Hummingbird Lane Brown, Carolyn (libby ebook reader TXT) 📖

you think you were so mad at the angels in the clouds?” Sophie hoped like hell she wasn’t pressing too much.

“Because painting was my salvation and my escape from Mother, and something took it away from me,” Emma said between bites. “I don’t know why she let me out on a leash rather than hiring more tutors for my college education, but it was wonderful to be free. And I even got to see you a few times. I wouldn’t have done anything to jeopardize that, so something must have happened that I couldn’t face.”

“Were you dating someone?” Sophie asked. “Did y’all break up or something?”

“I didn’t date in college,” she replied. “I was never sure how to act around guys. After I was discharged from the first place Mother put me in, she made me go out with a guy that was a son or a nephew”—she frowned again—“of one of her friends. I can’t remember the connection, but she said he was wealthy and rather nice-looking, and I needed to think about getting married and producing an heir for the business like she did.”

“So, Victoria wanted you to have an ‘heir’ for the business, did she? That sounds so like her.” Sophie air quoted the word heir.

“It seemed strange to me, too. She’d constantly told me that I was too shy to ever marry, and then there she was pushing me toward this guy . . .” Emma gasped.

“What?” Sophie asked.

“She just did that to prove that I wasn’t capable of a relationship, didn’t she?” Emma asked.

“What happened on the date?” Sophie wondered if Emma’s state of mind had more to do with Victoria than anything else. Rebel had been right when she called it Munchausen by proxy, only instead of making her daughter sick, Victoria had done her best to drive Emma crazy. She must hate her daughter a lot to do that to her, or else she was just a manipulative bitch who didn’t want Emma to have the company when Victoria either retired or died.

“He tried to kiss me good night, and I had a panic attack,” Emma answered. “Then Mother told me that she knew I wouldn’t be able to handle a date, and that I would be seeing the therapist twice a week from then on.”

Sophie stood up, rounded the small table, and wrapped Emma up in her arms. “I wish you had run away and come to live with me and Mama.”

“Me too,” Emma said, “but Mother would have found me, and she would have been so mad.”

Sophie went back to her chair and together they finished off the nachos in comfortable silence.

“You cooked lunch. I’ll get dessert. I saw some Fudgsicles in the freezer.” Emma picked up the empty plate and carried it inside with her. “Tell me more about your college stuff. Did you ever slash a picture into ribbons?”

“Nope, not one time.” Sophie giggled. “But I have to admit I thought about it more than once when I couldn’t get the effect I wanted.”

Emma returned and handed Sophie an ice cream bar. She sat down and took a bite of hers. “Whatever happened is right there at the edge of my mind, but I can’t grasp it. Maybe it wasn’t meant for me to remember. Maybe I’m just supposed to find happiness without the memories.”

“When it’s time, it will come to you. Your mind is probably waiting until you are strong enough to face it,” Sophie told her. “Did you have a car accident? Maybe that’s why you were in gray scrubs. You had a bad wreck. They had to cut your clothes off at the hospital, and they sent you home in scrubs.”

“My car was just fine. I drove it home, but Mother traded it in for a new one,” Emma answered.

“Why would she do that?” Sophie asked.

“Jeffrey couldn’t get the horrible smell out of it. Mother thought maybe a field rat had gotten inside it and died. I always thought that my soul had bled to death in the back seat.” Emma had been about to take a bite of the ice cream, but her hand stopped midair. “I was at the hospital. I remember a lady nurse helping me remove my clothes and telling me it wasn’t my fault. That was the smell of blood in the car. The seats were black fabric, so it wouldn’t have showed.”

“What wasn’t your fault?” Sophie asked.

Emma shook her head. “I don’t know. I can get a flash of myself lying on a hospital bed with curtains around me, and even that much makes me jittery.”

“Are you sure that you were not ever in an emergency room when you were a kid?” Sophie suggested.

Emma cut her eyes around at Sophie. “You know I was never allowed to do anything that might get me hurt. The only time I felt free was when Rebel watched us.”

“Then that rules out the idea that you might be mixing up a trip to the hospital in your youth with the business of slashing the painting.” Sophie blinked back tears and tried to swallow down a lump the size of a grapefruit. Emma’s freedom—her ability to face whatever happened to her—was tied up with the feelings she had when they were together. Sophie sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn’t make a mess of the responsibility.

Chapter Four

The warm shower water beat down on Sophie’s back, easing the sore muscles in her shoulders from painting all day. A visual popped into her head of a tiny shower in the bathroom of her dorm back at the beginning of the second semester of her freshman year. That time, she had turned on the water and then slid down the back wall to sit with her knees pulled up against her chest. Her salty tears had blended with the warm water until she couldn’t cry anymore.

Had Emma gotten pregnant that first semester of college, too? Coming from her background, she would have felt even more