I swallow, not reaching up to brush away the tears that manage to escape.
“That really was brainless, Sam.” He nods in agreement. “Worse was that you lied to me for so long about Jean. You knew her, but didn’t tell me.”
“I didn’t know her,” he says. “I didn’t know she was your grandma, either. But I knew what she was. And I thought she had come to harm you. I mean, what are the chances of another immortal showing up in Goshen? Unless she’d come here for a specific reason—and it seemed that reason was you.”
“Are you saying most immortals don’t get along?”
He smiles, his thumb lightly caressing the side of my hand. “I’m saying most immortals are suspicious of one another. Remember the bad ones I was telling you about before?”
I sigh, and turn my hand over, wrapping my fingers around his hand. His eyes come to mine in question.
“I’m still not sure how to feel about all of this, Sam. And even though I can kind of understand why you did what you did, it doesn’t change the fact of what I had to go through during the time I thought you were... I mean, couldn’t you have given me some kind of warning? I don’t know if I’ve ever been so terrified in my life—and that’s saying a lot since I’ve slept in jungles with lions and other predators.”
He squeezes my hand lightly, the heat between our hands intense.
“I will never forgive myself for what I made you go through, Niahm, so if you can’t ever forgive me, I can’t blame you. I should have tried to explain at least, though it would only have made you believe I was crazy, and you still would have thought I’d killed myself.”
I go back to when we first arrived at the motel, and try to imagine how I would have reacted had he told me he was immortal and then shot himself to prove it. He’s right; I would not have believed him.
“It’s going to be hard to trust you again,” I say.
“I know. And I understand. I hope you can believe me when I tell you that I won’t ever lie to you again. I can’t lie to you, but even if I could, I wouldn’t. Not now.”
I can feel that he’s being utterly honest, and feel the tiniest portion of my anger slip away.
“I should get back,” I say. To my surprise, he doesn’t argue. He stands and pulls me up by my hand that had been resting on his arm, which he hasn’t released.
“Niahm, can I please...” he stutters, unsure of himself. “I know it doesn’t mean anything to you, that it’s not saying... but, please, can I please just hold you for a minute?”
I consider refusing, just to see if I can, but then I step forward and wrap my arms around his waist. His arms close tightly around me, sheltering and safe, and for a few minutes as we stand that way, swaying slightly, I pretend that all is right with my world.
Chapter 44
Niahm
Sam rides back to the house with me, and after brushing down the horses he leaves. I’ve been avoiding Jean all morning. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do or say when I see her.
Stacy came last night, and held me while I cried. I knew she was frustrated by my refusal to tell her what was wrong, but really, what could I say? Hey, guess what, my boyfriend shot himself today to prove he’s immortal. And, oh yeah, my grandma is immortal also. She left this morning when I told her I needed to be alone. I’m feeling amazingly guilty over how good a friend she is, and how much I’ve neglected her.
I walk into the house with a dejected Bob trailing me. I don’t feel too sorry for him though. If the two or three feathers hanging from his belly are any indication, he had plenty of fun while I was away.
“Hi.”
I jump as Jean’s voice comes from the backside of the kitchen table where she sits. I guess she’s trying to be unobtrusive.
“Hi,” I say, unsure of how I feel about her. Then, deciding I may as well get it over with, I pull out a chair and sit down opposite her. I can’t miss the overflowing plate of homemade cinnamon rolls sitting in the middle of the table, especially as my growling stomach reminds me I haven’t eaten yet today. I consider refusing them just on principal, but decide it won’t help my pride if my stomach continues to protest loudly. I drag a napkin from the holder, plopping a large roll on top after taking a big bite.
“Are you okay?”
I glance up at her. There isn’t an easy answer to her question, so I just shrug.
“Did Sam find you?”
I nod.
“Do you want to talk? Ask me some questions?”
After swallowing another large bite, I say, “I don’t know what questions to ask, because I’m not sure what all I want to know.” A thought strikes me. “Can you lie to me?”
She smiles grimly. “He told you about that, huh?” At my nod, she continues, “I’m still pretty new at this, so I don’t really know exactly how it all works, but I believe the only thing that prevents one from lying is being bound to another. I’m assuming he told you about that, as well?”
There’s a slight edge to her voice, as if she’s trying hard not to be angry at Sam herself.
“Yeah, he did. So, you’ve never been... bound, I guess?” I grunt at the strangeness of this conversation. That surreal feeling comes over me again.
“No.” She takes a cinnamon roll and bites it before placing it on the napkin in front of her. “From what I understand, it’s rare.”
That was what Sam had said. Or something like that.
“How rare?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “I really don’t know, Niahm. Sam or Shane might be able to answer you better than me.” She pauses as she takes another bite. “You know, I’m furious with him for telling you.”
“Really? Why?” I’m genuinely curious. Is she just angry that I know about her?
“Because he has put you in danger.” Her words surprise me.
“The Sentinels?” I guess. Her face changes at my question, as she shoves away from the table, standing in the same motion.
“He told you about them?” she demands.
“Well, yeah,” I say. She stares at me for a minute, jaw clenched before she sinks back down into her chair.
