SYNCHRONICITY (Dream Walker) 🖋

Debbie & Sarah - 2

"A really, really bad, sick joke..."

Debbie shook her head as her eyes spilled over.

"You're alive? I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD!"

Debbie lowered her head. "I know. I'm so sorry...I had to protect you. I had to protect them all. I just had to...Anyway I could....I didn't have a choice...please understand..."

"Anyone who'd come snooping...I could have made fire..."

Debbie nodded. "I'm aware of that but you see, I didn't want you to have to have that on your conscience. You'd have landed in the hospital..."

"In the hospital? Oh, that's rich! I took your place! I'm still being weaned from the medications that I didn't even NEED just to keep up APPEARANCES!"

Debbie nodded and whispered, "if it makes you feel any better, I'm a walking pharmacy..."

Diane sighed heavily and shook her head. "It doesn't. I mean, I'm glad that you have access to the medicine, but no. It doesn't make me happy. Not at all. How could you do that to me! To US! Didn't you think I could take care of my own children! Didn't you trust me!"

"It's not that..."

"What! What then!"

"I didn't trust them."

"Who! The girls? Sebastian? His family, their friends? Their children? WHO!"

She nodded. "They were so young...and the babies," Debbie whispered. "What we did to Alison and Beth...to keep them safe...both smack in the middle of the spider's web...it's plagued me for years!"

"Well Sister Dear, they're all on the right path..."

Debbie nodded. "Yes. I know."

Diane laughed bitterly. "Of course you do! Because YOU KNOW EVERYTHING DON'T YOU!"

Debbie lowered her head and Alison reached for the tablet. "Okay Mom, I think she's had enough for now. You're flying out with Beth, right?"

Diane huffed. "Yes. I said I would."

She nodded. "Okay. I'm going to let you go. Give Beth and Lynnie our love please?"

Diane nodded. "Yes. Good night Rosemary."

Alison smiled. "Good night, Momma."

Alison ended the transmission and lay the tablet in the middle of the table.

James sat down at the table with a cup in his hand, desperately wanting to lighten the mood of everyone in the room. "We don't stand on formalities here. It's not like it's high tea or anything. Help yourself."

Sebastian took that as his cue to excuse himself and text Topher to see if he had any issues with getting the woman from HR back to her hotel...and to fetch a Guinness for himself from the beer cupboard in the basement.

Alison sat across from her aunt staring at the woman's reflection in the dark glass of her tablet. It was obvious that the woman was troubled. Her thoughts turned to her mother, hiding away in the hospital as her sister, her own life wasted...and for what? Broken families, broken lives...her vision blurred, as the voices of her adult children bantering as if they'd known each other forever became a hum in her ears.

She felt Sebastian's hand on her shoulder and she finally came to as a single tear threatened to spill from her eye. She breathed in deeply, turned her head upward to see him staring at her. He motioned for her to follow him into the living room. He took her hand and lead her to the vestibule where he took her into his arms and held her tightly to him and let her cry it out.