my single bedroom apartment. I released Lily’s hand long enough to unlock the door, and then pushed them both inside.
Turning the six locks on my door, I locked us inside. A few extra deadbolts wouldn’t keep a determined person out, but it offered me a slice of relief to hear them slide into place.
Daisy took her coat off and started on her shoes. “Can we have mac and cheese?”
“Sure, baby.” I pulled my coat off. It was at least three years old and worn, but it kept me warm, which was all that mattered. “Wash up while I fix it. Lily, help her please.”
“She’s four now, Triss,” Lily argued, her cute little nose wrinkled as she concentrated on unbuttoning her own coat. “She’s not a baby anymore.”
“Yeah, I’m not a baby,” Daisy seconded.
It was the same argument every day. “No, you’re not a baby, but you’re tiny and Lily is taller; she can help you. Please?”
Lily finished unbuttoning her coat and rolled her eyes at me. Not for the first time, I wondered if I had done the same thing when I was her age. “Fine. Come on, Daisy.”
Shaking my head at the two of them as they went into my tiny, little bathroom, I went into the kitchen to start on dinner. There were only two boxes of generic macaroni and cheese left, half a box of crackers, and enough peanut butter to make the girls a sandwich for school the next day. Seeing the bareness of my pantry, I nearly whimpered. I had maybe ten dollars in my purse—maybe—and that had to pay for a little gas so I could get to work. I didn’t get paid until Friday and that was still four days away.
Looked like I was going to the bank the next morning.
My teeth sunk into my bottom lip again. I tasted blood but didn’t bother to release my hold on the tender flesh. It felt like the world was crashing down on top of me, and that stupid check was the last stone still holding the sky up. I had been so strong until now, but I couldn’t do it any longer. I couldn’t make the girls suffer when I had an easy solution.
When our mother had been admitted into the hospital the first time, I had applied for assistance to help with the girls. Which showed how much of a grudge I could still hold against my father’s wife, if I would seek out government aid rather than just cash that ridiculous check she had handed over to me when I was nineteen. But I made fifty dollars—fifty freaking dollars—too much to qualify for any benefits, even with two little girls as dependents. They hadn’t wanted to know that my mother was sick. I had just been a number to them.
Blinking back my tears, I turned away from the nearly empty pantry and grabbed a pot to start boiling water. There was no use in worrying about it tonight. I couldn’t do anything until after I dropped the girls off the next morning, anyway.
While the water boiled, the girls took their places at the scarred up, little table that had come with the apartment. I had bleached the hell out of it when I had moved in, but it still held the carved marks from the tenants before me. Daisy traced her finger over one of the words, and I cringed at the thought of her asking what those letters spelled. She never did, but she was in preschool and soon would be able to read it herself.
To distract myself from how that conversation was likely to go, I reached for the stack of mail I had picked up that morning yet hadn’t had time to look through. Bills, some new, some past due seemed to mock me as I went through the heavy pile. My rent included my gas and water, but I had to pay for electric separately. The rent was two weeks late and the electric was so past due I was surprised they hadn’t already shut it off. I just needed them to hold off until Friday. I would get it paid, and then worry about the million and one other things I needed to pay for to get us through two more weeks until my next paycheck.
As I fingered through the mess, I found a letter addressed to me from a law firm in New York City and set it aside. Probably another bill collector. There had been plenty of those lately.
The water started boiling, and I finished making our small dinner.
My stomach wasn’t happy with the small portion I gave myself, but I smiled brightly as the girls told me about their day at school. I was lucky enough to have a school nearby that offered a preschool program for working mothers, so I didn’t have to find a daycare that I couldn’t afford to put Daisy in. So far, she enjoyed it, but Lily wasn’t a fan. She would have rather been drawing and coloring than reading or learning math. My fridge was covered in her artwork.
After dinner, I gave them both a bath then tucked them into my full-sized bed. Sometimes I slept with them, but more often than not, I curled up on the little love seat in the living room. The thing was lumpy as hell with springs sticking up in various places, but it was ten times better than having to twist and contort my body by sleeping in the same bed with the acrobats those two became in their sleep.
