lived.”
She took a breath, a long one, as she understood more fully what traveled in her own head. “But there’s the fact she didn’t. She carried me inside her. Maybe she hated me for it, but she made me inside her, and at least for a few years, she lived with me. She must’ve fed me and changed me, at least sometimes. And she didn’t know me. I don’t know why she would, after so long, and I thank God she didn’t, even for a minute. So, I’m glad she didn’t, but I think she should have. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Of course it makes sense. You have her recognize you, in the dreams, and deal with her blame, her anger, her vitriol.”
“Why? She’s gone. She’s done. She can’t
“She abandoned you. You never had the chance to confront her, as the child she abused and left with another abuser. Nor, on that personal level, as the woman who survived it. What would you do, what would you say to her, if you could?”
“I’d want to know where she came from, what made her what she was. Is it just in the blood, or was she made—the way they wanted to make me—into something miserable. I’d want to know how she could feel so much contempt for the child she made, something innocent and defenseless. Her answers don’t matter,” Eve added.
“No?” Mira arched her eyebrows. “Why not?”
“Because everything about her was a lie. Everything about her was self-serving so no matter what I asked, her answers would be shaded with that. Why would I believe her?”
“And still?”
“Okay, and still part of me—maybe a lot of me is sorry I didn’t get a chance to look her in the face, to ask those questions even if the answers didn’t matter. Then to tell her she’s nothing. She’s
“They tried to make me nothing—no name, no home, no comfort or companions. All fear and pain. All cold and dark. I want to look her in the face and tell her no matter what she did, no matter how she hurt me, how she degraded me, she couldn’t make me nothing. She couldn’t make me her.”
Her breath came out in a shudder, and she felt tears on her cheeks. “Shit.” Impatient, she swiped them away. “It’s stupid. It hurts to think about it. Why think about it?”
“Because when you try to block it out, it comes at you in your dreams where you’re vulnerable.”
She rose again, still restless. “I can live with the nightmares. I can beat them. I did it before, and they were worse. But Roarke … I don’t know why, but I think it’s harder on him now. Harder to deal with them, with me.”
“He couldn’t confront her either. And he lived through this experience in Dallas with you. He loves, Eve, and those who love suffer when who they love suffers.”
“I know it. I see it. I’m here because I know it, I see it. And it pisses me off she’s causing me more trouble dead than she did alive. I have faces of so many dead in my head. I can live with them. I did my best by every one of them when they came to me. I can live with her, too. But I don’t want her to have this power, to make me weak.”
And there, Mira thought. “Do you think having nightmares makes you weak?”
“It does. You said it yourself.”
“I said vulnerable. There’s a difference, a considerable difference. Without vulnerabilities, you’d be brittle, inflexible, cold. You’re not. You’re human.”
“I don’t want to be vulnerable to her.”
“She’s dead, Eve.”
“God.” A little sick, she pressed her hands to her face. “I know it. I know it. I stood over her body. I examined it, determined cause and time of death. I worked it. And yes, she’s still …” She searched for the term. “… viable. Enough so when I dream about her, I’m afraid, and angry. She looks at me, she knows me, and something clutches in my gut.
“I’m part of her. That’s how it works, isn’t it? What a woman eats, whatever she puts in her body goes into what’s growing inside her. What’s in her blood. They’re attached until the cord’s cut. She was broken, so wouldn’t something be broken in me?”
“Do you think every child born inherits all the flaws and virtues of the mother?”
“No. I don’t know.”
“Sit a moment. Sit.”
When she did, Mira reached over, took Eve’s hand so their eyes stayed level. “You aren’t broken, Eve. You’re bruised, and still healing, but you’re not broken. I’m a professional. You can trust me.”
Though it made Eve laugh a little, she shook her head.
“They did break you, all those years ago when you were only a child—innocent, as you said, defenseless. And you took what was broken and put it back together, made it strong, gave it purpose. And you let it love. You’re more your own woman than any I’ve ever known—that’s a personal and professional observation.”
“I need to end her. I know I need to end her. I won’t have Stella in my head, and I won’t have her bringing my father back.”
“Coming here? You’ve taken steps to doing just that. Tell me, I asked you once before if you knew why you called her Stella, and him your father. Do you know the answer now?”
“I thought about it, after you said something. I didn’t realize I was doing it. But I think … What he did to me, what he did to a child—his own child? I think he was an evil man. I don’t like using that word because it’s sort of cliched, but he was. But …”
Because her throat was dry, Eve gave in, picked up the tea, and drank.
“I was hungry a lot, but I never starved. I was cold a lot, but I always had clothes. I learned to walk, to talk —I don’t remember, but he must’ve done that. It wasn’t because he cared. I don’t think he was capable of genuine feelings. But he didn’t hate me. I was a commodity to him, a tool he could use and abuse, one he hoped to train to bring in money. I was with him until I killed him. He raped me and fed me, he beat me and he put clothes on my back. He terrorized me and put a roof, of some sort, over my head. He wasn’t my father the way Leonardo is to Belle, or Mr. Mira is to your children, or Feeney or any normal man is. But he was my father, and I accept that.”
“You’ve come to terms with it.”
“I guess. She left me with him, without a thought. And my memories of her are less detailed, less clear. But the ones I have are of her hurting me, in small, sneaky ways. Ugly ways. Slaps and pinches, shoving me into a closet in the dark, not feeding me and saying she had. And her looking at me with naked hate. She was capable of feelings. They might have been selfish and twisted, but she had feelings, emotions. And for me, there was hate.
“If he’d been the one to leave, she’d have killed me. Smothered me or locked me up to starve. She was capable of that, because she had feelings. She was my mother, that’s a fact. But I won’t call her that. Maybe it’s some small way, some little step toward trying to end her.”
“Good,” Mira assured her. “That’s good.”
“I’ve been thinking about them, both of them, a lot the last few days. I should’ve known something was building up. I just wanted to work it out on my own some more first, but I should’ve come to you before.”
“You came when you were ready.”
“Roarke was ready,” Eve replied, and made Mira laugh.
“You might have come for him, but you wouldn’t have talked to me the way you did if you weren’t ready, too.”
“It’s annoying that I feel better. Because he boxed me into this,” she explained. “That makes him right. I have to report to Whitney.”
“You’ve a little time left.”
“I think time’s going to be a problem. I don’t think this maniac’s going to wait until my psyche’s all nice and cozy again.”
“Cozy your psyche’s never been. Whoever’s responsible for all those deaths will find your psyche very formidable. You know you can contact me here or at home, any time, when you need to talk again. You won’t
