She took a breath. “I think that I’ve always looked at my life entirely wrong. I always saw myself as a victim of my mother and later as the punching bag for Eddie’s mother. But when I looked at things from afar, I saw that I was the one who caused the problems.”
“You’ll have to explain that to me,” Zoë said, but Amy said nothing.
“I spent my whole childhood with two boys, Tyler and Eddie. I think it’s just possible that I was the strong one when we were kids, and I think I may have adopted them in a motherly way.”
“It’s easy to mother the men in your life,” Amy said. “It’s one of my great faults.”
“I didn’t realize how motherly I was until I was in that orangery with William. I thought I was a martyr for taking care of Eddie all those years, but William made me realize that I like helping people.”
Faith looked down at her hands. “I used to think that I overlooked the awful circumstances that Ty and Eddie lived in, but I came to realize that that’s what I liked about them.”
“They needed you,” Amy said.
“Yes, they did. Ty was trapped in horrible circumstances in his family life, and even though Eddie looked to be better off, he wasn’t. He just had more money.”
“You thought you had to marry one of them out of guilt,” Amy said.
“Right,” Faith said. “I had taken them out of their bad families and we’d formed our own family.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad
,” Zoë said.
“Someday, you have to push your children out of the nest,” Amy said. “I dread it. I want to buy houses for my sons that are next door to us. Even the thought of their going to college makes me ill.”
“I agree,” Faith said, “but I also know you well enough to know that, when the time comes, you won’t hold your children back.”
“No,” Amy said, sighing. “I’m sure that when I have to, I’ll get my courage together and let them go. However, I feel sorry for any girl who wants to marry one of my sons.”
Faith and Zoë laughed.
Faith continued. “I knew that if I was going to give Eddie and Ty a real chance at life I had to leave them. I didn’t plan to explain, just leave.”
“Like me,” Zoë said.
“Exactly. Sometimes words can’t fix anything,” Faith said, “and I knew this was such a case. If it had come to the point where my mother was willing to kill to make me marry the man of her choice, then I had to change everything.”
“So what did you do?” Amy asked.
“You can’t guess?” Zoë said.
“Maybe,” Amy said, “but I’d rather hear what actually happened.”
“When Ty climbed in my window that night, I wasn’t there. And I wasn’t there when Eddie came in and threw his jealous little fit. Instead, I went to Eddie’s mother.”
“You did what?!” Zoë said, her eyes wide. “I thought you hated her.”
“I did. I knew all the awful things she’d done to me over the years I was married to her son. It hadn’t happened yet and wasn’t going to, but I still remembered them. But I also knew that she’d been right.”
“You didn’t love Eddie,” Amy said.
“Yes she did,” Zoë said. “She loved both of them.”
“True,” Faith said. “I loved Eddie like a brother, and I loved Ty like a sex machine. I had fun with him, but in the end I married Eddie.”
“Why did you go to his mother?” Zoë asked.
Faith looked at Amy. “Do you know why?”