“He would,” she mutters.
“Shouldn’t you have?” I ask. “I mean, you’re my grandma, you’re supposed to be watching out for me, right?”
Tears swim in her eyes, but never fall as she answers me. “I wouldn’t have come back if I hadn’t found Beth’s letter.” I raise my brows at her comment. “I would never have put you in danger that way.”
“But you’re here now. You put me in danger by coming here, right?” I’m mostly guessing but her guilty look tells me I hit it right on the head.
“I couldn’t ignore her final plea. It was hard enough ignoring her pleas while she was alive.”
“Yeah, but you managed to ignore them,” I spit out. “What’s different now?”
She takes another bite of her roll before answering.
“She included a picture of you once, when you were maybe five or so.” She glances up at me, holds my look. “I saw your eyes.”
“So you came back to see if I am... like you?”
“Yes,” she says, and at my dropped jaw, adds, “and no.”
“Do I want to know what that means?” I mutter.
“Of course I was curious, but I could have easily waited until I heard of your death before coming back to see.”
“But?” I ask when she pauses, her words hanging on an unfinished thought.
“But mostly I wanted to meet my granddaughter. I knew that you wouldn’t know me, that I could come and look the way I do, and not have you question it.”
“Look young, you mean,” I say.
“Yes.”
“I noticed your dark roots before. But I couldn’t find any rational explanation, so I convinced myself I was crazy.”
Jean smiled. “I don’t know if I just got lazy at keeping up the scheme, or if I subconsciously wanted you to figure it out,” she says.
“I doubt I would have figured it out
,” I argue. “Who could possibly imagine such an explanation?”
She shrugs, taking another bite of her roll, which I mirror.
“How did you, uh, die, I guess?” I ask.
A pained look crosses her face, and she sets the roll that she had just lifted to her mouth back down without taking a bite.
“That’s a long story,” she says quietly.
“I’ve got time,” I say, leaning back in my chair as if to prove it.
“Stubborn like your mother,” she says. “Alright, I’ll tell you.”
I lean forward again, surprised. I really didn’t think she’d capitulate.
“You have to understand that there were a lot of things that your mother wasn’t aware of,” she began. “My husband wasn’t who she thought he was. He was a great father, I’ll give him that. But he wasn’t a great husband.”
She clears her throat, stands and crosses to the fridge, where she pulls out two bottles of water which she brings back to the table, setting one in front of me. “He tried, he really did. But he just couldn’t love me in the way I wanted to be loved. When he was a boy, he’d been... ” She glances up at me, looking as if she’s debating how much to tell me. When I don’t say anything, she sighs and continues. “He’d been molested by an adult relative.”
I gasp at her words. She couldn’t have surprised me more had she confessed her secondary ability to fly.
“It went on for quite some time, and it really messed with his head.”
“Well, duh,” is my brilliant response.
“He could be a great father, and love his daughter to no end, because it was an entirely platonic relationship. With me, it was different of course.” She grimaces at the painful memories. “For the first year of our marriage, he really made an attempt to have a normal relationship. But I could always feel the hesitancy, the wall that he put up whenever I came near. Eventually, he quit trying. I found out shortly after that I was pregnant. We only had one child because after I became a mother, he told me that he couldn’t be my husband any longer. When he told me why, I thought that maybe if I loved him enough, I could change him.”
She shifts uncomfortably in her chair. “I convinced him to stay. And he did, because he loved his daughter, and I think he even loved me a little—just not as a husband should love his wife. Weeks of waiting for him turned into months, and then years. I was lonely. I felt like a failure, as if I were undesirable and unwanted. I became depressed.”
She glances up at me again, then stands and walks to the sink, where she picks up a lone plate and begins to wash it. She rubs the soapy cloth against the porcelain for far longer than necessary, her back to me.
“I knew that if I left him, he wouldn’t blame me. But because I had let so much time go by without seeking help, the depression was deeply rooted. So I got into the tub one day, slit my wrists, and waited to die.”
A shudder of shock runs through me at her nonchalant narrative. She was suicidal? When I say nothing, unable to speak as my mind tries to make sense of her actions, she turns my way.
“When I woke up, I was lying in a deep pool of blood, weak from the loss, but alive.”
“What if my mom had come in and found you?” I demand.
“She wouldn’t have,” Jean says. “She was gone away to camp for the week. I wanted him to find me, to know what he’d driven me to.” She shakes her head. “I was not in a good frame of mind, Niahm. It’s hard to understand unless you’ve been there.”
I swallow over the lump in my throat, trying to push back the feelings of betrayal on behalf of my young mother who would have been left motherless.
“So what made you think you were immortal?” I ask, not exactly kindly.
“I didn’t. Not then. I thought God had spared me for some reason. I didn’t want to be spared, though, so I took several bottles of pills a few days later. All that resulted in was a lot of vomiting and horrible stomach cramps. So I walked down to the cliff—the same one that the car went over—and jumped. When I woke from that, I was sore everywhere, covered with bruises, but still not dead.”
