The Mother

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Otherwise, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Text copyright © 2023 by Brooke Blanchard Tabshouri All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher. Published by 47North, Seattle www.apub.com Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates. ISBN-13: 9781542036535 (paperback) ISBN-13: 9781542036528 (digital) Cover design by Faceout Studio, Molly von Borstel Cover image: © Shelley Richmond / ArcAngel; © Ildiko Neer / ArcAngel; © Rolf Richardson / Alamy Stock Photo; © Social Media Hub / Shutterstock; © Abstractor / Shutterstock; © LeksusTuss / Shutterstock; © Chaikom / Shutterstock; © getgg / Shutterstock For my mom, Shelly; and my sister, Abbey. If we tried this, we’d be caught in five minutes, but we’d laugh the entire time. CONTENTS Map That’s my last . . . Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Chapter Forty-One Chapter Forty-Two Chapter Forty-Three Chapter Forty-Four Chapter Forty-Five Chapter Forty-Six ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now . . . She had A heart—how shall I say?—too soon made glad, Too easily impressed; she liked whate’er She looked on, and her looks went everywhere. Sir, ’t was all one! My favour at her breast, The dropping of the daylight in the West, The bough of cherries some officious fool Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule She rode with round the terrace—all and each Would draw from her alike the approving speech, Or blush, at least. She thanked men,—good! but thanked Somehow—I know not how—as if she ranked My gift of a nine-hundred-years-old name With anybody’s gift. Who’d stoop to blame This sort of trifling? Even had you skill In speech—(which I have not)—to make your will Quite clear to such an one, and say, ‘Just this Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss, Or there exceed the mark’—and if she let Herself be lessoned so, nor plainly set Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse, —E’en then would be some stooping; and I choose Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt, Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped together . . . —Robert Browning, My Last Duchess Chapter One Gregorian Calendar: Monday, 3 August 2020 (Feast Day of Saint Faustus) Anishinaabe Moon: Manoomin Giizis (Ricing Moon) Islamic Calendar: 13 Dhu al-Hijjah 1441 Chinese Calendar: Cycle 78, year 37, month 6, day 14 (Year of the Rat) Hebrew Calendar: 13 Av 5780 Mayan Calendar: 13.0.7.13.2 Ethiopian Calendar: 27 Hamle 2012 Marie, Duchess of Suffolk, left Grayside in the middle of a clear and moonless night, having stolen the most valuable thing that her husband’s family owned. As she did it, she thought of her mother and smiled. If she was lucky, James would never know what she had taken. She did not chance looking back as she walked away. She knew that if she did, she would never have the courage to keep walking. And she had no choice but to keep walking. It would hopefully be days before James even noticed she was missing. She and her husband did not normally share a bed—at least, not unless he was there to try to have sex with her. Otherwise, she was left unbothered, in a plush and comfortable room done up exactly as she liked it, in the opposite wing of Grayside—the name apparently chosen by one of James’s forebears because of the mist that swallowed up the manor house and blocked the view of the sea. The name was apt in every way. Marie’s life was bleak and gray; always had been. She wasn’t the only one who held that opinion: before she’d married James, she’d heard others refer to the house as “Graveside.” Marie had learned never to do so after she’d chanced saying it once in the presence of her mother-in-law, the Dowager Duchess of Suffolk, who still ruled the house and everyone in it. She hadn’t had long to make her plan to escape, but she’d used the short period of time well. Marie had tested how easy it would be to get out of the house without any of the twenty-six live-in servants noticing, which was roughly half the number actually needed to run a house the size of Grayside. The house was old, the money running low, and so there was no modern alarm system as would be common in comparable homes. It was cheaper to employ people from the village—ideally, those who had fallen behind on their rents and could serve as nighttime security in the Duke’s home as payment. They were untrained, often drunk and then asleep. Perfect. Paid servants were another story. They often had to support not only their own immediate families but also members of their extended families on their meager salaries. Any slipup in their performance would result in an unceremonious dismissal without pay. They had every incentive to ensure that Marie, like everything else James owned, was not misplaced. Marie felt bad that what she was doing was likely to cost many of them their jobs—probably all