Chapter 20
Bella
“Don’t judge people by their kin.”
~ Papa Duke
My heart was in my throat as I led the way to the back house. The moment that I never thought would come to pass had just passed. I was shaking all over, not from fear, not from anxiety, not from nerves. I was furious.
All of the things that I’d told myself about forgiving him. That I’d told myself I could compartmentalize so that I could have closure, was a crock of shit. Seeing Sadie standing in front of him and him barely being able to speak to her was the final straw.
How could a man so loving, so giving, treat his own daughter like that? Maybe when he was seventeen and she was just an abstract thought to him. But she was talking to him, telling him that she was a fan and he barely said one sentence to her and he called her the wrong name!
I stomped up the wooden steps and the loud thunking it made was oddly satisfying. I’d never been a violent person, but I wanted to punch someone. To hurt someone. To punch and hurt Colton.
When we were both inside I slammed the door behind me as we both spoke at the same time.
“What the hell was that?!” I yelled.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me I had a daughter?!” Colton gritted out through his teeth.
“What?” We both asked in unison.
“What the hell was that?!” I repeated.
At the same time he echoed, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me I had a daughter?!”
This was getting us nowhere, I threw my hands up in the air. “What are you talking about?!”
“That girl. Sadie.” His hand was shaking as he pointed to the main house and took a step towards me and spoke deliberately. “Is that my daughter?”
“Yes,” I said the same way that Sadie had told me that she’d flown to Texas.
For the first time I saw that all of the color had drained from Colton’s face. His hands were trembling as he raised them and put them behind his neck and tears formed in his eyes.
I stared, unable to figure out why he was acting like this was news.
“What?” I asked unable to contain my anger. “Did you think I was lying?! Did you think I was just trying to trick you so I could come back home and be with you?!”
“I…I…” he stammered, shaking his head back and forth in disbelief.
“You did!” I exclaimed as a white-hot searing pain shot through my chest. “You thought I was lying. That’s why you hung up on me. That’s why you sent the papers, isn’t it? Because you thought I was lying?!”
I didn’t know what felt worse. Him not wanting his daughter, or thinking I lied about being pregnant.
“What papers?! What are you talking about?! I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
I started digging in my purse. I used to carry the copy around because whenever I would start missing Colton or my memories about how amazing he was would get the better of me, I’d pull them out as a physical reminder of just how much he’d hurt me. I put it back in my purse when I was packing up to move. After today, that wouldn’t be a problem. I’d never again let myself feel anything for the man standing in front of me.
“I never thought you were lying! You never told me anything!”
It was incredible to me that this man, the father of my child, the man that had been inside of me less than an hour ago could actually be trying to turn this around on me. I snatched the papers from the inside pocket of my purse and shoved them into his chest. Hard.
He took them, looking equally as furious as I was and started reading them. His head started shaking again and his face twisted in confusion as he flipped through them several times.
“I’ve never seen these. I didn’t sign these.”
He had to be kidding. I stabbed my finger where his signature was. “Yes, you did!”
“But…I didn’t…I’ve never….” He just kept shaking his head before he lifted it. “Where did you get these?”
“You sent them to me! I sent you pictures of our daughter and you sent me these!” I couldn’t believe he was acting like this, I had no idea what he was going to pull, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with anything. He needed to take some responsibility. I sure as hell had. “A month after she was born! When she was still in NICU! And don’t try to blame it on being a kid, because I was sixteen when I had her and you sent these to me a week, a week after you turned eighteen!”
He stared at me for a moment and then something changed. His face transformed from looking confused and angry to knowing and irate. His voice was deadly calm as he asked, “You got these a week after I turned eighteen?”
His insta-demeanor change really took the wind out of my rage sails.
“Yes.” I answered in a more subdued tone.
He grabbed his phone out of his pocket and took a picture of the documents he held. Then typed something and sent a text. After that, he pressed a button and held out his phone, I heard it ringing and realized he was calling on speakerphone.
“Hello,” an older man’s voice filled the small space.
“Did you get my text?” Colton asked in the same tone.
There was a sound of rustling for a few minutes and then the man called out, “Deborah, have you seen my phone?”
Deborah. That was his mom’s name. He must be calling his parents.
“It’s right here. Why do you need it if you’re on the landline?” His mom’s voice came over the speaker.
His dad explained. “Colton’s asking about a text.”
“A text?” his mom questioned.
Finally, after a few moments of muttering about finding glasses the line went completely silent. I looked to see if the call was still connected. It was.
After a few moments Colton spoke again. “I’m only going to ask you this once. Are these the papers you had me sign when you told me I was signing to be Cara’s legal guardian if anything happened to you? When you came to the hospital after I’d been with Cara all weekend when she went through her roughest chemo. When I hadn’t slept in four days. When I was exhausted and terrified and you told me that this was the only way to keep Cara safe. Are these the papers you had me sign?”