Once they were in bed, I went back into the living room. I had given up on buying coffee months ago, so I had to settle for some iced water as I picked up one of the new books I had exchanged at the library on Sunday. I could barely feed the girl, so things like TV weren’t on my list of priorities. I had never been much of a television watcher, anyway. Instead, I enjoyed getting lost in a good book.
Tonight, I was reading a new thriller. It caught my attention immediately and I was several chapters into it before I forced myself to close it and go to bed.
Taking my empty glass into the kitchen, I set it in the sink. Then, as I turned away, my gaze landed on the piece of mail from the law firm.
Wondering how much the bill collector wanted now, I picked it up and tore it open. I would never be able to pay off all the bills my mother’s hospital stays were adding up to. Even if I worked until I was ninety, I wouldn’t even put a dent in them.
Sighing, I pulled out the letter, noticing that it was on thick, beautiful stationary. That was new. The notices normally came on paper so thin they were practically transparent.
Opening the letter, I scanned the contents for an amount, but when I didn’t see any numbers flashing out at me, I glanced back at the top.
Two sentences in and my suddenly nerveless fingers dropped the letter. I staggered back, tears already burning my eyes as I tried to hold back a sob.
No.
No, someone would have called me. They wouldn’t let me find out this way…
Even as heartbreaking pain sliced through me, the truth rolled its eyes at how naïve I could still be. Of course they wouldn’t call me. Not one of them wanted anything to do with me. Once I had been so forcefully tossed out of my father’s life, they probably never even gave me another thought. Why the hell would they bother with telling me the most painful news a girl could ever hear?
As I lost the fight to hold back my tears, my legs began to give out and I helplessly fell onto my knees, sobbing into my hands as I buried my face in them.
My father was gone. I didn’t know how or why or even when because I hadn’t been able to get my brain to function long enough to read more once the reality of what had happened had sunk in. He was gone, and I would soon lose my mother, too.
Through all the crap I had gone through with my father over his wife, Nancy, I had still loved him. Part of me had hoped he had still loved me, too, despite the vile things my stepmother had convinced him I had done. But in the seven years since I had last seen him, I hadn’t gotten so much as a birthday card from him.
Once upon a time, he and I had been close. Every summer, I would go down to New York City and spend the school break with him. Three months of just him and me. He would take the time off work, something he had only ever done for me until Nancy came alone, leaving his beloved company in the hands of his CEOs. He had been my hero, the man who had loved me more than anything else on the planet, and I had loved him more than any girl ever loved their daddy.
Then, when I was fifteen, he had married Nancy and things had changed drastically. I had still gone down to the City to be with him every summer, but he no longer had time for me. He had been gone all the time with her, and when he wasn’t trekking around the world buying his new wife all the pretty trinkets she wanted, Nancy would make sure to manipulate his time.
It hadn’t been all bad, though. With a new stepmother, I had also gotten two stepsiblings. I had always wanted a sister, and Kimberly had been my age, so we had bonded easily. Her brother had been in college, but he had been on summer break just like I was …
I pulled back from even the slightest memory of Dominic Balor, unable to think about him without remembering his last ultimate betrayal. Of them all, he was the one I would have expected to inform me of Robert Prescott’s passing. Then again, I had been so terribly wrong about him before, so it wasn’t like I could trust him with something that important now.
Forcefully swallowing the lump that was trapped in my throat, I fell onto my rear, my back hitting the cabinet behind me that had been white once upon a time, but was now an ugly yellow color. At the thought of Dom, my tears had begun to dry up.
The letter from the law firm was to my left, and with trembling fingers, I picked it up again.
Miss Prescott,
We hoped this letter finds you in good health. Our deepest condolences are with you and your family during this moment of loss and grief at the passing of your father on…
November second?
He had been gone for three weeks now. Three fucking weeks.
…We at Goldwin, Allister & Marsh have been taxed with distributing the contents of his will. Mr. Prescott left strict instructions to notify you upon his death. You are named as a primary benefiter of his will. Please contact us at the number above at your earliest convenience so we can make arrangements to meet the terms…
I was surprised the firm had waited three weeks to notify me if my father had left such strict instruction about his will. If anything, I figured Nancy would have jumped in headfirst to have the will read and distributed within hours of Robert’s passing. Then again, it had probably been hard to find me.
