Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 95164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I throw open the door and find all three of my sisters on the steps of the lodge, crying and laughing.
My knees weaken at the sight of all three of them, but they gather me in a hug and keep me upright. “I can’t believe you’re all here. All of you.”
“Rosey,” Marion says. “You’ve saved us.”
“I’ve missed you so much,” Kitty says.
“I’ll never fight with you again,” Lydia says. “I’ll never fight with any of you again.”
I laugh. I know it’s not true. We all know it’s not true. But hearing Lydia’s promise makes me full. Full of love.
“Come in,” I say. “Meet Byron. My . . . ” I grin at him. “Well now you’re here, I can marry him. Somehow getting married without having any of you there didn’t seem right, so I’ve been dragging my feet.” I hadn’t realized why I hadn’t been charging down the aisle to marry Byron, but now, having my sisters here, it’s all clear to me. I wanted them to see me marry the love of my life.
“I’m sorry,” I mouth at Byron.
He shakes his head and places a kiss on my head. “Don’t be,” he whispers. “Very nice to meet you all. Marion, we’ve met over video call. You must be Lydia,” he says, correctly identifying them. “And you must be Kitty.”
He tries to shake their hand, and they practically topple him over with the group hug they inflict on him.
“Thank you,” they all say to them. They know that I’ve been able to get them all on a last-minute plane to Colorado and set them all up with jobs because of Byron.
“I can’t believe I was expecting Marion tonight and then you’re all here,” I say as we head into the living area.
“Y’all catch up and I’ll get you all drinks,” Byron says, heading back into the kitchen.
We take our seats on the two huge couches. My sisters look tiny. I’m not used to seeing them surrounded by so much space.
“As soon as Marion said she was leaving, I knew I couldn’t stay,” Kitty says. “I didn’t know where she was going.”
“Same,” Lydia says. “When you left, we just got on with life, but knowing Marion was getting out too.” She pulls in a shuddering breath. “I knew this was our chance.”
“It wouldn’t have been your only chance. I wouldn’t have stopped trying to get you all out. Byron wanted to send in a helicopter at one point.”
Kitty laughs. “Very Mission Impossible. Turns out we didn’t need a helicopter.”
“Did you end up telling mom?” I ask.
The three of them gasp. “No,” Marion says. “Of course not. Can you imagine?”
“So what happened?”
“Marion told us last night that she was leaving today,” Lydia says. “I felt sick. Like someone had stabbed me or something. At first I tried to persuade her to stay. It wasn’t until she said she had a job with accommodation and might be able to get us the same, that I started to let myself believe that we might be able to leave.”
“I never thought we’d leave,” Kitty confesses. “I thought that we’d be in that trailer park forever.”
“I expected to leave with the clothes on my back,” Marion says. “Because of how things went down with you. But Kitty was determined we take our stuff. After we texted you and you said we could all come and you sent through those plane tickets, the three of us stayed up all night. Mom was asleep in the living room. Obviously, it would have been easier if she’d gone to bed, but at the same time, she might have heard more in there. We figured it out and got most of our stuff out of the window.”
“We used the laundry bags as suitcases. That’s what we turned up at the airport with,” Kitty says. “We bought suitcases at the terminal.”
“I’m so happy you managed to get away. The fact that you managed to bring your things is more than I could have wished for you. There’s a lifetime’s worth of memories in those suitcases.” I swallow back my tears of relief mixed with the bitterness I still have that we were all trapped by my mother for so long. “So did Mom catch you leaving?”
They all shake their heads. “We left at 4 am this morning,” Marion said. “Figured it was better to leave in the dead of night and have to wait five extra hours in the airport than risk Mom catching us. We dragged all these laundry bags up to the top of the street and got an Uber from there.”
“She would have known something was up if you’d have stayed until morning,” I say. “She would have picked up on something from you.”
Kitty nods. “That’s what I said. She would have sabotaged things somehow. From the moment Marion told us to the time we left was four and a half hours.”