I shake my head, wanting to stop her words. I’ve heard enough. I lift my hand as she says, “A few days after that, I took his gun—”
“Stop!” I yell, coming to my feet. Her words immediately bring remembrance of Sam and his own gun, and I definitely don’t want to hear this part. “No more,” I whisper, sympathy for her plight cutting me. “I get it. You kept trying to commit suicide, but couldn’t. I don’t need any more details. Please.”
“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“Really?” I scoff. “You didn’t think it would upset me to know that my grandmother was suicidal? In the extreme?”
“I ... I didn’t think that part through, I suppose,” she stutters.
“Must be some kind of immortal shortcoming, not thinking things through,” I mutter. “I just don’t know why I have to be the one who pays for it.”
“Did Sam—”
“No,” I interrupt her abruptly again. “No, you don’t get to bring Sam into this side of it,” I say, feeling nauseated.
“I’m sorry,” she repeats, and she actually sounds sincere. “I just wanted you to see that it wasn’t a fluke that I figured it out so quickly. I mean, relatively quickly compared to most immortals from the stories I’ve heard. I should have figured it out much sooner.”
“So you left?” I say, changing the subject, not wanting to dwell on her story any longer.
“I felt I had no choice,” she answers. “It had been several years since my failed... attempts. I was frightened by the knowledge of what I was. I actually only thought to go away for some time, try to figure things out. At least, that’s what I told myself. I think deep down I always knew it was going to be permanent. When my car was stolen and then driven off the cliff—”
“So that much is true, at least?” I interrupt.
“Yes, that part is true. It seemed divine intervention, so I took it. I’ve told you how close I was to deciding to go home.”
“After you’d been gone a while,” I say, “didn’t you ever think about going back?”
“Every day,” she says firmly, the conviction in her voice convincing me of the truth. “But by then I knew about the Sentinels, knew about other immortals who were dangerous, knew that I couldn’t bring that home to my daughter. Then she married and moved here.” The look she gives me is equal parts pleading and defiance. “She was happy. So was my husband, because he didn’t have to pretend anymore, could live as a loner without having any personal relationships other than his daughter, and that was long distance.”
“He died young,” I say, as if it were somehow her fault.
“Yes,” she says. “He had a heart attack, and no one found him until it was too late. I went to his funeral.” I can feel that my face shows the surprise I feel. “I cried for him, for his lost soul, and for my daughter who now thought she was an orphan.” The corners of her mouth turn up slightly as she remembers. “But she didn’t need to be cried for. I watched her with her young husband, saw how much they loved one another, saw the way he looked at her with such love and devotion, with everything I had always wished for from my own marriage. And I knew then that she was going to be just fine.”
“Yeah, right, fine other than spending her entire life searching for her lost mother.”
Jean shakes her head again. “I didn’t know that was what she was doing. I knew how often she travelled, knew that she was in the city quite often to leave letters in the tree. I didn’t know why she was doing those things. I just knew her life afforded her the opportunity to travel, and I was so grateful for our strange correspondence that I didn’t stop to question it.”
As much as I want this to be her fault, her words make sense to me. What I wouldn’t give to suddenly start receiving letters from my mother now. Besides, I can understand her unwillingness to bring danger to my mother’s doorstep. I would have done the same thing. r />
“Niahm.” Her use of my name brings me out of my thoughts. “I’m genuinely sorry for the hurt I caused Beth, and you. I would do anything to not have this curse, to have had a normal marriage, to have been able to watch my daughter as she became a woman, a wife, a mother. I would do anything to keep you safe now.”
Her fervent speech moves me against my will.
“I’m sorry, too,” I concede. “For having been so horrible to you since you came. I know my mom would have wanted me to treat you... differently. I’ve dishonored her by being such a brat. But—” I lift a finger to stop her when she opens her mouth, a hopeful expression on her face. “This is all very weird, and I don’t really know how to deal with it just yet. I need some time to process, and decide what I’m going to do with what I now know about... all of you.”
She nods solemnly, but the hopeful look remains.
“Do you want me to go?” she asks. “Just for a while, give you some space?”
I consider her offer. It would be nice to be alone, without anything trying to influence me in any way. Honestly, though, I won’t be alone. My thoughts won’t leave me be. Sam and Shane are here and in a small town like this, it would be impossible to avoid them. And as much as I want to tell Stacy everything, and let her be my support, I know that’s impossible. If by some chance she did believe me, then I would be endangering her. That’s one thing I definitely won’t do.
“No,” I say, making up my mind. “I’d rather you stayed.”
She nods, unable to stop the grin from splitting her face.
“I’m exhausted,” I say, and I am. Not just physically, but emotionally. Actually, mostly emotionally. “I think I’m going to go take a three day nap,” I inform her.
“Okay,” she says. “I’ll keep things quiet so you can rest for four days.” I give her a half-hearted smile. As I head up the stairs, she calls out, “Just don’t forget you have school in the morning.”
I shudder at her words, the same words my mother would call to me as I went off to bed, as if I didn’t know, or didn’t get myself to school on all the days she was gone. If I’d had any doubt she was my mother’s mother, I no longer did.