Behind the Green Curtain (18 page)

Too in shock to do anything, Amelia
felt the chill as Caton backed away from her. Trying to figure out what she
should and shouldn’t say, she glanced to Caton and found a reserve of calm.
“What did it look like?” she asked, and Selene’s mouth dropped open, as if she
had been expecting some kind of explanation that would negate what she had seen
with her own eyes.

A scoffing smile coming to her
face, Selene marched back across the kitchen, grabbing her purse from the
counter and throwing it onto her shoulder, before returning to the doorway with
a sneer and something disturbingly like satisfaction in her voice. “I’m telling
Daddy,” she proclaimed, whirling on her heel and pushing past Sole into the
living room.

Filled suddenly with every ounce of
rage she hadn’t let herself feel in three years of her daughter’s unfair
incivility, Amelia followed Selene from the room. “Go ahead,” she prodded,
stopping at the back of the sofa as Selene turned to look back at her. “Tell
your father.”

“I will,” Selene shot back,
conviction, or something else, shaking in her voice.

“Well, at least I will finally know
where we stand,” Amelia bit out angrily. “If you want to pretend that what I am
doing is somehow worse than the way your father has treated me for the past two
decades, then you go right ahead and tell him. I tried to protect you, but I
know I couldn’t have done that good a job of it.”

Staring back at her for a moment,
more in shock at the unforgiving response than at walking into the kitchen to
find her mother kissing another woman, Selene finally turned and fled. Whether
it was to try to stop Selene from leaving that way or to give Amelia privacy, Sole
trailed Selene back to the foyer, and, suddenly exhausted, Amelia leaned on the
back of the sofa, her arms barely holding her upright.

In the residual silence, she wished
she hadn’t said it, and was glad that she did. She didn’t want Selene to hate
her father, she had always tried to uphold Jack in the eyes of his daughter,
but she was tired of being the target of her daughter’s hatred when Jack was
the one who had earned it.

“I’m sorry.” Amelia heard Caton’s
hesitant voice at her back, and realized she preferred it when Caton was
telling her exactly what she was going to do in no uncertain terms. Most of her
life, Amelia had fought to keep things under her control, when what she really
needed was guidance.

Pushing off the sofa, she turned to
Caton, who looked achingly bright against the dark backdrop of Amelia’s life.
Weeks ago, even days ago, she might have blamed her. It would have been the
simplest emotion to find. Against the tide of her other feelings, though,
Amelia couldn’t find any rage left. “You can make it up to me,” she murmured,
reaching out for Caton’s hand and tugging her against her, finding a streak of
serenity in the intimate press of their bodies.

“That’s not...,” Caton shook her
head, hand rising to Amelia’s chest to keep her gently at bay. “Amelia.” Caton
searched her eyes, and, unable to endure the close examination, Amelia glanced
away, though she couldn’t quite bring herself to step out of Caton’s touch.
“You have to fix this. I don’t know what this is between the two of you, but if
there is one thing I do know, it is how much you love your daughter. You can’t
let it go like this.”

Feeling the tears forming again,
Amelia couldn’t contain them. Perhaps, without realizing it, she didn’t feel
the need to try. “She really does hate me,” she whispered, returning her eyes
to Caton and feeling the first hot tear drip onto her cheek. It felt almost
unnatural, and she tried to remember the last time she had actually let one
fall.

“Why?” Caton watched the drop with
fascination, and Amelia brushed it quickly away.

“Oh, I’m sure you can think of at
least a hundred reasons she should,” she attempted to lighten the conversation,
but Caton neither laughed nor retreated.

Pressing closer instead, Caton’s
arm curved around Amelia’s waist, and Amelia sagged against her, not sure how
she had been standing on her own. “Don’t you even want to try to fix it?” Caton
gently questioned.

“I can’t,” Amelia admitted, more
tears slipping free to run down her cheeks. “I have been trying.”

“Then, try again,” Caton whispered,
and when her hand slipped beneath the back of Amelia’s shirt to rest against
skin, her warmth infused Amelia, pushing out the rest of the cold. “When will
she leave?”

Surprised at the question, and
distracted by the patterns Caton’s warm fingers drew against her back, Amelia
took a moment to find her thoughts. “The first week of January, I suppose,” she
answered. “Nobody really tells me anything.”

Nodding, Caton’s other hand slid
onto her side, and Amelia couldn’t decide which touch to lean into.

“I’m going to take off until then,”
Caton announced.

“No.” Amelia’s awareness focused
immediately. Hands clutching Caton’s shoulders, she tried to hang on. “I need
you here.”

“I am the last thing you need
here,” Caton softly countered.

