***
My father looked down at the cell phone that hadn’t stopped ringing in over thirty minutes.
“You gonna get that?” He finally asked.
I shook my head.
I’d turned it on to look the man, Able Spiers, up.
He was an oil man who was worth tens of millions of dollars, if not more.
And I’d grown up dirt poor.
I’d gone to college on student loans…and unsurprisingly still had them even though I’d been on the inside for years.
I ignored Sterling’s phone calls.
“Can you say that again?” I asked.
I was sitting at a table in Cracker Barrel, stunned beyond belief.
The man in front of me with his strawberry blonde hair, and gray eyes just like mine, was the man I’d been hoping for since I was a young kid.
A man that never showed when I needed him.
A man that I used to lay in bed at night and think about saving me from the monsters of my past and present.
“I have a trust fund for you…it’s something I’ve been putting into an account for you since I knew you were mine,” the man said.
I ignored the ‘trust fund’ part of his statement for the more important part.
“You knew I was yours? How?” I asked sharply.
And if he’d known…why didn’t he look for me? Why was I left to suffer in a foster home with parents that didn’t want me?
“Your mother. She told me about you, and then gave me a sob story about how you were scared of your own shadow, and that I should get to know you first, let you trust me before we told you that you were mine,” he answered.
“Listen, Able,” I said. “I don’t know what you think is happening here, but it doesn’t inspire hearts and flowers in my soul to know that you knew about me but didn’t try any harder to find me.”
“I tried for the last fifteen years, darlin.’ I just couldn’t find you. Your mother…whatever the fuck happened to her…was dead, and nobody knew where you were. All your mother’s neighbors never even knew she had a kid,” Able said.
I rolled my eyes.
My mom was a whore at the best of times. And having a kid cramped her style.
She didn’t like people knowing she had a kid.
‘Kids ruin your pussy,’ she’d say. ‘Gotta make them think that you’re not here.’
Which was also why I never got toys, and rarely ever went out during the light of day.
Something I still remember vividly to this day.
When I started school, once I was abandoned, I was very behind on my learning. So behind that I had to start school in the third grade instead of the fifth.
But I worked my ass off to get back on track, something that I got complimented on quite a lot when I was trying to get back to my grade.
I even managed to graduate six months early, which, for me, was quite impressive.
Guess anyone could do wonders if they’re let out of their house.
“That’s true,” I amended. “My mother didn’t like letting people know I was alive.”
I didn’t want to ask why my father had known my mother in the first place.
It was bad enough to know that someone like this man slept with someone like my mother.
Had she trapped him? Forced him? Blackmailed him?
The list of possibilities was endless, and I hated that my ‘father’ had fallen for my mother’s shit…just like man after man had fallen.
My mother was what you’d call a ‘manipulative bitch.’
She was good.
So good.
She knew how to act to get the maximum attention from any man.
She could walk into a bar and instantly know which man was the richest in the room, and after studying him for only minutes, know exactly what to do to get him to latch onto her.
Whether she needed to weave a sob story…or come on strong. Whether she needed to bitch about her abusive husband to get the man’s protective instincts turned on full force.
You name it and she could accomplish that persona.
And it was sickening.
Something I could watch my mother accomplish even at the young age of ten years old.
I wasn’t a stupid girl by any means, and I knew exactly what my mother was doing.
Which was why I always-always-told the truth, even if it hurt to do so.
Which was also why, that day when cops had come to answer the 911 call I’d made, I’d told them I was of sane mind. I hadn’t said a thing to defend myself.
Because I wasn’t insane with grief.
I knew exactly what was happening, and was of sound mind and body as I shot my husband.
“So after I started to search for you, I seemed to hit dead end after dead end. Checked hospitals and police stations. Put your face onto a milk carton,” he answered. “You were just gone.”
My mother dropped me off at a hospital. She’d gone outside to grab her wallet while I was getting screened for a concussion that I never had, and just never came back.
It was a hospital in a small town that I’d never heard of before, at least when I was a child, and the search for my mother didn’t last long.
Apparently, it was something that happened a lot…usually only with younger kids…not ten year old’s.
“I’m sorry,” I told him honestly.
My mother had been a shit head…what could I say?
I’d done my best not to become her.
Had gone to classes.
Gone to college.
Had a life…at least until Bender came along.
“Not your doing, honey girl. Just wish I would’ve seen you a long time ago. Although you’re a long way from El Paso, Texas,” he answered.
I nodded.
It was weird how things worked.
Lily and I had decided to go all the way to the University of Louisiana in Monroe, Louisiana of all places once we graduated high school.
Bender was the only one from our high school that was going there, on a scholarship. That didn’t really enter into our decision. I’m not even sure we knew that he was going to be around that area. We just wanted out.
We’d chosen a place on the map that was close enough to get to with one bus ticket, and was a good school to boot.
It worked out for Lily…just not for me.
“Doesn’t mean I don’t feel somewhat responsible. I knew my mom’s information. I could’ve told them what it was…I just didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be associated with her anymore. I hated her…hated how I wasn’t allowed to go outside. Hated how she kept me in a closet when she had her men over. Hated how she ‘forgot’ to feed me. Hated how I had to listen to her and her conquests have sex all night long. Hated that I had such a drive to learn…yet she wouldn’t let me. I hated her. Hated my life. I wanted something different…so I just didn’t tell them who I was. Had I done that,” I shook my head. “I could’ve had a different life.”
“But you wouldn’t have me,” an achingly familiar voice said from behind me.
I closed my eyes as Sterling’s deep baritone voice slid over me, filling me up in places that I hadn’t realized were empty. The man had the power to bring me to my knees, yet he never once asked that of me. He loved me…and I was glad he’d come looking. I hadn’t wanted to leave…only needed a reason to stay. Needed him to put forth the effort. Because I wouldn’t turn out to be my mother. Wouldn’t live off of any man that I’d manipulated into keeping me with him.
I didn’t turn around, but my eyes closed in happiness when Sterling’s hands started to tangle in my hair.
“Why are you here?” He asked.
I could tell that was directed at Able without even looking to clarify.
Able was shooting death rays at Sterling over my head, and I wanted to smile at how ‘dad like’ it was.
But then the tension started to slowly make itself known, and I froze in my seat as I took stock of what was going on.
How Sterling’s hand in my hair had come to a standstill.
How Able looked at Sterling like he was the scum of the earth.
“What’s going on?” I finally asked, worried.
“How about you tell me why you’re having breakfast with my stepfather when you should be waiting for me at the hotel room I paid for,” Sterling snapped.