When I had last seen my father, I had still been living at home with my mother and stepfather. Derrick Everest had been a military man and had treated my mother like a queen. They had been so happy, so in love. But, when Daisy was two, Derrick had been killed in Iraq on what was supposed to be his final deployment before he retired.
After the death of her husband, my mother had withdrawn into the woman she had been before she had met Derrick. She had lost herself in the past, in the memories that she’d had to live with from the moment she had found out she was expecting me.
I had been the product of my mother’s wild teenage years. Everyone had wanted her to abort me, but she had loved me too much to ever give me up like that. While my parents hadn’t gotten married, my father had stuck by Savanna and helped support me growing up.
I didn’t have anything to do with my mother’s parents, and Robert’s had died when I was a little girl. That hadn’t mattered, because my parents had made sure I knew I was loved and taken care of.
Until Nancy had come along.
Now I had lost my father, and I was losing my mom a little more with each passing day.
Tears filled my eyes too quickly for me to blink them away. Giving up the fight, I let them fall. I hadn’t let myself cry often over the last year. There was no use. But sometimes it all became too much and I had to either cry or implode. If I’d had anything in my life, it was my mother’s love, and soon I wouldn’t even have that.
I was already the girls’ legal guardian, but unless I found a way to keep us all fed, someone would step in and take them from me. And that was what scared me the most—losing the only family I had left, the only two people who I loved more than life itself.
That stupid check was my last resort, but if my father had left me something, maybe I wouldn’t have to touch it … yet.
Trembling from head to toe now, I stood and found my prepaid phone. I dialed the number listed at the top of the stationary. It was nine-thirty. The law office was probably closed and I should wait until morning, but my heart was beating too hard for me to wait even a second longer. I would just leave a message on their answering service.
“Goldwin, Allister & Marsh; this is Amber speaking.”
Another wave of surprise hit me. Not only because someone had answered, but the voice was so oddly familiar. Amber … Amber, Ash, and Taryn. They had been close friends, and they had all lived in the same neighborhood as my father. Once upon a time, I had been semi-friends with them. We would hang out every summer, even though the other three had been a little older than me.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
Clearing my throat, I finally answered her. “This is Triss Prescott. I … I-I got a letter from your firm about my …” I had to stop and clear my throat again when tears threatened to choke me. “My father’s death.”
“Oh, right. Of course.” Sympathy filled the other woman’s voice. “I’m so sorry for your loss, Triss.” There was a small pause on her end and I didn’t know what to say to break it. “Actually, I thought I would have heard from you sooner. Your stepmother told us that she had contacted you.”
A headache was starting to brew right between my eyes. I pressed my fist to the center of my forehead, hoping to relieve it. “No,” I gritted out, hearing the judgement in her tone. Typical. Nancy only had to say a handful of words and people automatically assumed the worst of me. “I didn’t even know my father had passed away until I got your letter, which was today. I only opened it just now. I … Hell, Amber, I haven’t spoken to my family in years.”
“Oh …”
“How did it happen?” I figured my stepmother wouldn’t supply the information readily for me, and I doubted Kim or Dom would, either.
“A major heart attack.” The sympathy was once again back in her voice. She was quiet for a long moment, letting me absorb that, before speaking again.
“To get to the point of the letter we sent, the will needs to be read as soon as possible. If I had known you were still in the dark about everything, I would have contacted you sooner.” She sighed heavily. “I’m so sorry you had to find out like that. It isn’t right. Nancy said that—”
“When?” I cut her off abruptly, not caring in the least what new lies my stepmother had been telling the world.
“Right, sorry. If you could come in tomorrow?”
I thought about my mother and the chemo treatment she was going to have the next morning. She would be so sick afterward. There was no way I could leave her when she needed me.
“No. Tomorrow isn’t good for me. How about the day after?”
“That works even better, actually. Can you be at my office at ten-thirty?”
“Yes, that’s fine. Whatever is fine.” I pressed my lips together, fighting the urge to ask, but I needed to know so I could prepare myself. “Who else will be there?”
