The Saint(59)
“What do you mean? We can’t be friends anymore?”
“Unfortunately, yes, that is what I mean. Of course, I’ll still be your priest. And if and when you need a priest, I’ll be here for you, but only in that capacity. Go, Eleanor. Go be a normal teenager for a year or two. Go grow up.”
“A year or two?” It sounded like the worst prison sentence imaginable. No more long talks in the choir loft? No more help with her homework? No more cocoa when she was fighting with her math homework?
“I’m your priest, not your babysitter.”
Eleanor only looked at him. Even in the faint light of a passing streetlamp, she could see how hard his eyes had turned. His face was as cold and stony as granite. All affection, all concern, all mercy had drained from his expression.
“You’re a cold bastard,” she said, refusing to let another tear fall. “You know that, right?”
“I do. And it is for the best you know it now, as well.”
The Rolls-Royce pulled up at the end of her street, far enough away her mother wouldn’t see where she’d come from, close enough she’d only have to be in the cold a minute or two.
She wanted to say something more to him, wanted to beg him to change his mind, wanted to tell him how much she hated him. Instead she simply opened the door.
“Eleanor,” Søren said before she left the car.
She looked at him and saw the faintest look of anguish in his eyes.
“What?”
“This will hurt me more than it hurts you.”
“Good.”
She left him alone in the back of the Rolls.
As quietly as she could, she took the spare key from under the mat and unlocked the back door. She locked the door behind her and started when she heard a voice in the dark.
“Do I even want to know where you’ve been?” her mother asked.
Eleanor slowly turned to face her mother, who flipped on the kitchen light. Once more Eleanor was bathed in the fluorescent lights of an interrogation.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to stay out so late.”
Her mother stood in the doorway wearing her dingy white bathroom and slippers. Disappointment lined her mouth.
“That’s not an answer.”
Eleanor weighed her words and decided to try the truth, at least half of the truth.
“Dad called. He said he was about to get sentenced. This might be my last chance to see him.”
“You went to see your father? Oh, Elle.”
“Yeah, Mom. I’m sorry. I missed him. But it was stupid. He didn’t want to see me. He wanted me to lie for him. I ran out and left my coat behind.”
“I could have believed that once. But this doesn’t really help your case.”
She pointed to the side of Eleanor’s neck, where Lachlan had bitten her earlier. She must have a hickey the size of Delaware from how hard he’d bitten and kissed her.
Fuck.
“Mom, nothing happened. I swear I didn’t—”
“I don’t care.” Her mother raised her hand. “I don’t care anymore. I told you the night you got arrested that if you pulled something like that again I was done with you. Now I come home from work and you’re gone. No note. Nothing. I call Jordan’s and you’re not there. School. Church. Gone.”
“I got lost in the city. It took me a while to figure out how to get home.”
“I don’t know why you came home. You obviously can’t stand it here. Not if you’re running off to see your father, whom I forbade you from having any contact with.”
“He said I might not see him again for years.”
“That’s a bad thing?”
“I thought it was. Now I know … I never want to see him again. I’m sorry. Nothing happened—”
“Save it. No matter how much I care you go off and you do whatever you want with whomever you want anyway. So I’m going to stop caring. I’m not even going to punish you. That’s how little I care right now.”
“No, Mom, don’t be like that. Please don’t …” Tears burst from her eyes. “Don’t give up on me, too.”
“Too? Who else is giving up on you?”
“I did something stupid, and now Father Stearns isn’t even going to monitor my community service anymore.”
“Then he’s smart. You’d run right over him and his feelings like you do with everyone else who tries to care about you and help you.”
“Mom …” Eleanor took a step forward but her mother stepped back and away from her.
Her mother stared straight into her eyes.
“When you were little, you always called me Momma. And you smiled when you said it. Now it’s Mom. And you never smile at me.”