Page 118 of The Woman By the Lake

“Right,” he muttered, gave me a squeeze, let me go and turned to his boy. “Let’s go, kid. We’ll clean up in my bathroom.”

“’Kay, Dad,” Ledger mumbled, walking away, his gaze on me.

When we lost sight of them, I turned back to Abigail. “Sorry about that.”

“Some kid in high school called Kate a fat ass within Doc’s hearing, and my son was suspended for a week. It took some fancy dancing for me to convince his family not to press charges.”

“Whoa,” I whispered, though I wasn’t really surprised.

That was pure Riggs.

“Sadly, my Kate smoked. Fortunately, it wasn’t for very long. However, when she did, she was out at a bar with her brother, and some man tried to bum a smoke from her. She refused, so he called her stupid bitch, and luckily my son was older and wiser, so that time, he just chased him out of the bar. That said, it’s probably good he didn’t catch him.”

I pressed my lips together and spread them out.

“I can see you’re not ready to talk about your mom, darlin’, so I’ll lay off,” she shared.

“Thanks,” I replied.

“But I hope I’ve also shared I’m there if you need me.”

“Thanks for that too,” I repeated more heartily.

“And the other thing I wanted to get into was that I’ve waited a really long time for my son’s remarkable intelligence to catch up to, and then surpass, the damage of his father’s abuse.”

I braced again.

It was good I did. She wasn’t done.

“He saw things and experienced things I will go to my grave regretting I allowed him to see and feel.”

“I’m sure you?—”

She held up a hand.

I shut up.

She dropped her hand.

“You can try to absolve me. My kids have tried to absolve me. It’s a mother’s burden. Even if it wasn’t that extreme, anything that hurts them, we take accountability for it. It’s our job, Nadia. I think from the emotion I just saw around losing your mom, you know that.”

I remembered, as stark as if it happened yesterday, seeing the depths of my pain plain on my mom’s face when I walked out of Trevor’s hospice room after we lost him.

And one of the things that plagued me was knowing she not only died fighting for her life, but she did it knowing I’d not only lose her, but I’d find out about my father, and know he did that to her. I knew her through to my soul, so I knew those were her last thoughts.

And I hated that with a power my mind couldn’t contain, so I refrained from thinking about it at all.

So yes.

Oh yes.

I knew that.

I nodded.

“Therefore, I cannot tell you how happy I am, when he finally extricated his head from his ass, it was with a woman like you.”

Oh Lord.

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