Tessa
My mother looks at me, and I can feel the coldness of her stare. She doesn’t want to be here any more than I want her here. I swallow the lump in my throat because I know my mother’s rejection is imminent.
“Not to sound like a dick, but what does their family issues have to do with the two of us?” Cut asks his mom as he moves his thumb between him and Sin. Bianca doesn’t acknowledge him she and keeps her eyes bored into the side of my mother’s head.
“Shall we sit?” my mom asks.
“I’ll stand,” Sin says.
“Yeah, me too,” Cut responds.
Bianca pulls out a chair and takes a seat. I look at Hawk who drops his head towards the chair I’m currently standing in front of. I collapse onto the wooden seat, and my mother gingerly takes a seat next to me.
“Before we start,” Bianca says, “before Gloria tells you what she needs to tell you, I think Tessa has a little bit of information that she didn’t get a chance to make known the other day at your house.”
I feel Bianca’s eyes on me. Hawk’s hand lands on my shoulder and gives me a slight squeeze. With my hands resting in my lap, I take a deep breath and say the one thing that I hope will thaw the coldness my mother feels when she sees me. “I have a son.”
“Excuse me?”
I lift my chin towards her. I’m not ashamed of Sam. “I have a son. His name is Sam. And he’s just about seven.”
I watch as her eyes narrow then widen at the realization of what I just said. “No… Impossible…That can’t be.”
“It is,” Hawk says, “and he’s the best kid I know. Polite, respectful.”
“But the father—”
“Biology doesn’t factor into this,” Hawk states. “If Sam will have me, I’ll gladly fill the role.”
My mother’s eyes shoot up towards Hawk. Her lips thin, but she doesn’t say a word.
“Funny how you bring up biology, Hawking,” Bianca says. “Now it’s your turn.” She nods towards my mother.
“Right.” She brings her hand up to her necklace, the same gold chain that holds the cross of my great grandmother. I watch as she rubs her thumb along the back of the metal. “There’s no easy way of saying this. It never has been. I think that’s why I’ve never told you before now. There are only a few people who know this, and one of them is now dead.” Her eyes flash to Bianca’s. “I lied to you about how your father and I came to be together.” She squeezes her eyes tight causing a lone tear to drop and hit the table.
When I see Bianca reach out and grab her hand, I start to panic. “You’re starting to scare me.”
Her chest rises as she takes another deep breath. “I had only met your father maybe two weeks or so before. He was out of town, and I was out with a couple of cousins. We went to a bar a few towns over, thinking we’d have some fun. I never meant to step out on him, but we were so new. I had some drinks, and lost my moral compass, I guess. There was a group of guys at the bar. We knew who they were. They had a reputation. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew, I was in the supply closet with a man who wasn’t the man I was dating. Alcohol fogged my judgment. It allowed me to do things that I normally wouldn’t do, but no matter, I did it.” She wipes the tears from her eyes.
“I didn’t tell anyone–not even my cousins. They were pre-occupied with the other guys, so they never realized that for thirty minutes I wasn’t around. By the time it was over, the bar was calling the last call, and we grabbed a cab and left. I swore that I’d never tell a soul as to what happened, but fate didn’t seem to play in my favor because three weeks later I found out that I was pregnant.”
I push back from the table and stand. I feel sick to my stomach.
“When you were born, and you were sick–”
“Did Dad know that I wasn’t his when he married you?”
She nods. “He wanted to do right by you. He never wanted you to suffer because of my lack of responsibility.” Bianca stands, grabs a box of tissues from the counter and hands them to my mom. “Anyway, when you were born sick, we didn’t know what to do. Research on your type of cancer was still on-going, much like it is today. The one thing that we did know was that your biggest chance of survival was stem cells. So–” she chokes, unable to finish her words.
“So she came to us and asked us if she could use Sienna’s cord blood,” Bianca finishes what she can’t.
“Bullshit!” Sin slams his hand on the table. “This is fucking bullshit. Do you know what you’re implying?”
Bianca places her hands on the table and leans towards Sin. “She isn’t implying anything, Matthew. She is telling the truth.”
“I don’t fucking believe it,” Cut says.
“Believe it because it’s true. Your father and I weren’t in a good place. I had taken you boys and left. I refused his calls for days because I was trying to figure out what I wanted for my future. I couldn’t allow him to manipulate my love for him to get me to do what he wanted.”
“I never planned on telling Devin,” my mother goes on. “That was one of the conditions your father put on our relationship. He didn’t want to share you. You were his, for all intents and purposes, and he didn’t want to do with the weekend visitations.”
“This is fucking bullshit.” Sin gets up and walks out the back door, slamming it in his retreat.
“My father would never have allowed another man to raise his child,” Cut states.
“It was a moot point by the time he found out. Tessa was sick, and I needed his help. I needed Bianca’s help.”
“And Sienna’s,” Bianca adds.
“Yes, and Sienna’s.”
“We came to an agreement. Once the girls were of school age, I would make sure that Tessa went to the same school as Sienna. By doing this, Devin had hoped that the two girls would start a friendship on their own––giving him access to his daughter without disturbing the family he already had and the one I was just starting.”
I place my hands on the table and lean on it, letting my head fall. The information is running through my head. I have four brothers. “Oh my god…”
Sienna was my sister.
My knees buckle, and this time I don’t feel the comfort of two arms wrap around me before I pass out.