Page 8 of Make You Stay

“From Ms. Strickland. Your mom.”

“No. Did you?”

Emily nods, pulling it from her pocket. “She wrote one for each of us. Me and my sisters. She liked writing letters and telling stories. You would have liked her.”

Those words, spoken by an eleven-year-old girl, break me, and the tears I’ve held back finally have their due. I’m sure Iwouldhave liked Betsey if I had the chance to know her as they did.

Emily, seeing my tears, rushes over, grasping me in a hug about the waist. “Don’t cry, Chloe. I’ll tell you her stories.”

“I’d like that,” I manage, wiping my eyes as I see Aidan standing at his front door, glaring in our direction.

So much for that respect I mentioned earlier.

“You’d better go finish that fort. I have to get busy shoveling.”

Emily glances over her shoulder before nodding. Seems she understands the circumstances and the hostile energy emanating from her father toward me. “I’ll see you soon, Chloe, and I’ll send Dad out to help you.”

Before I can argue her statement, she bounds inside.

Wonderful, now he’ll no doubt be on my doorstep within the hour, even more caustic than before as he accuses me of buttering up his children.

Tossing down the shovel, I scurry inside to hide, praying I won’t have to battle Aidan a second time this morning.

Chapter 3

Aidan

“Why were you hugging her?” I ask Emily as she bounds through the front door.

“She needed a hug.” My middle child shrugs at me as if I’ve lost my mind for asking such a question.

“Yeah, Dad, you could try being nice to Chloe.” Natalie slides into a chair at the kitchen table, wearing her sternest expression.

Are they kidding me?

“She doesn’t deserve it. That woman abandoned her mother.”

“Not according to the letter,” comes Natalie’s enigmatic reply.

“What letter?”

My eldest pulls a piece of paper from her purse, sliding it across the table. “Betsey sent each of us one.”

Grabbing the paper, I pull it open, curious what my friend wanted to say to my children. Especially if it involves Chloe in some way.

Dear Nat,

I love you like a granddaughter. All our talks, stories, and laughs. You are a bright light, much like my own daughter.

You need to know the whole truth of my daughter, as it weighs heavily on my mind. You often asked, with that direct manner so like your father, why Chloe was noticeably absent. Never a part of my life.

The truth is, I wasn’t a part of her life. I left her when she was only twelve.

My selfish heart had dreams beyond my family. Dreams of dancing in the mountains that called me home.

My husband’s life and work were in New York, but our marriage was nothing more than a paper contract at that point. My fault, not his. He knew I desired my freedom, so he let me go, refusing to cage me like a bird.

And I flew, leaving them both behind. I left Chloe in a quest to find myself.

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