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She turned her head,my eyes “You don’t know s I need to say Have been waiting to say”

I didn’t move Well, let’s hear it, then You’ve had years to prepare

Part ofto hear this, if for no other reason than to open old wounds and get h to remember why I should hate her

She’d abandoned me Every day, for years

She ood person, but did it matter? Did I need her now?

No

She turned her body but reave to Ivarsen his first Christmas?”

I still didn’t move Or respond

But I remembered it It was small, about half the size of him, with a red ribbon tied around its neck It had been wrapped in old, wrinkled brown paper with a dusty bow I res and boxes of the other presents she’d bought him

She dropped her eyes, and I started to tense

Well, what? Did she steal it while she was high? Mean to give it to Madden? What?

“That bear was yours,” she told me “It had been yours since you were a baby”

I clenched my jaw

I heard her s, but she didn’t coet it to you—and all the other presents I bought over the Christhout the years”

I stared at her, unblinking

“The ave to Fane, and the re and Gunnar…”

My throat swelled, and I tried to force down the needles, but I couldn’t

Alldust in her attic and waiting for a kid ould never open theh my head, but I pushed it away

So what? I had all the toys I could ever want growing up I never ithout anything money could buy I didn’t miss it

“It’sthat…everything you greith, it’s not your fault It’s not theirs, even” She shook her head “They weren’t good people We couldn’t expect theood person once, and while I didn’t kno bad it was for you, I kneasn’t good”