“TELL HIM TO LEAVE,” Mother says to me under her breath, her expression like a deranged mask. Angry and demanding. “Now.”
She still believes she has complete control over me. It’s baffling, how delusional she is. How utterly strange it is that she tried to make herself look like me. As if she wants to actually become me. I don’t understand it.
I don’t understand her.
“No.” I shake my head.
“Do it!” Her words slur together, and I wonder if she’s been drinking. Something’s not quite right with her. She seems on edge.
Turning away from her, I croak, “Spencer,” hating how weak I sound. How weak I feel. I somehow disentangle myself from my mother’s grip at the same time Spencer bolts up the stairs, taking two at a time until he’s standing at the very top of them. Once I’m free, I’m running toward him, ignoring my mother’s shouts.
He grabs hold of my waist when I throw myself at him, my entire body shaking as I wrap my arms around his neck. I hold onto him for dear life, closing my eyes and breathing in his delicious masculine scent.
I’m safe, I think, the relief that floods me nearly rendering me into tears.
He rests his hand at the center of my back, comforting me, though I can tell he’s tense. His focus is on my mother and keeping her away from me.
“Back the fuck up,” he says, his voice extra deep and sharp. “I mean it, Sylvia. Stay away from her. From us.”
“She is my daughter!” The words explode out of her mouth, making me jerk my attention back to her. “Get your filthy hands off of her!”
“Stay behind me,” Spencer murmurs, angling me so I’m standing directly behind him. I use him as a shield, cowering, trembling so hard my teeth start to chatter. “I’ve called the police. They’re on their way.”
Mother starts to laugh. “They’re not going to kick me out of my house, you imbecile. I belong here; whereas, you’re just a guest. An interloper. You’ll be the one the police are escorting out of here, not me.”
“Don’t take another step closer.” The warning in Spencer’s tone is dark. Ominous. I don’t dare look at her, afraid of what I might see.
“You can’t keep me from my daughter. No one can. I always find her. I will always be in her life, whether she likes it or not.”
“Why do you push yourself on her when she doesn’t want anything to do with you?”
“I’m her mother.”
“The mother who tried to kill her numerous times,” Spencer accuses.
The room goes silent, and I wait behind him, my mind awhirl. What is she thinking? What does she look like?
I slowly peer around Spencer’s back, noting the way my mother glares at him, her hand at her neck, fingers toying with the giant pearls that lie there.
“You have a lot of nerve, accusing me of such horrible things,” she finally says, her voice shaky.
“I’m only repeating what Sylvie has told me.” Spencer’s voice is calm, which I’m sure frustrates my mother.
“She’s a liar.” The venom in her words is startling. “She’s always lied. Exaggerated the stories to make me look bad. Do you really think I want to kill her? I love her.”
“You have a very odd way of showing your love. You always have.”
“You don’t know me. Or Sylvie. What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to marry her,” Spencer says. “And once she officially becomes mine, I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep you away from her for the rest of your life.”
“She won’t marry you.”
“My ring is on her finger. It’s happening.”
“Sylvie. Sylvie, please listen to me. Don’t marry this boy. He’ll just drag you down into his sordid world and your reputation will be forever tarnished. Do you want that to happen to you? As you get older, society is all you’ll have. Your husband will leave you and your children will abandon you and you’ll be all alone. You’re just like me, darling. Just like me. That’s why we need each other.”
“I’m nothing like you,” I tell her, my voice stronger. I cling to Spencer’s arm, knowing he’s got me. He’s protecting me from her, and that’s the only thing making me feel brave enough to say this. “I will never be anything like you. You’re a horrible person who hurts people to gain the attention of others.”
Her expression shifts, her eyes narrowing. Lips forming into a thin line. Her cheeks turn red, the flush spreading downward, to her neck. Her chest.
She’s furious.
“You’re such an idiot,” she spits out. “An ungrateful, selfish brat. Always trying to make it about you, when it had nothing to do with you. Nothing!”
Without warning, she comes rushing forward, sidestepping to the right at the last second, headed straight for me. Spencer shoves me backward, and I trip over my own feet, almost falling. With his other hand, he stops my mother from getting any closer to me, bracing it against her shoulder.
“Let go of me!” she shrieks, struggling against Spencer’s grip. Somehow, she gets away from him, her hands up, fingers curled into claws when she lunges toward me. “Come here!”
“No!” I scream.
Spencer is between us in an instant, his arms straight out, hands splayed when they make contact with my mother’s chest. He shoves with all his might, sending her toppling backward. She stretches her hands to her side as if to brace herself, her mouth open, eyes wide with shock as she pinwheels in the air, her feet slipping from beneath her.
Just before she goes tumbling down the marble staircase.
I’m screaming. It’s like I can’t stop. Mother rolls down the stairs, landing at the bottom at an awkward angle, her legs going one way, her torso going another. Her eyes are still wide, her mouth hanging open as a pool of crimson blooms beneath her head.