Meeting Caton’s eyes, Amelia knew
she was going to do it regardless. Even if she wanted Caton to be wrong, to
retract it, to say she couldn’t go, she wouldn’t go, Amelia knew that Caton
leaving, temporarily, was the right thing for all of them.

“What if I do need you?” The words
sounded desperate, but even her pride didn’t stop her arms from closing around
Caton in a last ditch effort to change both their minds.

“You know how to find me,” Caton
returned, leaning in to kiss Amelia so fleetingly Amelia wondered if their lips
touched at all, and stepping away before Amelia could protest.

Caton’s steps across the kitchen
and through the opposite side of the house were so quiet, she may as well have
been gone the instant she left the room. Amelia knew when she was truly gone,
though. The entire mood of the house seemed to change, and she felt alone,
abandoned, though she knew she had no right to feel either of those things.

Caton wasn’t her keeper. She hadn’t
signed up for any of this. She had been recruited in all areas, and no one could
ask her for more than she wanted to give.

Chapter 27

With no worthy means of
distraction, all day Amelia wondered how she could explain something to Selene
she didn’t fully understand herself. She thought she knew what she was doing
with Caton when it started, but she could control only some of the turns taken,
and, as she was discovering with trepidation, only so much of what she felt.

The more time that ticked away
without Selene coming home or even bothering to call her, though, the less
Amelia felt the need to explain herself. Not for the last few months. Not for
Caton. She had spent Selene’s entire life making poor decisions based on
necessity, and had never once bothered to justify those to her daughter. Bad or
good, she wasn’t about to explain one of the few choices she’d made that had
brought her any pleasure at all.

By the time Amelia finally heard
footsteps outside Selene’s bedroom door, it was well after midnight. Jack had
already come home and gone to bed. When he asked the whereabouts of Selene,
Amelia told him she was out with friends, feeling no need to elaborate on how
it came about and bring an undeserved smile to his face.

Knob turning silently, the door
creaked open, and Amelia watched Selene jump in the doorway. “Jesus, Mom,” she
snapped, and Amelia calmly slid the bookmark back into her book. “What are you
doing in here?”

“Waiting for you.” Amelia pushed up
from the chair in the corner and tugged at the comforter on the mattress,
smoothing it to perfection.

“I’m tired,” Selene said. “Can we
do this later?”

“It won’t take long,” Amelia
stated, inspecting Selene and trying to determine what she might have been
doing all day. She appeared sober, sounded her usual irritable self, so Amelia
was sure it was nothing unseemly. More likely, it was of the most wholesome
variety, making cookies and singing carols and drinking cider with someone
else’s family. Losing nerve at the notion, she tightened her fingers around the
edge of the book until they made imprints on the cover. “You’re grounded for
the rest of your break,” she finally said.

“What?” Selene fired back. “
I’m
grounded because I saw
you
making out with that slut?”

“She’s not a slut.” Amelia didn’t
even realize how prickly she was about the subject until it was broached, and
she trained warning eyes on her daughter. “Don’t call her that again.”

Selene seemed to realize she had
overstepped one of the few boundaries she’d ever been given, swallowing as her
gaze fell to the floor.

“That is not why you’re grounded,”
Amelia went on. “You are grounded for talking to me like I am one of the
students you don’t like at your school. Even if you don’t want me to be your
mother, you will treat me with the same respect with which you treat other
adults.”

“You can’t ground me,” Selene
muttered.

“Actually, I can,” Amelia corrected
her. “I’m your mother.”

“I’ll tell Daddy what I saw,”
Selene threatened instantly.

“Yes, you already said that,”
Amelia reminded her, moving around the end of the bed. Walking past her
daughter without another word, she expected to leave things that way. Far from
good, they were also no worse than they had been for the past few years, which
was good enough for one night.

And one night was all Amelia really
had. The situation would rectify itself for Selene in the morning. As soon as
she told Jack she was grounded, he would pardon her from both the offense and
the punishment, with or without knowing what she had done. Selene wouldn’t even
have to ply him with her intel. Jack always overruled Amelia’s attempts at
discipline for the sole purpose of reminding her of his authority.

“Who is she?” Selene’s quiet voice
halted Amelia’s retreat, and she turned to find her daughter looking far more
confused than angry.

Heart pounding in a way it hadn’t
during the familiar routine of the fight, Amelia wasn’t sure she was ready for
that particular conversation. “I told you, she’s my assistant,” she answered
simply.

“Yeah, but, I mean...,” Selene
started uneasily. “So, you’re sleeping with her?”

Taking a breath that did nothing to
soothe her nerves, Amelia realized she should have prepared for the line of
questioning. It was just such a past trait of Selene’s, the kind of in-depth
curiosity her daughter hadn’t shown in some time, at least not toward her.
“Yes,” Amelia responded, not wanting to lie.