“Nancy, of course. Dom and Kim, as well. Just you four, my secretary, and me.”
“Perfect,” I muttered. “I’ll see you then, Amber.”
Before she could speak again, I hung up and dropped the phone onto the table’s scarred surface.
Fuck me, but I didn’t know what I was going to do now. I didn’t want to face any of them. If I was being honest with myself, though, stepping into their lair once again was a much more appealing option than having to cash the blood money that stupid check represented. Even if my father had only left me a little something, which I wasn’t going to completely hold my breath over, then I would be able to take care of the girls a little easier.
***
In the end, I had to cash that stupid check, after all. I woke up the next morning with the realization that whatever my father had given me wasn’t likely to take care of the girls. He had probably changed his will the minute he had kicked me out of his house and his life.
I dropped the girls off at school, then called my boss to remind him I was going to be late getting in. He was good about letting me take my lunch hour in the morning so I could sit with my mother when she had her chemo treatments. On my way to the hospital, I stopped by the bank and cashed the check.
With the money now in my checking account, I could breathe a little easier knowing I could take care of the girls. Nevertheless, my heart felt beat all to hell as I walked into my mother’s semi-private room.
She was sitting up in bed, a bag of poison attached to her IV, pumping the chemo treatment into her. Later, she would be sick, and I wouldn’t be there to hold her hand.
I never brought the girls in on the evenings that our mother had her treatments. The only time I had, it had left Daisy and Lily in tears at seeing Savanna so ill.
My mother’s hair was completely gone now. I had shaved her head when she had first started losing her beautiful golden locks. She didn’t even have eyebrows by this point. We both knew she wasn’t ever going to get her hair back. The chemo wasn’t working as well as the doctors had hoped. For now, it was only keeping the tumors at bay, prolonging her life for as long as they could before the cancer finally overtook her poor body.
It wasn’t going to be long now. We knew it. We had accepted it.
That was a lie.
I would never accept it. My mother was my hero, my strength, the woman who had sacrificed so much for me. She had given up her family to have me. Even as I had grown up, she had sacrificed repeatedly to give me the kind of life she thought I deserved.
“What’s wrong?” Savanna demanded as I took my usual chair beside her bed.
I had tried to keep a smile on my face, but despite how sick she must have been feeling, she was still very much my mother and could see underneath all the bullshit to what I was really feeling.
I wasn’t going to tell her about the check. It would only make her mad. I couldn’t, however, keep the news about my father from her. They might not have ever been man and wife, but until Nancy had come along, they had been friends.
Rubbing my damp palms on my jeans, I met her gaze. That same blue-gray color was identical to my own, but the whites of her eyes were no longer white. They were a dirty yellow because the cancer had reached her liver, causing jaundice.
“I got a letter yesterday from Goldwin, Allister & Marsh,” I began, but had to stop. The news of my father’s death still felt raw.
Savanna frowned. “Why does that sound so familiar?”
I swallowed the sudden lump that had filled my throat. “Daddy used them. They drew up his will.”
Understanding filled her face. It broke my heart all over again when tears filled my mother’s eyes. “Oh, Lord,” she whispered. “Robert’s dead, isn’t he?”
I could only nod, too choked up to speak.
Savanna leaned forward and grasped both my hands. Her fingers were ice-cold, but mine weren’t much better. “Oh, my poor baby. I’m so, so sorry.”
As the first tear spilled free, I swallowed roughly again, trying to get enough room so I could talk. “He’s been gone for weeks, Momma. No one bothered to tell me. I-I-I didn’t get to go to the funeral. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”
“Oh, honey.” She tugged on my hands, and I went willingly as she pulled me onto the bed beside her and into her arms for a hug that only broke my heart more. These hugs, they were precious.
Soon, I wouldn’t have even this comfort.
My tears came faster and faster until I was sobbing against my mother’s chest. Crying for the loss of one parent as I prepared to lose another. Crying for the pain of not getting to say goodbye to a man who had been my entire world when I was a child.
I cried for that stupid check that was now cashed, every single dollar of it mocking me in my stepmother’s cackling voice.
Mostly, I cried for myself.