Lured into Love (Blossom in Winter #2) - Melanie Martins Page 0,114

the most despicable parents on the planet, but for what? It’d just have been self-destructive. So instead, I lock myself in my atelier and decide to start a new painting. With some old tracks playing on my vinyl player, I stick with the same dark and gloomy abstract style. The first painting I do is very similar to the ones from the collection Outrenoir by Pierre Soulages that Alex and I saw last year, which makes me wonder if Mr. Soulages was also going through a dark period in his life. All of a sudden, I hear knocking, and confusion etches my face as I try to figure out who is at my door right now.

“Petra, may I speak to you, please?” I hear Mom asking after her failed attempt to come in.

Yep, it’s locked. Thank God! “I’m painting!” I shout back.

“It won’t take more than two minutes,” she insists.

Since I’m not in the mood for any more bloody battles, I let out a breath, leave my painting, and go unlock the door. Then I lower the volume of the music and go back to my painting, focusing on it. If Mom wants to talk, she can do so, but she won’t have my undivided attention. Oh no, that’s a privilege I won’t grant her.

As Mom steps in, the smell of fresh paint and wood is quickly replaced by a complex mixture of rose, vanilla, and amber. I’m surprised to hear nothing but silence though.

“What do you want?” I ask, since she doesn’t say a word.

Mom stands still, just beyond the doorway. Then she finally closes the door behind her and says, “I’d like to apologize for what I said earlier.”

My eyes narrow in confusion. “About what?”

Mom hesitates as she looks away for a moment. “About calling you, well, you know…”

“A slut?”

She takes a few steps in my direction, her expression just as embarrassed. “I had never seen my daughter kissing anyone before,” she opens up. “Let alone a forty-one-year-old man who is her godfather.” Mom draws in a breath, her eyes darting down, as she thinks something through. “Those images were… disturbing, to say the least.”

“That doesn’t justify your lack of manners,” I snap back. “Dad didn’t call me anything.”

“I’m not him, Petra.”

“Damn right, you’re not.” Mom widens her eyes, probably astounded that I replied back so fast.

As a cold silence settles in, the air between us gets tenser by the second, and my patience for sharing the same space as her is running out. “Can you leave me alone now?”

But Mom doesn’t react. She seems to be on another planet as she glances around my atelier. “It’s a beautiful place you’ve got here. This is where you paint?” Her tone is sweet and inviting, but I know what she is trying to do.

“Doesn’t it look like it?” Since she is not leaving, I walk to the door and open it wide. “Can you leave now?” I insist.

If Mom came here just to apologize for her lack of manners, then it’s done, so I don’t see why she is not going away.

“Janine made a soup for you,” she says very quietly.

But I reply just as fast, “I’ll eat later on.”

Mom hesitates for a second, but finally paces slowly in my direction, her posture composed and straight like always. Still consumed in her thoughts, she opens her mouth, but no words come out. Then, as she stands in front of me, she tries to stroke my cheek with her hand, but I move back before she can do so.

I pick up a brush and focus my attention once again on the canvas. “You may close the door behind you, please.”

I don’t know if she is still looking at me or not, but I hear her say in a whisper, “I love you,” and the door finally closes.

Chapter 29

Manhattan, October 20, 2020

Petra Van Gatt

“It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas!” I shout, running down the staircase. Then I reach the hallway and go straight to the living room, where I see the Christmas tree standing beside the fireplace, covered with snow, stylishly ornamented with white and gold baubles, and gleaming with gold-colored lights. As my eyes drift down to the bottom, I see the floor covered with innumerable gifts, wrapped in gold-, white-, and silver-toned paper. My excitement is pounding hard in my chest, and I clap my hands, in a hurry to open them all. “Dad! Alex!” I call, but in vain. They must be in the library—they always take their coffee there.