Selene dropped her gaze, and Amelia
almost used the opportunity to flee, to leave as she had intended and spare
herself any further flailing. At the door, though, she realized she didn’t want
to go anywhere. She wanted Selene to ask whatever she wanted to ask, just glad
Selene wanted to ask her anything.

As Selene at last looked up, she
struggled with the anxiety behind her eyes, biting her lip like she was
withholding something she was afraid to say out loud, and, chest instantly
tight, Amelia took an encouraging step back into the room.

“Have you ever done anything like
this before?” The move drew the question from Selene, so quietly Amelia could
just make out the words. “I know Daddy has, but you... you haven’t, have you?”

The pain prevalent in the question,
it occurred to Amelia how much Selene might worry about turning out like either
one of her parents. Neither of them had been particularly good role models, and
God knew Amelia wanted Selene to follow in neither of their footsteps. She
could hardly blame her daughter for fearing which of their horrible personality
traits she might inherit. Even if it hurt.

“No,” Amelia assured her. “I have
never had an affair with anyone else.”

“Then, why are you doing it now?”
Selene questioned weakly.

Breath rushing from Amelia in an
unsteady exhalation, she searched for the answer on the light purple accent
wall of Selene’s bedroom, finding it creeping up inside her instead, sending a
shiver through her as she tried to reject her own thoughts.

She couldn’t explain to her
daughter that she had watched Caton and found her mesmerizing, that she had
challenged her and found her reactions exhilarating. Selene surely understood
by now that her elevated status in society made people defer to her, that money
made them blind, made them hold their tongues, that power made them fear and
submit. Caton wasn’t blind, she wasn’t afraid, and God knew she couldn’t hold
her tongue, Amelia thought with a smile. And when Caton submitted, she did so
by choice. At least, Amelia could believe that, and Caton’s behavior since
seemed to prove it. Whatever else Amelia was feeling had no explanation in
reality. Not in hers.

“Are you in love with her?” The
question came as such a shock, Amelia put her hand on the doorframe to steady
herself.

She hadn’t thought about it. Not in
those words. Nor did she particularly want to think about it in those words.
Opening her mouth, her instinct was to say ‘no,’ to push the suggestion away
without deeper consideration, but, realizing outright denial felt like a lie,
she clutched the frame more firmly to keep from sinking to her knees. “I don’t
know,” she breathed, looking to Selene for reaction, surprised when Selene only
nodded in response.

“Is she nice?” Selene asked, and
Amelia watched the look of interrogation fall from her face, leaving behind a
more neutral expression as Selene let her purse drop from her shoulder and
tossed it onto the bed.

“She’s nice to me,” Amelia replied,
and Selene’s mouth twitched up, only for an instant, but Amelia chose to hold
it as the only truth.

“That’s good,” Selene said.

Managing a shaky smile, Amelia took
the momentary peace as the right time to leave, not sure whether it was a real
truce or the calm before the storm. “You should get some sleep,” she said.

“Okay,” Selene nodded, glancing at
her impeccably-made bed before looking back at Amelia in the doorway. “Am I
still grounded?”

“Yes,” Amelia stated firmly.
“Goodnight.”

When Selene didn’t return the
sentiment, Amelia worried it was all just a show to have her sentence revoked.
It seemed genuine, but a lot of things that appeared real in Amelia’s world
turned out to be illusion, and she wondered if things would ever be right
between them again as she turned to the hallway.

“Mom.” Selene’s fragile voice
pulled her to a stop once more. Looking back, Amelia saw a different girl
standing there, one who was more open, one who still trusted her. “I just want
to come home.”

Tears pooling in Selene’s eyes,
Amelia closed her own eyes for a moment against the pain she saw reflected back
at her. She always hoped she could protect Selene from it, but it was clear
that, even with her own daughter, her power was limited. “I know,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” It did nothing, it had no real use, but apology was all she could
give her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Selene shook her head. “I
really am tired. I just want to go to bed.”

Nodding in reluctant acceptance,
Amelia backed out of the room.

“But, maybe tomorrow?” Selene
added.

Of the many unexpected twists the
day had taken, the simple request was most surprising of all. “I’m free all
day,” Amelia uttered, and the smile Selene produced was weak, but real.

“Night, Mom,” she whispered.

“Goodnight, Mija.” Amelia returned
the smile, pulling the door closed behind her.

Alone in the hall, she placed her
hand against the cool wood and released a stale breath, not even attempting to
figure out where things had gone so right. Feeling the tears rise to the
surface, she moved away from Selene’s door, making it down the first few
stairs, before finally sinking onto them. Hand wrapping around a carved post,
Amelia leaned her head against it, letting the tears fall, the steady stream
impeded by broken laughter, as she realized, for the first time in what felt
like forever, they were happy.