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.
TWO
Triss
IT WAS ALWAYS HARD TO leave my mother, but that morning, as I had kissed her cheek, it was a million times worse. I wouldn’t get to see her at all the next day since I was taking the girls with me down to New York City to attend the reading of the will.
I didn’t expect to be gone longer than that day, so I told my boss I would be at work the day after when I asked for the day off. As always, George was accommodating, and even sympathetic when I told him my father had died.
That evening, I set out the girls’ best clothes. Daisy’s clothes looked a little better than poor Lily’s since she was in nice hand-me-downs from when Lily was her age. But the older girl had gotten her current wardrobe from Goodwill and yard sales. Still, I had taken care of their clothes better than my own, so they had a few things I could choose from to dress them with the next morning.
For myself, I picked out a pair of black dress pants that weren’t as shabby or dingy looking. I paired it with a simple, black button-up that had been missing at least three buttons when I had first gotten it at the Goodwill. My shoes were six-year-old Mary Janes. One had a hole in the side, but as long as I kept my feet together when I was sitting, no one was likely to notice.
All three of our coats were going to stand out when we walked into the prestigious law firm of Goldwin, Allister & Marsh, but I wasn’t going to waste money on coats when the ones we had did the job they were meant to do.
It was over a six-hour drive down to New York City from Buffalo, so I had to get the girls up early. I bundled them up in the back seat of my old car and tucked blankets around them. Before I had even pulled out of the parking lot, they were sound asleep once again.
As I waited at a traffic light, I looked back at them, my heart contracting with love. Lily looked just like our mother and me, but Daisy took after her father with her nearly black hair, those big brown eyes, and her olive complexion. The girls were holding hands while Lily cuddled her favorite stuffed animal with her other arm. Daisy was sucking on her thumb.
Reaching into the back seat, I tugged her hand down, but no sooner had I dropped my hand was that damn thumb back in her mouth.
Sighing, because I had other things to worry about besides my baby sister sucking her thumb, I drove through the now green light and headed for the interstate. Traffic slowed us down, and then the girls had to pee three separate times, so by the time I pulled into the undergrown garage at Goldwin, Allister & Marsh, it was already ten thirty-eight.
Hustling the girls into the elevator, it took us to the lobby and opened in front of a reception desk. The neatly dressed woman behind the desk looked up, her eyes widening in surprise when she saw the three of us.
Slightly breathless, I took hold of Daisy’s hand, knowing she would get into everything around her if I didn’t rein her in. Lily stuck close to my side, holding one of the belt loops of my dress pants as we crossed to the desk.
“May I help you?” the woman asked with a tight smile
that told me she hoped I was in the wrong place.
“Triss Prescott for Amber Allister,” I informed her, watching the woman’s eyes grow wider, giving her an almost comical bug-eyed kind of appearance.
“One moment please,” she murmured, picking up a phone.
“Look, Triss,” Lily said with a dazed tone. “They have a water fountain.”
I followed her gaze. It was a beautiful fountain, with stones and exotic flowers surrounding it. “Pretty,” I told her, unconsciously stroking her long, blonde hair, hoping to soothe myself with the comfort of what was familiar. Lily’s silky hair under my fingertips grounded me, made me remember the reason I was there.
The receptionist cleared her throat. “Mrs. Allister will be right down, Miss Prescott. If you would like to have a seat?”
I nodded and took the girls over to the leather ottomans near the fountain. I didn’t sit, but crouched down in front of the girls once they were seated. I kept ahold of Daisy’s hand and took Lily’s, as well. “Remember what we talked about. This is really important, okay? I need you to stay quiet little church mice while I handle some business.”
Lily nodded. “I promise, Triss.”
“Are you sad, Triss?” Daisy stroked a chubby, little finger down my cheek with her free hand. “You look sad. Do you miss your daddy?”
At her innocent, little question, tears filled my eyes, though I didn’t let them fall. I couldn’t afford to let the three vultures who would be in the same room with us see my weakness, especially Nancy.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I miss him very much.”
Daisy leaned forward, rubbing her little button nose against my own. “I miss my daddy, too. Maybe they are playing together in Heaven. My daddy liked to play.”