The Goodbye

“The blood was mine,” she said quietly. But I knew that already. The cops had confirmed it. “She checked me out of school that day. I had asked the office to please call you to the office, but she’d been on her best behavior and explained that she didn’t want you disturbed because of my doctor’s appointment. So I went, although I knew there was no doctor’s appointment.

“She took me out of town and parked at the back of a parking lot at a bus station. Then she asked me how many times we’d had sex. I didn’t want to tell her. That crazy look was in her eyes, and I knew if I told her, she’d lose it. So I said once. She hit me across the face and busted my lip. Then she asked me again, and I told her three times. She hit me again. Then she asked me again. This went on five times, even though my answer stayed the same. I was bleeding badly by this time, and she shoved money at me and told me to get on a bus and leave and never come back. That I could be pregnant with your brat, and I wasn’t going to taint her name and yours.

“She said what we had done was dirty, and she wouldn’t have it. If I didn’t leave, she’d send me back into the system, and if I was pregnant, they’d take my baby away from me. My period was late. I hadn’t told you because I wasn’t sure if it was a concern yet, but hearing her tell me I’d end up losing not only you but our baby was enough to terrify me.

“I took the money and had started to get out of the car when she grabbed my arm and twisted it until I cried out. Then she said if I ever tried to contact you, she’d kill us both. I believed her. But when I could afford to check into things a couple of years later, I found out she was in a mental hospital. I just couldn’t find River Kipling anywhere. I never stopped looking, though.”

Fuck. I sat there listening to Addy’s words and not once questioning them. My mother had been insane, but I never once thought she had let Addy go. That she’d scared her and sent her running. I always thought her insanity had taken Addy’s life.

“You were just sixteen,” I whispered, afraid to hear how she’d survived and if Franny . . . if Franny was mine.

Addy nodded, but her face stayed tense. “It wasn’t easy. I was in a homeless shelter, getting a free meal, when the smell of turnip greens made me sick. The minister’s wife who had been helping to serve food immediately came to my side and helped me get cleaned up. Deborah Posey was my savior. She found out I was sixteen and alone and took me into her home. She bought me the pregnancy test that confirmed I was pregnant. I wanted to call you then, but the fear of losing you and the baby . . . I couldn’t do that to either of you.

“Deborah let me stay with her family until I started showing and we couldn’t hide it. They were Southern Baptist, and the congregation wouldn’t accept a pregnant teenage girl living in the minister’s home. So she helped get me a job in Oklahoma, where her sister lived, and it was there that I made a life for Franny and me.”

Hating my mother had been something I’d accepted a long time ago. I’d hated my father just as fiercely, though, because he had left us with her. He hadn’t helped her. But now, knowing Addy had lived through this hell made me hate the woman who gave me life even more. So many things could have happened to Addy. So many bad things, and I hadn’t been there.

“She’s mine.” I needed to say it aloud. I had known Franny was mine, but hearing Addy say it made it real.

She just nodded.

I had a daughter.

But the woman in front of me was a stranger now. The girl I’d loved once and known better than anyone was now distant and reserved. She was strong and independent. She didn’t need me anymore. She also didn’t seem to like me very much. We were strangers, and the pang that came with that realization sliced through me.

When I didn’t say anything, Addy moved toward the small living room. “Why don’t we sit down? I can get you a drink.”

I hadn’t moved from the spot where I was standing. Addy was so much calmer about everything. But then, she’d been here watching me, knowing who I was, for more than a month. She’d had time to adjust. I followed her and sat on the first chair I came to, but I couldn’t stop looking at her. I should have seen it. The first fucking day she walked into the restaurant.

“Your hair,” I said, with more accusation in my voice than necessary, but dammit, she had hidden herself from me. She had been hiding right fucking in front of me.

She touched the darker locks and gave me a small smile. “I didn’t want to walk into your world as Addy. I needed to be sure that the man you had become was someone I wanted Franny to know. She’s been asking about her father for years, and I’ve been looking. When I found you, I didn’t want to bring her into your life until I knew you’d accept her and she wouldn’t be hurt.”

As pissed as I was, I got it. She was a loving, protective mother. Something she’d never had in her own life. Something neither of us had had.

The fact that she hadn’t intentionally kept my kid from me eased the anger some, but I still felt robbed. Losing Addy had sent me on a course that had molded me into a man who was nothing like the boy who had loved her. I wasn’t the guy she had left behind.

“I’m different. I’ve done things that have changed me,” I said, looking at her as she sat down across from me.

She gave me a tight smile and looked away. “I know you’re different. I’ve seen it.”

Those words made me feel like I’d failed. I had fought to survive. She knew nothing of what I’d endured. I knew her life had been hard, but mine hadn’t been easy, either. There was no minister’s wife to help me. I had killed men. I had lost my fucking soul because her death had ruined me.