“Yes,” I said. “Because she had a scar from when she was little and accidentally got her head wedged between the bars of her crib. She told me that story. She told me that she didn’t remember it, but that her mother told her that was what happened.”

“Of course that’s what she would say,” Naomi said with a knowing nod. “Like I said, your mother was stupidly brave.”

“Wasn’t that what happened?” I asked. “Did something different happen instead?”

“Your mother remembered exactly how she got those scars around her neck, and it had nothing to do with being a toddler and getting her head stuck between the bars of a crib. Those scars came from being forced to wear a dog collar around her neck for a whole year. Sam’s collar.”

I felt sick to my stomach. “Are you telling me that my grandfather made her wear your dead dog’s collar around her neck for a year because she stood up to him when he killed your dog?”

She nodded mindlessly. “Yep. And I have a hundred more examples just like that one.”

All of a sudden, things became clearer to me. My mother and Naomi suffered an abusive childhood, and it affected them both in drastically different ways. My mother became strong and defiant, and she also became compassionate and the desire to help others that suffered at the end of abusive hands, grew as her purpose. Naomi wasn’t as strong, or as lucky.

I heard her sigh, and for a split second it almost sounded as if she had pulled her head out of the crazy clouds she snorted on a daily basis. “Our father never did those things to me, because I was always too weak to challenge him. I stood by and watched and let him get away with everything that he did. Not that it mattered if we spoke up, it didn’t. He would do whatever he wanted anyway, and our mother was powerless to stop him. She just tried to clean up the mess he made and did damage control after the fact. But your mother, she stepped in each and every time. She was like my sword and shield on every battlefront. I watched her take the fall for everything. I watched our father torment her both mentally and physically; mostly mentally though. That was what he got off on. He knew that Paula could take the physical pain. The incident with the dog collar showed him that. So, he focused on causing her as much mental anguish as possible. I have no idea how she was able to protect her mind from him for so long. I know I wasn’t.”

It all made sense now. Naomi’s mental illness wasn’t something she was born with. It was a result of years and years of trauma; years of watching my mother being abused just to spare her younger sister. Somehow, my mother had emerged from it stronger and more fortified, even though she was the one who was made to suffer the most.

But Naomi didn’t have the mental fortitude to withstand it.

When she emerged, she was damaged; broken.

And that is why my mother wanted to help her.

That is why she wanted Naomi brought here, in this sanctuary that we would build. Finally, my question had been answered completely. The true purpose of my mother’s personality and why she did everything she had done became clear to me with one long, gut-wrenching story from my estranged—and batshit crazy—aunt.

That was why my mother always tried to fix broken people.

Because she understood that brokenness was rarely ever innate.

10

“Naomi,” I said after we had both sat in silence for a while.

I was leaning up against the doorframe out of both physical and mental fatigue, and she was picking at the cords on her wrists and trying to get them apart, unsuccessfully, because her fingers weren’t long enough.

“Is this why you hate men so much?” I asked.

It would make sense that if she had an abusive father that her view toward all men might be skewed.

“I have always hated boys,” she said. “Even before I saw the monster that my father truly was.”

“Yes, I remember,” I said. “I remember when we would play dolls and you would pull the boys’ heads off. I remember when you would read stories and you would always change the endings.”

Naomi smiled.

“You remember those things?” she asked. “That makes me feel good. My favorite endings were the ones with dragons.”

Oh yes, I remembered those storiesvery clearly. The princess or maiden would always befriend the dragon that the prince or warrior was sent to kill. Then she would command the dragon to eat the man, and the dragon and princess would live happily ever after.

“Yes, but why did you do that?” I asked. “I was only a small child. I had no reason to be jaded against boys.”

“That’s precisely why I did it,” she answered. “You were so naïve and innocent, and you still are.”

I huffed. If only she knew how not innocent I was now. I had killed people, I had multiple lovers; I don’t think I was quite as virtuous as my aunt thought me to be.

“You needed to know how men really are. Your mother certainly wasn’t going to teach you, although she should have. I may not have been able to save her from our father or from her awful husband who was ten times worse even, but I was determined to save you from ending up in a similar situation.”

Suddenly a thought occurred to me, one that I would never have even dreamed of entertaining before. “Everything that you did to me and to the men that I care about; did you do them because you wanted the money? Or because you were trying to keep me alone and away from them?” I asked.

Naomi’s face froze as if she had taken a bite of something too cold that had shot up into her face.

“Both,” she answered.

“But you nearly killed Michael,” I said angrily. “You nearly killed all of three of them. And you nearly killed me, too.”

“I didn’t lay a hand on you,” she said, taken aback.

My voice swelled with anger. “Yes, that’s true. But your actions caused me to do something reckless and I nearly died in a car crash.”

She hissed at me. “That was because of your actions, and because of your foolish feelings of devotion to those men.” Then, her voice returned back to normal, as if she were spouting things off that everyone else on the planet knew but me. “I was trying to help you, trying to free you from the bondage that always ensues when you get involved with a boy. If you had listened to me and kept yourself away from men, then you would be stronger and happier. You would have power and freedom. Now what do you have, huh? A run-down building and three men fighting over who will get to crawl between your legs.”

I felt the heat start to flush my face. She knew nothing about my relationship with the guys, nor did she respect what I was trying to do here.

“Do you really think that you can keep this balance up for long?” she asked. “Do you think that these three men will fall at your heels without killing each other first?”

“I’ve already chosen who I will be with,” I said, not sure why I even felt the need to answer her.

“Yes, I heard. And how is that going for you?” she asked with raised brows and a sarcastic grin.

“They’ll come around,” I said. I didn’t even know what that meant. There wasn’t really any idea to “come around” to. The four of us would stay together, until we didn’t. And when that day came, Michael and I would remain.

“No they won’t,” she said.

“How do you know?” I yelled. Fatigue had finally won out over my patience as I lost my temper. “You don’t know anything about it, or about us.”

“They’re all the same,” she said. “Boys can never be trusted—ever.”

After several solid weeks of working on The Sanctuary, the place was actually looking pretty fantastic. Each bedroom had been done up with its own cool theme, all designed to promote a sense of peace and safety. The bathrooms were fully stocked with toiletries of every kind imaginable, and the kitchen was fully stocked with food and drink. The common area was fully furnished now and there was plenty of room for people to both congregate and to stow away in a little corner nook to read.

There had been some tension between the three boys and myself, but overall, we had all been staying together and getting along pretty well. Since we hadn’t really had any alone time, Michael and I still hadn’t been able to physically have each other, and it was starting to wear on us both. I could barely stand next to him without wanting to touch him in all the places that made the inside of my thighs hot. If it went on too much longer, I was actually starting to worry about randomly grabbing him in public, out of the sheer need that was clawing at my insides.

I had been trying to be kind, patient, and forgiving with Naomi because after I had heard her tell me about the childhood she and my mother endured, and about her misguided reasoning and methods for trying to set me on a strong, albeit savage, path, I really started to see that a lot of this wasn’t her fault at all. She had been a victim ever since she was a small girl and it had caused her to be legitimately mentally unwell.

But Naomi actually seemed to be surprisingly content here at The Sanctuary. She had slowed her pursuit of the inheritance money, which was almost all but used up now anyway. I spared no expense for anything inside the group home and also put some of the money into investments that would feed back into The Sanctuary and hopefully propagate it for years to come.