out there.”
She had no trouble falling asleep, but at midnight, she awoke. She hurried to the bathroom, dropped down on her knees, and threw up until there was nothing left but dry heaving. Then she crawled over into the corner beside the tub, drew her knees up, and locked her arms around them.
“Are you all right?” Sophie poked her head in the door.
“I’m fine,” Emma answered, but that wasn’t the truth. Her eyes were burning, and she felt as if her world was falling apart again.
Sophie slid down beside her and draped an arm over her shoulders. “You are definitely not fine. Talk to me.”
“I thought,” Emma sobbed, “that it would be over when I dreamed that I killed them. I thought”—she wiped her wet cheeks on the back of her hand—“that meant they were dead to me, and I could move on, but the dream was there again tonight.”
Sophie pulled off a wad of toilet paper and dried Emma’s tears, then tossed it in the trash can. “It took more than ten years for you to remember what happened to you. You can’t expect it to be over in a few weeks.”
“But the nightmares are so vivid.” Emma shivered. “It’s like I’m living it all over again, only this time I’m not drugged, and I woke up as I was stumbling down the stairs. Mother was waiting at the bottom of the steps, and she told me that she wished I’d never been born, that she never wanted kids and I’d been the biggest disappointment of her entire life.”
Sophie gave her a gentle squeeze. “Was there anything new about this dream? Tell me the details.”
“I bent over at the waist and threw up on her shoes. When I woke up, I barely made it to the bathroom before . . .”
“What would your therapist say?” Sophie asked.
“She would ask me how it made me feel.” Emma’s hands trembled, so she held them together so tightly that they began to ache. “I feel like I did when I was twelve years old.”
“What happened then?” Sophie asked.
“I was pouting because I couldn’t go to school with you.” Emma’s memory was so vivid that she felt the same knot in her stomach that she had had that day. “That was the first time she told me that she had never wanted kids. I was brazen enough then to ask her why she had me,” Emma said.
“And?” Sophie pressured.
“She said that her mother had told her if she didn’t have a child by the time she was thirty-five so it could take over the business . . .” Emma cocked her head to one side and drew her brows down so tightly that her head hurt. “Why am I remembering this now?”
“Keep talking,” Sophie said.
“My grandmother said that if Mother didn’t have a baby, she would leave everything to a charity when she died,” Emma answered.
“So, Victoria got married and had you.” Sophie removed her arm, stood up, and extended a hand toward Emma. “Let’s go to the living room where it’s more comfortable.”
Emma was glad for the helping hand, because her knees still felt like jelly. Sophie led her to the living room, got her settled on the sofa, and then went to the kitchen. She poured two glasses of sweet tea and got a box of crackers from the cabinet.
“I’m not pregnant.” Emma managed a weak smile.
“No, but after throwing up, this will settle your stomach without irritating it,” Sophie told her. “Now tell me more about when you were twelve years old.”
“Mother was so mad at me,” Emma said. “She never raised her voice, but she could cut steel with a whisper. She said that she tried to produce a decent heir for my grandmother, but that I was going to be like my worthless father.”
“Why did she marry him if he was so worthless?” Sophie asked.
“Because having a child out of wedlock would have been a disgrace. My grandmother held the purse strings, so Mother found a husband and had me. My grandmother died when I was three. I never knew her, but she left a big chunk of money in a trust fund for me.” She stopped and took a sip of tea. “You know what happened to that.”
“And you’re supposed to inherit the company?” Sophie asked.
“I’m not sure. Mother had me sign a whole raft of papers when I first came home from college. She was impatient and just kept flipping the pages and telling me to