“Fuck,” Spencer mutters, running down the stairs and kneeling beside her. He touches her neck with two fingers, then withdraws them, glancing up at me. “There’s no pulse.”
For a moment, I’m frozen. Scared. I can’t breathe.
And then relief trickles through me, flowing through my blood, the same two words on repeat in my mind.
I’m free.
“Is there any staff here?”
I take in the position of her body, how her knee is bent backward beneath her. There’s so much blood. It keeps growing beneath her, spreading across the last step and onto the floor.
“Sylvie!” Spencer snaps, when I still haven’t answered him, startling me. “Is there any staff here?”
“No.” I shake my head. “She sent them all home.”
“We need to call the cops.”
“O-okay.” I nod, wrapping my arms around myself.
“We need to get our stories straight first.”
I frown. “What do you mean?”
“This was an accident. I didn’t push her.” He pauses for a moment. “Right?”
I’m quiet, his words sinking in. If I say he pushed her, he could face charges. Even if it was an accident. And it was, of course. He didn’t mean to hurt her.
He didn’t mean to kill my mother.
“Right. You didn’t push her,” I repeat.
“If you say I pushed her, they could arrest me, Sylvie. You understand the implications behind that? I don’t want to go to jail.”
Panic claws at my insides at the thought of Spencer being arrested for my mother’s death. “I don’t want you to go to jail either.”
“I won’t, as long as we agree that it was an accident, which it was. I didn’t mean to push her. I didn’t mean for her to lose her footing.”
Tears are streaming down my face, but I don’t bother brushing them away. “I know you didn’t mean it, Spence. You were just trying to protect me.”
He rises to his feet, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Here’s what we’re going to tell them when they arrive. There was an argument between the two of you. I entered the house to find the two of you fighting on the second floor. I ran up the stairs and interrupted the argument, trying to keep you away from her when your mother slipped and fell down the stairs.”
“That’s exactly what happened,” I say with a nod.
“That’s what you’ll tell them?”
“Yes.”
I start to walk down the stairs when Spencer barks out a harsh, “No.” Making me pause.
Making me start to cry harder.
“Don’t come any closer, Syl. You don’t want to see this.” Taking a deep breath, I watch as he taps out 9-1-1 on his phone before bringing it to his ear. “Yes, we need an ambulance. There’s been an accident…”
The police show up first, their expressions grim when they talk to Spencer. I come down the servants’ stairwell that exits in the kitchen, completely avoiding where my mother is lying, so I can talk to the police as well.
They pull me into a small sitting room that’s right off the foyer, speaking to me alone. I can’t stop crying. I’m a distraught mess and I wish I had Spencer with me, but I know this conversation needs to happen before they’ll let me go to him.
“Tell us exactly what happened,” the one officer tells me, his voice and expression kind.
Opening my mouth, I let the words flow, explaining the entire situation. I give them the chronological details about her showing up out of nowhere, and that I wasn’t expecting her. How our relationship had become strained the last couple of years, especially lately. I don’t mention how she tried to kill me before. How I believe she has mental problems. None of those details matter any longer now that she’s dead.
“What were you arguing about?” the cop asks when I mention our fight.
“Like I said, we weren’t really spending much time together anymore, and I didn’t like how she showed up out of nowhere. I didn’t expect her to be here, and I didn’t want a confrontation with her.”
“Was your mother normally confrontational?”
I nod. “We argued a lot. She argues with all of her children.”
The officer scribbles something on his notepad before lifting his gaze to me. “What you’re telling me lines up with Mr. Donato’s statement. Sounds like it was a terrible accident. I’m so sorry for your loss, Miss Lancaster.”
Swallowing hard, I nod, dropping my head, so I can study my clutched hands in my lap. “Thank you. It’s terrible, what happened.”
The words, I’ll miss her, stick in my throat, and I swallow them down. I don’t want to lie. I won’t miss her.
At all.
We leave the room together, Spencer waiting for me in the foyer, and the moment he sees me, he’s running toward me, hauling me into his arms and holding me close.
“I love you,” he whispers in my ear as he squeezes me tight. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. As okay as it can be,” I admit, closing my eyes.
I’ll have to tell my siblings. And my father. I don’t know how I’m going to say it, but they need to know right away that she’s gone.
Sylvia Lancaster is dead.
“I don’t want to stay here,” I whisper, when I glance up to stare into Spencer’s eyes. “I want to go home. Back to the apartment.”
“We’ll leave soon. They might need to talk to us some more.” He glances up, focusing on the stairwell. “The coroner just showed up.”
“She’s really gone, isn’t she?” The hopeful note in my voice is obvious, and that makes me feel like shit.
Spencer slowly nods, smoothing my hair away from my face, his concerned gaze full of love. All for me. “She will never hurt you again.”
Thank God.
