Filed to story: Sedona Preston and Logan Hayes Book PDF Free
Cameron didn’t understand as he answered “Yes you still have your funds.”
“Then I want a clean break from Logan. I don’t have much time. He can keep everything.”
“What about custody of your son?” Harold asked, his pen poised over his legal pad.
The question hit me like a physical blow. I closed my eyes, seeing Nick’s face, not the angry preschooler who hated me now, because I had been turned into the villain in Katherine’s story., rather I remembered the baby that I held in the NICU, the toddler who always seeked me out when he was scared. The little boy who once told me I was the best mommy in the world.
“Sedona?” Cameron’s voice was gentle, pulling me back to the present. “Do you want to fight for custody?”
I thought about Nick calling me annoying. Telling me to stop bothering him. Saying he hated me. Calling me the devil.
I thought about three months. Maybe less.
“No,” I said, opening my eyes. “I don’t want custody.”
“Sedona-“
“He doesn’t want me, Cam. He’s made that perfectly clear over these past months and I had been the one who had been clinging onto him, do you have any idea what he told me yesterday. And I…” My voice broke. “I don’t want to force a child who hates me to watch me die. I don’t want that to be his last memory of me. Logan can have full custody. Let Katherine raise him. Maybe she’ll do a better job than I did.”
“That’s not true-” Cameron started, but I held up a hand.
“Please. I’ve made my decision. No custody fight. Logan gets Nick. I get my freedom. That’s all I want.”
Harold looked between us, then nodded once, sensing there tension but thankfully not saying anything about it as her continued smoothly.
“Alright. I’ll draft the papers. Given the circumstances and your requests, this should be relatively straightforward. You’re essentially asking for nothing, which means your husband would be a fool not to sign immediately.” He paused. “Are you sure about this, Mrs. Hayes? Once these papers are signed, you give up all parental rights.”
“I’m sure.”
After Harold left, promising to have the papers ready by tomorrow, Cameron sat down next to me on the couch. “You don’t have to do this. You could fight for Nick. A judge would likely give you at least joint custody-“
“And then what? I force him to visit me twice a month while I waste away from cancer? I make him watch me die? I turn his last memories of his mother into a nightmare?” shook my head. “No. If Nick wants Katherine, let him have her. Maybe it’s better this way. Clean break. No messy custody battles. No forcing a child to mourn a mother he claims to hate.”
“He’s six years old, Sedona. He doesn’t understand what he’s saying. He doesn’t know-“
“He knows enough.” I stood, walking to the window. “I need to do something today. There’s someone I need to see before I leave Chicago.”
“Who?”
“Logan’s grandmother. Brooke.” I turned to face Cameron as I continued speaking. “She was kind to me. The only one in that family who ever was.
Taking out the necklace to show Cameron, I added “She was the one who believed that Logan and I were meant to be together, and she gave me her family heirloom that signified I was part of their family. I need to return it back to her.”
Cameron studied me for a long moment, then nodded. “Alright. I’ll drive you.”
I went to my room and retrieved the ruby necklace from my suitcase, holding it up to the light. The stones glowed like drops of blood, beautiful and precious and always temporary. I knew it would never truly be mine.
“Ready?” Cameron called from the living room.
I wrapped the necklace carefully in white clothing to make sure it was secured and put it in my purse.
“Ready.”
Grandma Brooke lived in a beautiful mansion in the Gold Coast neighborhood, a place she’d refused to leave even when Sherry had tried to convince her to move into a “more appropriate” senior facility.
The grandmother had told her, in no uncertain terms, that she’d leave her home in a coffin and not before.
I’d always loved that about her, her stubborn independence, her refusal to be managed or controlled by anyone else. She did what she wanted to do, no matter who she pissed off.
Cameron parked on the street, and I stared up at the familiar house sitting in the distance. i’d come here once a month for the past three years, had tea with Grandma Brooke, listened to her stories about Logan as a child, pretended that everything was fine in my marriage.
Had she known? Had she seen through my facade? Had she prayed that Logan would come to his senses before it was too late? Or did she assume everything was fine because Logan was a damn good actor when he needed to be.
“Do you want me to come in?” Cameron asked me pulling me from my thoughts as I looked away shaking my head
“No. This is something I need to do alone. But thank you.”
The housekeeper, Mrs. Lily answered the door with a warm smile.
“Mrs. Hayes! What a lovely surprise. Mrs. Brooke will be so happy to see you. She was just mentioning yesterday that it had been a few weeks since your last visit. And she was wondering if you had forgotten about her already”
Guilt twisted in my stomach. I’d missed last month’s visit, too wrapped up in my own misery to maintain even this genuine friendship I had going on.
“Is she in the sitting room?”
“Yes, dear. Go right in.”
I found Grandma Brooke exactly where I expected-in her favorite chair by the window, a book in her lap reading glasses perched on her nose. At ninety-one, she was still sharp as a tack, and still well dressed in her silk clothes and pearls.
“Sedona!” Her face lit up when she saw me, and she set her book aside. “Come, come. Sit with me. I was just thinking about you. Mrs. Lily, could you bring us some tea?”
“Actually, Mrs. Lily, that won’t be necessary,” I said quickly stopping her before she could leave. “I can’t stay long.”
Grandria Brooke’s smille faltered slightly. “Oh? Is everything alright, dear?”
I sat down across from her, suddenly unsure how to begin. How did you say goodbye to someone who’d shown you kindness when everyone else had shown you indifference?
“I brought you something,” said, pulling the carefully wrapped necklace from my purse. I placed it gently in her hands.
She unwrapped it slowly, and her eyes widened when she saw the rubies as recognition passed across her features. “Sedona, what is this? Why are you returning my necklace?”
“Because it belongs to the wife of the Logan family,” I said, my voice steady, grateful that it wasn’t breaking because I needed to be strong to do this. “And I won’t be that person anymore. I’m leaving Chicago, Grandma Brooke. I’m leaving Logan.”
“Leaving?” She leaned forward, concern present on her face. “What happened? Did Logan do something? Did Sherry…. I know that daughter-in-law of mine can be absolutely insufferable to be with sometimes. Let me call them, let me-“
