Page 94 of The Library of Borrowed Hearts

Because that’s what the Catherines and Jaspers and Chloes of this world did. Sometimes we struck out on grand adventures. Sometimes we stayed home and buried ourselves in books. But we always, always put our love first.

“The money will be nice, thanks,” I said, trying not to notice how bitter the words tasted on my tongue. It was killing me to accept such a sad second-rate gift from this woman, but Lonnie and Pepper had been right. As much as I hated accepting help, some things were more important than my pride.

My family was one of them.

“You can also come by and visit anytime you want,” I said. “This is your house just as much as it is ours. More, actually. I can’t promise the kids will welcome you with open arms, but you’re within your rights to try.”

“About that.” She held up a finger before turning and going to the kitchen, where the sound of rustling papers soon followed. When she returned, it was with a manila folder in one of her manicured hands. She shoved it at me before I had time to do more than blink. “This is for you. It’s the deed to the house. I’m only sorry it took me this long to sign it over. I don’t think I realized it was still in my name until—” She grew flustered and tried to cover her sudden discomfort. “Well, anyway. It’s yours now. Stay here if you want. Sell it and take the kids somewhere else. Just make sure you send me your updated address if you do, okay? I’d like to stay in touch…as much as I can anyway. You get it, right?”

The enormity of what was passing between us wasn’t lost on me. She was giving me the house—small and in disrepair, yes, but still worth at least a hundred and fifty grand. She was also giving me a way out of thislife, this town. I could take the kids to Spokane if I wanted. Start over near colleges and opportunities. Build something of my own.

But when I spoke, it wasn’t about the deed in my hand.

“Until what?” I asked.

She blinked her confusion—and a few wayward tears I pretended not to notice. “Huh?”

“Just now, you said that you hadn’t realized the house was yoursuntil…and then you stopped. What were you going to say?”

She dashed at her eyes with the back of her hand. Clumps of mascara transferred from her lashes to her skin, leaving a black smear behind. “Nothing, really. Just that Iamsorry, Chloe. I know it’s too little, too late, but you have to understand that this place was killing me. When you lived here and were able to help with the kids, I got on all right, but after you left…” She shook her head in what I assumed was supposed to be a gesture of supplication—maybe even regret—but all I saw was her vanity and weakness, her inability to love anyone as much as she loved herself. “I wasn’t built to do this sort of thing alone.”

That was when I snapped. I wish I could say that I went off on her in a full blaze of glory, spouting venom like Jasper Holmes at his angriest, letting loose all the stress and anxiety of the past four years—or even that I eloquently reduced her to rubble with a literary quote.

Instead, I severed any remaining ties in my heart and let myself feel the one emotion she genuinely deserved: my pity.

“You were neveralone, Mom,” I said. “That’s the thing you got wrong—not sneaking out in the dead of night or abandoning three underage children to the state, not even how long you stayed away without a single word. Your problem was that you had some of the best people in the world living in this house with you, and you never once stopped to think of how lucky that made you.”

She winced but took each word as it came. “I know. That’s why I’m giving you the house. Your next-door neighbor had a lot to say on thesubject. I don’t know what you kids did to win him over to your side, but it must have been something big. When I lived here, he was so nasty to me that I used to quake every time I saw one of his lights come on.”

“He’s still that nasty,” I said, the words automatic. “We just learned to look past it to the man he is underneath.”

My mom nodded as though she understood, but she didn’t—not in any way that counted. If you were to put the two of them side by side, one a cranky old man who had few graces and even less tact, the other a beautiful woman in her forties with a smile that lit up the night sky, everyone would say that they’d prefer the company of the latter.

But they’d be wrong. Jasper was craggy and full of sharp edges, yes, but my mom was a beautiful, ethereal nothing. It had taken me a long journey through Jasper’s past to realize it, but life was better when you had something to hold on to. Not memories and not hopes, but something real. Someonereal.

“He’ll take good care of you from here on out,” my mom added as if reading my mind. “Much better than I ever did, that’s for sure.”

She paused then, looking equal parts uncomfortable and hopeful. “Can I hug you, Chloe? One last time before I go?”

I nodded before I’d even had time to finish processing the question—not about the hug, but about it beingone last time. Maybe she genuinely believed this was the first of many such embraces, but as her arms came around me and squeezed, I knew, deep in my heart, that she wouldn’t be back.

“Todd and I will pick up the kids from school,” she said as she let me go, her bright color already starting to come back. Now that she’d severed the last of her ties to this place—and to her family—she was a like a bird regrowing its plumage. “We’ll say our goodbyes then.”

“And Noodle?” I asked, feeling tense.

She fixed her gaze on a spot a few inches above my head. “I’ll pop by and let him know we’re leaving, but I doubt he’ll even notice we’re gone.He’s the one who called me to come back, but…I don’t know, Chloe. He doesn’t have much of aheart, does he?”

With that, I realized she was giving me one final gift. By disclaiming all understanding of and for Noodle, she was cutting the last thread of my affection for her. In a way, it was almost like faking her own death and escaping into the night. She would send money home—when she remembered to—and maybe even stamp the occasional birthday card, but we were finally free.

“‘His heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high,’” I said, one of my favoriteThe Princess Bridequotes rising naturally to my lips. Then I finished with a line of my own. “I’m afraid you just never learned to scale them.”

She picked up on the quote almost at once. “We did always love that book, didn’t we, you and I?”

“There are worse things in the world to have in common,” I agreed, a bittersweet smile touching my lips. “Goodbye, Mom. And thank you.”

She looked as though she wanted to add more, but we both knew there wasn’t anything left to say. She’d done what she came to do, given what little she had to give, and would disappear as easily as she had the first time.

The only difference was that this time, I knew I was going to be okay.