The Star Child (The Star Child Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

entirely.
    “I don’t want you to feel particularly concerned over my financial well-being, Father.”
    “I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised. You always did have so much of your mother in you. This is exactly the type of thing that she’d do.”
    He spoke in such a way that he implied this type of behavior was reckless and undesirable. Despite his attitude, I still stopped breathing. This was unheard of; he never spoke of my mother.
    Throughout my childhood, questions were forbidden and there were no pictures of her in the house. She was there one day, a vibrant, beautiful part of our world, and then suddenly she didn't exist.
    In this tense moment, as I stood in the ornate den with a man whose approval I’d never receive, I was suddenly thrust back in time to the day that my mother passed away.
    We had been taken aside by Stephen’s estate manager and told that she’d died suddenly and that we should go to our rooms. No further explanation was given beyond that. Roger and I wept at the news, unable to reconcile a mother whom we’d seen the night before with one that wouldn’t be coming back. However, this reaction wasn’t one Stephen had the patience for.
    Upon returning to the house, he’d locked us in our rooms for the remainder of the day. When we were released the following morning, we were asked to restrict our tears to a minimum and informed that it was Stephen’s wife who’d died, and he was the only one who should be allowed to cry.
    However, I missed my mother too much and I needed something, some memento of hers, something to hold in my hand. I snuck into her study the next day, using a paperclip technique that I had read about in a book to pick the lock. Even now, I could still recall the hush of the darkened room, the grateful rush of familiarity I recognized in being among those things that had only recently been hers, things she’d once touched.
    Her scent still hung there—a woodsy smell that linked my mother to the nature that she loved and the forest she loved to walk in. That day, I progressed tentatively into the room, touching everything and seeing nothing through my tear-filled eyes. I stayed there for hours, feeling close to her, yet missing her with a longing so intense that it was unbearable.
    Eventually I got up to leave, taking pains not to make any sound lest I be discovered. Then I noticed the crumpled piece of paper at the bottom of the empty wastebasket. My hand lunged forward into the basket as I opened it up greedily. In my hands was simply an old grocery list from the previous month in her handwriting. Yet it was more than that to me. I held it close, feeling as though I’d struck gold.
    That piece of paper went everywhere with me for months. I slept with it under my pillow every night. I opened and closed it so many times that the writing was worn and faded, the paper starting to tear.
    One evening after dinner, it fell from my pocket onto the floor. Stephen picked it up, and there was a rushing sound in my ears as I waited for his reaction. Looking at me in disgust, he tore it up into tiny pieces despite my cries of panic.
    That wasn’t enough for him, however. He further punished me by not speaking to me for the next two weeks. In many ways, this was much worse than being beaten. At least a beating would eventually end, whereas being ignored seemed without end.
    After that day, the study was emptied and all of her things removed, her scent replaced by the harsh burn of bleach. There were no reminders of my mother left in the cold house, no indicators of her presence, which had once filled every room. These memories haunted me now. Though I processed quite a bit, my silence lasted only a few seconds.
    “I’ll take that as a compliment, Father, as I’d rather have my mother in me than the alternative.” I turned to leave again, but before I could make it to the doorway, I remembered something that I needed to say. “I almost forgot. Thanks for the graduation