Bleeding Violet (35 page)

“But why would you want to kill yourself ?”

“If I was dead, you’d have to leave. If you left, you’d be safe. I meant to swallow it ten different times. I should have.” She scratched her nails over the already gray card on her arm. “I feel so dirty. I’m sorry you were stuck with me as a mother.” Her eyes were wet, but she wasn’t crying. She was too much of a badass to really cry.

Not like me.

“I’m not stuck, Momma,” I said, sniffling again. “I know you’re not perfect. Neither am I. That’s why I’m so afraid to go to therapy. If you find out how batty I really am, you might not let me come home.”

“I should be the one going to therapy.”

She considered the pill in her hand. “You called me a puppet, remember? You were right. When I let people in, they take me over. There’s a neediness in me, and when you need people they use it against you. That’s why I stay by myself.”

“Wanting to connect doesn’t make you needy—it makes you human. And anything worth having is risky. Like, I can’t guarantee that I won’t hurt your feelings or hit you over the head again. Those are the risks of having me for a daughter.

“But I won’t ever call you a slut. Or lock you out of the house when you stay out all night. I won’t make you kill anyone. And I’ll always love you, no matter what you do.”

I tried to take her hand, the hand with the pill, but she avoided my touch and cradled her fist to her chest like the pill was more important than I was. I grabbed her fist and pried the pill from it, ignoring her protests, and ran out of her room.

I raced upstairs and explained the situation to Swan, who whooped wisely and darted her hard beak at the pill in my hand, swallowing it so Rosalee wouldn’t have to.

When I ran back to Rosalee’s room, she gaped at me and at Swan nestled in the curve of my arm. I gaped too, not at her, but at Poppa, who was now at the foot of her bed, caressing her feet. “Stop that!” I said.

Poppa did stop, guiltily.

“You stop it,” said Rosalee.

“You speak Finnish?” I said, happily surprised.

“A little. You’re not the only one who knows Finnish, just like you’re not the only one who gets to off herself whenever she feels like it. You think I bought that bullshit about the Mayor putting blood on the walls?
You
did that. Didn’t you?”

She did her Easter Island thing, but I didn’t cave. She didn’t need to know everything, not that I’d slit my wrists, not that she was being haunted by Poppa’s ghost.

“That’s just it, Momma. I don’t want to kill myself anymore. I don’t want to, Swan doesn’t want me to, and she doesn’t want
you
to either.”

My coat shifted on the foot of the bed as Little Swan arose from its purple folds, her broken chain rattling as she fluttered before my chest. Her wee talons caught the ruching of my dress, and she came to rest against my heart, like a silver brooch, wrapping herself in her wings. I smiled at Rosalee, who looked almost moronic with shock. “And neither does Little Swan,” I added.

I climbed beside Rosalee on the bed and made the proper introductions. “Swan, Little Swan, say hello to Momma.”

They both bowed their long necks in greeting, and Rosalee gasped.

“Swan’s going to look out for you from now on.”

Rosalee let out a little
oof
as Swan settled into her lap. The trapped look on her face worried me. She’d had to share her body with a jerk for twenty years, and now I was crowding her with all my baggage.

I reached for Swan. “Unless you don’t want—”

“No!” Rosalee held Swan to her chest and stroked her downy feathers. When Swan cooed encouragingly, Rosalee smiled. “A gal like me’s gotta take comfort where she can get it.”

She stared at me when she said it, but when I pressed my hand over her heart, she winced like it hurt.

“Remember what I stitched into your mattress?” I said as her heart spoke into my palm.

She nodded.

“I wish I could stitch it right here.”

Rosalee tickled Swan under her chin and pretended to think about it. “Only if the thread is red.”

I lowered my hand and rested my head on her shoulder, gingerly, waiting for her to shove me away.

She didn’t.