Her mother kicked up from the chair, sending it sliding behind her. “You’re being irrational, Keira, just like your father. I knew this would happen. I knew it the second that boy walked into my house. That’s why I did what had to be done.”
The ache in Keira’s chest shifted, dropped like a stone into her stomach. “What are you talking about?” Her mother looked over her head, to the I.V., over at the monitor that timed Keira’s heartbeat and she knew, just by the way her mother avoided her glare, how she rubbed her fingers on the bedrail, that the woman had somehow set the entire mess at North Rampart in motion. “What did you do?”
Shoulders lowering, her mother still refused to look at Keira. “I heard you talking about North Rampart and I knew what he was doing.” A small glance at Keira’s face and then her mother’s voice rushed out, full of excuses, rationale that probably sounded sensible in her mind. “I knew it was something you didn’t need to be around so I left a message with Steven’s golf buddy Detective Wilson. He took care of everything else.”
Keira let her eyes dip closed, unable to look at the woman for another second. “You called the cops.”
“I was protecting you.”
Her mother’s protection had cost them all, Kona’s twin most of all. When she opened her eyes and spoke, Keira’s voice sounded flat, resigned. “You killed Luka.”
“I didn’t do a damn thing to that boy.” The bedrail raddled against the mattress when her mother hit it. “Kona killed Luka the moment he decided to be a thug.”
“Get out.”
“I most certainly will not…”
“Get out of my room,” she told her, voice even, steady, brimming with a threat. Keira watched her fingers, the rough musician’s calluses on the tips and she wished she had her Gibson. She needed the calm it brought her. Her mind was set and she promised herself she wouldn’t look at her mother again. The lies, the betrayal, the smothering dominance the woman had always settled over Keira felt too full. “Get out. Now.”
She didn’t rage at her mother liked she wanted. Keira didn’t even enjoy the way the woman’s chin wobbled or how she visibly released her fight. Cora Michaels didn’t move, seemed incapable of doing anything more than stare at her daughter as though she was finally seeing her clearly for the first time. But it was a reaction that had come too late for Keira; an honest expression of respect she no longer needed.
Three slow pumps onto the call button and Keira’s nurse entered the room, that bright smile vanishing when she watched Keira and her mother staring back and forth. “I want her out,” she told the nurse. “I don’t want to see her anymore and I damn sure do not want an abortion.”
“She’s your mama…”
“I don’t care.” Again, Keira closed her eyes, moving her fingers to her temples, trying to ease the pounding there. “I’m legally responsible for myself and I don’t want this woman or her husband anywhere near me.”
Two small steps and her mother reached for her. “Keira…”
“Get. Out.”
And for once, the woman listened. For once, she didn’t exhaust herself exerting her will over her daughter, and when she walked out of that hospital room, Keira felt the heavy weight of her mother’s presence leave with her. It moved from her shoulders, from her chest and finally Keira could breathe.
A yellow brick wall greeted Keira as she waited in the Orleans Parish Prison lobby. The clerk copying her driver’s license moved the card between her plump fingers as though she was looking for a flaw, some small indication that Keira’s I.D. was a fake.
She still felt sore, achy and the fresh bout of morning sickness that Leann was convinced was psychosomatic had Keira feeling woozy and uncomfortable, like her skin had been pulled taut over her bones. Only three days out of the hospital, three days since she’d determined never to see her mother again, and Keira sat waiting for a suspicious jail clerk to tell her it was okay to walk through those heavy metal doors to speak with Kona. Keira didn’t know what she’d do or where she’d go the next day. She only knew she had to see Kona. She had to tell him about the hope growing inside her.
“Miss?” the clerk called and Keira jumped to her feet, pulling her I.D. and a Visitor’s badge under the glass in the metal dip of the desk. “Ten minutes until the end of the last visiting period. You’ll have a half hour with the inmate and then I need that badge back.”
She’d arrived twenty minutes earlier, scribbled her name on a faded form attached to a clip board. Keira glanced at that list, spotting a name that filled her with unease and the rumble in her stomach only got worse. “Lalei Alana.” Kona’s mother, and then, under that name, “Koa Hale,” his grandfather.