CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

PEPPER

My heart crashed against my sternum.

I was completely taken aback by her answer. 

She looked at me as though I should admire her. As if bringing me along in her daring escape would have been the brave, courageous move. 

Instead, I wanted to vomit. 

"You would have left Dad with this farm and his cancer and no one to help him?" I couldn't begin to understand her logic. "How about honoring your wedding vows and not running off with another man? What about for richer or poorer? In sickness and in health? Do any of those ring a fucking bell to you, Mom?"

"Pepper, you were too young to understand," she protested. "Too young for us to burden you with our issues. It wasn't that simple." 

"Then explain it," I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. "If you really care, tell me why you left in the first place." 

Janice's eyes flashed at me. 

"It will take some time to explain. Aren't you in a rush to get me out of here?"

"Just tell me the important parts," I said with an impatient wave of my hand. 

She sighed deeply and lowered her gaze to her hands as she began telling me her side of the story. 

"I loved your father very much," she began. "We were blissfully in love when we first got married. When I got pregnant with you, we were overjoyed once we found out." 

Her eyes shut tightly for a moment and her hands, once folded and relaxed, balled into fists. 

"But he soon became obsessed with you following in his footsteps," she went on. "Carrying on the legacy of your grandfather and great-grandfather, which was running this farm." 

Janice opened her eyes and her hands, flattening her palms and fingers open on the table and looking at some point in space just beyond her fingertips. 

"When we found out you were a girl, I hoped he would cool off with his notions of you taking over the family business. I asked him what if she didn't want to do farm work? What if she wanted to sip daintily out of tea cups and wear princess dresses?" 

Her lip curled into a half smile at the memory before it faded away and her voice grew gruff, imitating Dad's. 

"No daughter of mine is a goddamn princess, is what he told me." 

Janice swallowed heavily, her eyes still focusing on some invisible point just beyond her fingers. 

"I realized how important it was to him and I tried to be supportive. But something in my gut didn't feel right about it and as you got older, I found it harder to speak up against him." Her voice began to shake. "You started growing up and showing interests in other things like soccer, music, swimming, and dance. You came to us and asked about taking lessons or trying out for a team. And every time he told you no, my heart broke a little more for you."

Janice's eyes jerked up to mine and I realized for the first time I was entranced by her story. The memories played along in my head while she spoke, like she was narrating the documentary of my young life. 

I never thought about them until now. He kept me busy, kept me working so that my mind would never wander. 

"Do you remember what happened when you were thirteen?"

Her question cut through the air like a knife. I shook my head, suddenly aware that I was trembling. I was almost afraid of the answer. 

"A boy asked you out for the first time," she said softly, barely above a whisper. "To the eighth-grade dance." 

Fragmented memories flashed through my mind like broken shards of glass. They shone brightly and gave me small pieces of details but I couldn't piece the whole picture together. 

"I had talked to you about him," I said in a dazed voice.

She nodded.

"You had a crush on him for the whole school year," she said, a slight smile returning to her face. "And you were convinced that he never noticed you. Do you remember his name?" 

"Andrew." The name rolled off my tongue effortlessly like I had never forgotten it. "Andrew Whittaker." 

Mom's smile grew wider. "Do you know what ever happened to him?"

I shrugged. "Went to college and got the hell out of Cloverville probably, like the rest of my graduating class." 

The jagged pieces were starting to fit together but the picture still wasn't complete. 

"So what happened?" I pressed.

Mom's grin faded as her attention snapped back to the present.

"Well, you asked if you could go to the dance with Andrew. Your dad said no of course and you were devastated. I tried to make him change his mind but doing so was always like poking a wasp's nest with a stick." 

More memories came to the forefront of my mind, gluing the pieces together. Auditory ones rather than visual. The muffled sounds of shouting voices behind doors and walls as I pulled blankets and pillows over my head. 

"We had our biggest fight ever after you went to bed," Mom continued, confirming what swirled around in my psyche. "He said the farm was your only future. Anything else was nothing but a distraction." Her hands balled into fists again as she went on with a cracking voice. "I told him that wasn't fair to you. You deserved to create your own future. I'll remember what he said next for the rest of my life."

She paused, her lips wobbling so much that I wondered if she would be able to speak at all. 

"Mom?" I said, leaning forward. 

I didn't even realize I stopped using her name until her eyes gazed at me warmly. For a moment, I felt a warmth grow in my chest as well. 

"He said if there was a chance you'd choose something else besides taking over the farm, then I had to give him more children so we'd have someone that would." 

Her eyes flashed with a familiar strength and coldness. 

"I made an appointment to get my tubes tied the next day. When he found out--" She paused and swallowed once. "I came home from work to find that he changed the locks and threw all my stuff outside." 

“What? No.”

Something in my brain skipped like a needle scratching over a record. That didn’t happen. It didn’t make sense. He adored Mom and practically worshipped the ground she walked on.

“You were at school,” she continued softly. “He refused to let me inside. I had no choice but to go somewhere else. I didn’t want you to see us, to see him treating me like that.”

“He told me you left,” I said, my voice empty and hollow. I had no idea what was real anymore. “He said you ran off with a rich guy.”

Mom inched her manicured fingertips across the table and I allowed her to touch my hand. 

“I met and married Alfred Huxley not long after your dad divorced me,” she explained. “I was in a dark place and Hux saved me. I said yes out of desperation at first but I grew to love him. He’s been good to me and I owe him everything.”

The pieces began falling into place, but seeing the complete picture gave me no clarity. My emotions warred with each other. I didn't know what to feel. 

“God, everything feels so... fucked!” I cried in exasperation, not realizing I tightened my fingers around hers until her other hand closed around mine.

“I don’t know what to believe,” I blubbered to the woman across the table from me. “Everything I felt so sure about with you and Dad feels like a lie now. I don’t know what’s real.” 

“The past doesn’t really matter anymore,” she said, rubbing my hand reassuringly. “But I came here to tell you that you can still choose your future. You don’t have to believe my view or your father’s. But there is one man out there who wants you to be happy above all else, right?”

I took a deep, steadying breath as I pictured Reagan’s face. The face that brought me joy and comfort and wild, unrestrained excitement. 

And I knew that even if every word she told me until that point was a lie, that part was at least true.