My hand flew over my mouth as I gasped and my eyes shot to his. They were brimming with unshed tears and his face was stone.
“Answer me,” he demanded.
“Son, it was for your own good. Her daddy was the only good thing in that family. She was no good, hell she got knocked up—”
“Stop!” He yelled. “Just stop.”
Everyone went silent. I just stared at him, unsure of what to do, what to say, still reeling from the gravity of this discovery.
Colton, on the other hand, knew exactly what to say. “I wish I was more surprised that you did this. I wish it was unthinkable to me that my parents, the people that were supposed to love me unconditionally, protect me from pain, had done something so hateful, so selfish, and so damaging. But this sounds exactly like something you would do.”
“Colton, your father and I—” his mom tried to speak.
“Don’t.” Colton shut her down. “There is no explanation on this earth that could justify what you did. This is the last time you will ever talk to me. It’s the last time that I will ever call you. It’s the last time we will ever have any interaction. Don’t call me. Don’t email me. Don’t try to get in touch with me in any way.”
“Colton you’re being ridiculous!” His mother said.
His father chided. “You better watch your tone, son, and remember who you’re talking to.”
“I’m not your son, you don’t have a son anymore.” With that declaration, he hung up the phone. Then, like a balloon that had a leak, he lost all of the air that had filled him and he sank into the chair directly behind him.
I was still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. How it was possible that all this time Colton hadn’t known that he had a daughter and I thought he didn’t want her.
He let his face fall into his hands as his shoulders started shaking.
“Colton…” I stepped up into him and he wrapped his arms around me, pulled me to him and held me tight with his cheek against my belly.
“You had a baby. Our baby,” I could hear the sob in his words. “I have a baby.”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I repeated over and over as I held him and ran my fingers through his hair as my own tears poured down my face.
I wasn’t sure if we were like that for twenty seconds or twenty minutes when my phone rang. It was Sadie’s ringtone.
Stepping away, I pulled it from my pocket, thankful it wasn’t Facetime. I didn’t know how I would explain to her why I was crying. I didn’t know how I was going to explain a lot of things to her.
I tried to hide the emotions in my voice as I answered. “What’s up?”
“Where are you?” she asked. “I’m hot and I don’t know where the A/C is. I’m so tired and you know I can’t sleep when I’m hot.”
“I’ll be right there.” I hung up the phone before she could respond.
I wiped my cheeks and fanned my face, hoping to cool down some of the redness I was sure was there. “I need to go, but as soon as I get her—”
Colton stood. “I’m going with you. That’s my daughter.”
“You can’t.” As much as I hated that I had to do this, that I had to break his heart all over again, I did it because it was the right thing for Sadie. “She doesn’t know anything about this.”
“I didn’t know anything about this,” he pleaded. “Don’t you see that now? I have to tell her. I have to tell her that I love her and I didn’t know. I have to make this right. You can’t punish me for what they did.”
Hearing Colton say that he loved her, that he loved our daughter lifted weights off my chest I hadn’t even known I was carrying. But it didn’t change anything. “I’m not punishing you. And I will tell her, you will tell her. But not right now. A lot of things have changed for her recently. I need to make sure that she’s okay and then we can all talk. I promise.”
“When?” He demanded. “When can we tell her?”
“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.
He started to protest and start towards the door, but I put my hand on his chest. “Give me a couple of hours with her. Let her take a nap. Eat something. I’ll call you before dinner, okay? I’ll call you in a few hours.”
My phone rang again with Sadie’s ringtone. I looked down at the phone, still in my hand. “Seriously?!”
“It’s fine. Go.” Colton snapped.
I placed my hand on his chest and I could feel his heart beating wildly beneath my palm. “I have to go take care of her, but as soon as I get her settled, I’ll come over to your house. Okay?”
He stared down at me. His nostrils flaring. “Fine.”
The second he agreed I was out the door before he changed his mind. As I walked back to the house I tried to assimilate all of the information that I’d just been given. Colton had no idea about Sadie. All of these years that we’d been apart, that I’d struggled as a single mom and then struggled in a lonely marriage. I thought he’d just gone on with his life but he never knew he had a daughter. We could’ve been together. We could’ve been a family.
Tears started coming again and I wiped them off. This wasn’t the time for crying. This was the time to go and take care of my daughter. Just like I always did and always would.
Hope blossomed in my chest. Maybe from now on I wouldn’t be alone. Maybe Sadie would have two parents that were present, that loved her, protected her, and took care of her.
From the look on Colton’s face when I’d told him that he couldn’t come with me, and then the resignation when he agreed, it seemed like she already did.