The Foster Girls #2: Finland

Chapter 12: Finland

"Don't hang up," Camille said to me when I stupidly answered the call from an unknown number the next morning. "I need to talk to you."

"You have thirty seconds."

"I know you hate me, and I've been a bitch to you, but I was trying to help you see something."

"Twenty seconds."

"Finland, for whatever reason, Nic isn't being honest with you. He isn't going to choose you over me when it comes down to it because I'm his last link to my sister. You're going to get your heart broken."

"Ten seconds."

"I know he's never invited to you to our home, and there's a very real reason for that. I'm inviting you now. You need to see why he keeps you away. You need to see what he's been hiding from you, something I've been trying to show you all along. Nic will always choose me because I'm as close as he can get to Lisette."

I hesitated because her words rung with truth, a truth I'd been witnessing firsthand. Forget the sting of our home. She was touching on all of my fears, my insecurities.

"Finland, I know he told you about the promises he made to my sister. That in addition to caring for me, he could never tell another woman he loved her or marry her. But, other than promising to care for me, he's not being truthful. If you come over to our home, you'll understand better and I can explain more to you. I'll text you the address. He's at the clubhouse right now, so you won't run into him here."

I didn't even have to think about it because I wanted to see the house I was never invited to. "All right. I'll head over."

In fifteen short minutes, I pulled into the driveway of a modest, two-story brick home, the grass lush, the grounds perfectly landscaped. It's on the smaller side, but it was probably all he could afford when he was so young and just starting out in the Marines.

When I knocked on the front door, it opened almost instantly. "Come on in," Camille said solemnly, like she knew she was about to hurt me, but she really didn't want to.

I stepped into the foyer, then turned immediately into the living room. A huge picture of Dom and Lisette on their wedding day hung over the sofa. Bookshelves on either side of the fireplace were filled with smaller photographs of the two of them.

"My sister loved to decorate with photos, and he's never moved one in all this time. I've asked if we could hang some new pictures and he got furious with me, saying that he's not touching anything in this house, that it has to stay exactly the way she left it," she explained.

My heart was hammering in my chest. Lisette was everywhere; their brief life together couldn't be missed.

Camille took me upstairs to Dominic and Lisette's bedroom, and on the way I passed more pictures of Dominic and his wife. I had to remind myself to breathe as I looked into his room at the faded flowered bedspread, at her pictures on the nightstand beside his side of the bed, her perfume and brush and make up on her vanity as if she was going to come home at any moment. Her sweater was laid over the seat of the chair. Silently, Camille opened the closet and Lisette's clothing and shoes filled the space. On the other nightstand were two bracelets and a shallow bowl holding what I assumed were her wedding rings. Another wedding picture of her swept up into his arms, both of them laughing, is hung above the bed.

"That picture right there, that's the reason he can't tell you he loves you," she said to me, tears in her eyes.

What could I say to that? My heart was cracking right in half and I was surprised when I looked down that blood wasn't all over the floor. The pain, the hideous reality, was that intense.