Cold Kiss

and you never said anything? What the hell, Mom?”
    “Wren.”
    “No, Mom!” I won’t cry, I won’t . I’m too angry anyway, an icy blue in my veins, crackling and brittle. “All these years I thought he hated us! I thought we weren’t good enough! And you’ve been talking to him?”
    “Come here.” I didn’t even hear her get up, but Mom is suddenly beside me, taking my hands in hers and turning me to face the fire. “Do it, let it go. It’s not good to let it build up, believe me.”
    I’m not sure what she means at first, but then she uncurls my clenched fingers and spreads my hands out. I’m not even thinking when I close my eyes and just let it come, the way she said, and a moment later the fire hisses furiously as icicles plunge into the flames.
    It’s exactly the opposite of what happened that day in the basement after Danny’s funeral, and I can see that she knows it. For a minute I can’t speak—the relief is so sweet, all that rage fired off into the heart of the fire. When Mom puts her arm around my shoulder, I don’t protest. The mad is still there, but it’s only simmering now, distant, in another room where I can’t really feel its heat.
    “It’s not exactly like what you’re imagining,” she says, and leads me to the sofa, where she sits beside me and pulls my head onto her shoulder. “I’ve kept him updated about you and your sister, because he wants to know. He loves you both, but he felt that it was better for you to be without him. He did what he did out of love, Wren. Regardless of fairy tales, love doesn’t always mean a happy ending.”
    I bury my face against her, but it’s not my dad I’m thinking of. I’m picturing Danny as I left him on Gabriel’s bed, frozen in place, still slightly dirty from his midnight wandering, his lips blue and thin, so different from the warm, lush mouth that I used to kiss.
    If I love him, the right thing to do is to let him go. And hope that wherever he goes, he doesn’t remember that I didn’t love him enough to leave him in peace in the first place.
    There might not be a happy ending for me, but I’m going to give one to Danny. I just hope it’s not too late.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

    SUNDAY MORNING FEELS LIKE A STRANGE dream. Mari slept over, so there are four of us at the breakfast table, and watching Mari and Mom laugh together as they make waffles is a little surreal after all the times I wished for the exact same thing. Robin is sort of baffled, since she doesn’t remember them this way at all, elbowing each other and goofing around, acting like sisters instead of stiff, uncomfortable strangers, but I can tell she’s happy about it, too.
    It’s not perfect, of course. But when I went to bed last night, I stopped in the hall outside Mom’s room, and I could still hear them talking.
    “It’s not something you can ignore,” Mari had said, so softly I could barely hear it, not that I should have been pressed up against the wall beside the door eavesdropping in the first place. “Sam knows that, too.”
    Sam . My dad.
    Mom’s answer was nothing more than a vague murmur, too low for me to understand, and I wondered if they were talking about our power.
    Whatever it was, I went to sleep that night thinking that Mom hadn’t really let go of the man she loved, either. Maybe we weren’t so different, after all. I wanted to let that comfort me, but Monday night loomed over everything else, a dark, distinct point on the horizon.
    It’s hard to shake the shadow of it, even sitting at the kitchen table with a plate of fresh waffles drowning in butter and syrup in front of me. But I make the effort, hanging around to make up for my disappearing act, and Robin’s gratitude bubbles over in funny ways, sweetening the orange juice in my glass and gleaming on the basket of tiny baby pumpkins Mom brought, shinier and deeper in color all of a sudden.
    For once, Mom says, “Pretty,” when she spots them, and runs a finger over the fat one on top of the basket. Robin blushes, and at the counter, Aunt Mari smiles over her coffee mug.
    I want to hold on to all of it, but I have to check on Danny, and Mom doesn’t stop me, even though I don’t say where I’m going. I’m a little surprised, but she just follows me to the front door and lays her cheek against mine. Robin and Aunt Mari are settled on the sofa watching a movie while Mari brushes Robin’s hair.
    “Home by dinner,” Mom says. “And school tomorrow, no question.