Page 165 of Penny For Your Thoughts
“She’s come this far, love. Help her take the final step.”
I glanced again at my mother and back. “What are you talking about?”
“She came to talk to you.”
“No, she didn’t. My mother never talks to me.”
“Times change, and she has a favor to ask. I know you’ll do what’s right.”
Kitty squeezed my arm and wandered off at the same instant my mother caught my eye. She looked away but approached with tiny shuffling steps, her body language screaming discomfort.
A fire kindled in my gut. I didn’t want a confrontation at my grandmother’s birthday. What was she doing? Had Leroy put her up to this?
My mother and I had shared less than a dozen words in years. The silence suited me fine. She’d thrown me to the wolf long ago and would have let me die at his hand if I hadn’t fought to survive and run the first chance I got. I owed her nothing. Part of me still blamed her, although I’d been working on those cursed emotions with Dr. Peterson for the better part of a year.
She stopped in front of me, gaze transfixed on the floor. Meek and mild Marlow Krause. Afraid of her own shadow. Broken by the same man who had tried to destroy me.
I wasn’t sure what I expected her to say if anything, but when she spoke, I had to strain to hear. Her voice was as small and injured as she was. Weak and laced with years of exhaustion. “I want to leave. I don’t know how. Please help me.”
Stunned, I stared at the top of her head, struggling to keep my breathing even. Did I hear her right? An unexpected wave of emotion pummeled me from nowhere. When her terrorized gaze finally found mine, her eyes were glassy with tears.
“Please,” she said again. “I have no one.”
Was she afraid of me? Her own son. Why? How? I’d never done anything to her. I’d spent my adult life trying to be a better man than Leroy Krause. I’d walked away for my own survival.
When I didn’t respond, she ducked her head and backed away. “I’m sorry.”
Her frantic retreat from the room knocked the sense back into me, and I went after her.
In the hallway, I called, “Mom.” My voice croaked. “Stop.”
She stopped, but she didn’t turn. Her entire body looked like it wanted to fold in on itself.
I approached but didn’t reach out. I couldn’t touch her. I didn’t know how. We had never had that sort of relationship. I couldn’t remember a single time my mother had held me or comforted me.
“Say it again. Ask me again.”
“He’ll never let me walk away, but I can’t do it anymore. I’ve lost everything. I’m going to die in that house if I stay. He’s going to kill me.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“No. He took a shift. I heard about the party because—”
“Because we ran into him the other day and Tallus told him.”
She nodded. “He was angry.”
Because of the party or the affection he’d witnessed between Tallus and me? Probably both.
I didn’t have to think. I texted Tallus, letting him know I had to run and would explain later. I asked if he could please take Darcy home.
“Do you have a bag packed?”
She shook her head. “I was too afraid you’d say no. I didn’t want to risk it.”
“It’s fine. It’s just stuff. Stuff can be replaced. You can’t.” The words weren’t mine. They echoed from somewhere in my past. I couldn’t remember who’d said them to me, but they had given me the strength to break free.
I drove my mother to the women’s interval home and got her signed in. It was all I could manage. I made sure they understood the severity of her predicament, the brutality of the man she was escaping, and her fear that he might come after her.
