Night Is Darkest by Jayne Rylon (books recommended by bts .TXT) 📕

I love you, too. Like you were my own.” The welcoming smile she usually wore morphed into a stern frown that transformed her from a harmless homemaker into a force to be reckoned with. “And sometimes that means laying down the law. I’ve watched the three of you kids tiptoe around this thing between you for far too long now.”

Lacey sputtered, “Th-thing?”

“You know what I mean, young lady. I saw those two boys when they carried you in here. Had their panties in a wad over you as usual but this time it was something more. Something real.”

She tried to interject—she couldn’t possibly discuss their unorthodox relationship with Ty’s mom, could she—but Mama Rose bowled right over her objections.

“Maybe it took losing Rob to make you all understand your time here is finite. What you have now is a good start.”

Lacey gulped. Maybe Ty’s mom didn’t realize they’d done a lot more than start.

“Don’t you look ashamed, sweetie. There’s nothing wrong with pure love in any of its forms. Anyone who would judge your happiness isn’t worth the opinion they’d force on you. People will talk but none of it matters. You remember that.”

Something about the wistful note in Mama’s voice roused her own intuition. “You…”

“That’s right. Before Ty was born. Jack and I lived with another woman.” She stopped to clear her throat.

“Lucinda.” Lacey had heard plenty of stories about Ty’s eccentric, honorary aunt.

“I suppose I do talk about her quite a bit, huh?” Mama’s smile lit the room. “We were college roommates when I started dating Jack. The first time he came to pick me up at our apartment, I saw the chemistry between them. It was electric. We all tried to ignore it for a while but of course that didn’t work. So we decided to move in together and live as a triad.”

“What happened, Mama?”

“All I can say is that we weren’t completely honest with each other.” The older woman sighed in regret. “Things fell apart. It got too painful to be close yet incomplete. Lucinda knew it couldn’t work that way. She left. A few years later she got cancer. It had already metastasized by the time they diagnosed her.”

Lacey laid her head over Mama’s heart as she gave her a hug and swore she could hear it break. Ty’s mom sniffled then patted Lacey’s back. “I’ll tell you this, Lacey-love. I know it’s ridiculous but I always felt like she knew but didn’t want to fight it. At the end, she came to us. Told us she’d never stopped loving us. I swear that’s what did Jack in.”

“Mama Rose, Mr. Lambert had a stroke.” The nurse in her rebelled. “As much as it might have seemed otherwise, their deaths had nothing to do with you. They wouldn’t want you to blame yourself for an act of nature.”

Ty’s mom pulled out of the embrace and left the bed. The shift of weight jostled Lacey’s sore head, causing her to wince. By the time her vision cleared, Mama stood in the doorway wringing her floral apron between restless fingers.

“Open your eyes, sweetheart. Don’t settle for less than everything they have to give or none of you will survive the disappointment. Tyler may be hardheaded but he’s soft-hearted. Don’t hurt my baby. Please.”

In the wake of such momentous conversation, Lacey couldn’t rest no matter how hard she tried. Instead, she worked her legs off the bed inch by inch until she sat on the edge. She had to pee but she felt awkward asking Mama to help after their exchange. Taking time to adjust to her position, she scanned Ty’s boyhood room. Along with posters touting baseball legends, lame hair bands and pretty girls, a scattering of old photos and newspaper articles had been tacked to the corkboard along one wall.

In an attempt to force her eyes to uncross, she tried to decipher a few of the headlines. Several she recognized because she’d clipped them for her own scrapbook. One came from the article the local paper had done on Mason when he broke the state record for fastest lap times in five different swim events during a single high school meet.

Ty also had a copy of the program from the recital she’d had a solo part in during her stint as a dancer. He would have been a senior that year, she supposed. Pictures of Ty, Mason and Rob lined the walls. Inseparable, they’d passed each of life’s coming-of-age hurdles in synch. The first day of high school, various Halloween costumes, birthday parties, first dates, prom pictures, sports team rosters—even a shot of the young men holding identical acceptance letters for the police academy.

Each piece of memorabilia drew her in deeper to their shared past. She stood on shaky legs to traverse the few steps to the rickety dresser that held a framed photo she couldn’t quite make out from her post on the bed. She abandoned hope of making it to the bathroom at the far end of the hall, instead returning to the mattress with her prize.

A laugh escaped when she saw what he’d kept in the place of honor. The motion jarred her throbbing head but she didn’t care. Lacey scooped up the image and took a closer look. As she lay on her side, she traced the familiar lines of their youthful faces.

Mason and Ty bracketed her on the tailgate of the rust bucket they’d pitched in together to buy with money they’d earned mowing a million lawns their last summer in high school. Crystal clear, the day replayed in her mind.

Soaking wet, they’d just finished swimming in the lake when they realized only Lacey had remembered to pack a towel. Together, they’d attempted to huddle under one scrap of terrycloth until the thin cotton ripped, sending them all flying into the mud. Of course, they’d escalated the incident to a full out war until all you could see beneath the slime were their sparkling eyes. Rob, who’d made a quick escape