Severed Mother-Daughter Ties novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Biscuit's Green Stitch

Kristen's POV

Wylie told me later how the hall went, once Colleen reached the bottom stair.

She saw the brown folder in his hand and stopped.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Old paperwork for Dad," Wylie said.

Chester stepped between them and took her elbow.

"Go back to bed, Colleen. You look tired."

She looked at the folder one second longer, and then she smiled and went.

Wylie said her hand was on the banister the whole way up, and it was not steady.

I told Lacey that same Wednesday afternoon, with the door of Room 412 shut.

I had planned the words in the shower, and in the elevator, and in the hall.

None of them survived the sight of her.

She sat up against the pillows with Biscuit under her chin, and she was grinning at me.

"You look terrible," she said. "Did Wylie keep you up?"

"Lacey."

"Is that a yes? That's a yes."

"Lacey, I need to tell you something, and I need you to let me get through it."

The grin went out of her face slowly.

"Okay."

I sat on the edge of the bed and took the rabbit's paw in my fingers.

I touched the crooked green stitch on his left ear.

"Who sewed this?" I asked.

"I don't know. He was Annie-Rose's." She frowned. "Mom said he sat on her bed the day she vanished, and nobody could ever say who mended him."

"I sewed it."

She looked at me.

"I was six," I said. "My thread ran out, and all I had was the green from a pillowcase. I made the stitch crooked on purpose, so I'd always know which ear was mine."

"What are you saying?"

"My name was Annie-Rose."

For a long time, Lacey did not make a sound.

Her eyes went to my face, and to my hands, and back to the rabbit.

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