Mirrored (Follow Your Bliss series Book 4) by Deirdre Riordan Hall Read Free Book Online Page A

manor, but he was a creature belonging to pub life, despite the fact that
he lived in one of the select estates in town. Your mother, Claire, such a
lovely woman, would come down here and chase him home, leaving everyone
clamoring for another story or round of drinks. He was generous that way.”
    Brighton’s fries went un touch ed as she
listened intently.
    “Anyway, after he passed, may he rest in peace, the owner
renamed the pub, “The Gull and the Fox. Claire was the gull, always swooping
in, elegantly of course, and giving him the business. El, the Fox, red haired,
sly, but as warm and loving as a, well, I don’t know what. But that’s how it
came to be.
    “Of course, he lives on here. Late at night, when I’m washing
up, I sometimes hear his voice telling stories or singing a tune. The bartender
insists it’s the wind coming off the ocean, but he’s too young, he wouldn’t remember.”
She wiped her eye. “Better get back. Now you two enjoy your time here. My best
to your granny,” Milly said with a smile as she shuffled to another table of
customers.
    “Wow,” Brighton said. “So Windover? Granny? Sentimental old
stories? What are you trying to do? Slay me?”
    Alex saw laughter and sadness, in equal measure, in her eyes.
But he also saw himself there, his fears reflected like a mirror.
    “No, I’m trying to help you heal.”
    Just then, Brighton’s phone jingled. Her face pinched.
    “Hi, everything okay?” She let out a series of uh huhs and
okays. At the end of the conversation, she set her phone on the table, the
letters spelling Mom , and End call flashed. Then the screen went
dark.
    Brighton waved Milly over and asked for a beer, Alex ordered
one too.
    With bottle in hand, she said, “A toast to my dad.”
    After ordering a round for the entire pub, listening to a few
old timers’ stories, and clucking about how difficult being a daughter is, Alex
decided it was time to lure Brighton away from the bar and back to their hotel.
    As he helped her undress, wash her face, and brush her teeth,
she mumbled about her mother and the gown she told her she wanted to wear at
her funeral and that she insisted she rest next to her husband, Eliezer.
Desperation, not to lose another parent, lay cloaked under Brighton’s bath of
alcohol and gibberish.
    “I mean why tell me these things. Death, I’m against it. It’s
too dark, too final,” she slurred.
    “I think most of us agree,” Alex said, trying to calm her
down and hoping to help her find a better way to deal with her surging
emotions. “But it’s part of life.”
     
     

 
    Chapter Eleven
     
    Brighton was up early and surprisingly perky despite Alex’s
assumption she’d sleep late and be burdened with a hangover.
    “Sometimes you just get lucky,” she said, her smile as wide
and bright as the stark grey light beaming through the window.
    “Do you remember last night?” Alex asked.
    “Yes. I was writing a eulogy.”
    Alex raised his eyebrows, glimpsing the irreverent, fiery
Brighton he’d met the summer previous. “She’s going to be okay,” he said,
knowing that this all came down to her mother, but also her father before that.
    “You don’t know that,” she said, her voice chillingly even.
    “She does, and she knows you’ll be okay too, no matter what
happens. But before we think about that, I want to help you sweep up your past.
Dust out the cobwebs so you can see the present isn’t such a bad place,” Alex
said with unexpected clarity even though he hadn’t yet had caffeine.
    She turned away from the window, her face open in agreement,
as if daring him to try to wrench away the pain she’d carried or wash it out to
sea altogether. “The strangest thing of all,” she gestured around at nothing in
particular, “adults, parents, my mom and dad, they’re just people. They have
flaws and heartache. They make mistakes and do messed up shit. They leave sons,
die too soon, they—” her face crumbled.
    Alex rocked her in