Virtuous Deception

by Leiann B. Wrytes

  Sophie could not hide the shock on her face. She stood up and instantly fell back into the chair. Her legs could not hold her. She felt her head swimming. Panic took over, coursing through her limbs and blanketing her thoughts. “Michelle . . . how did you—”

  “I found her, Mom. The daughter you sold like a piece of jewelry—my sister!” Unable to hold them back any longer, Michelle’s tears stained her cheeks as they fell from her eyes.

  “Michelle . . . You don’t understand.” Sophie felt defeated. She never wanted to hurt anyone, least of all her daughter.

  “What is there to understand? What is with you people? Will one of you stop making excuses and own it?” First Frank wants sympathy, and now her mom?

  “Michelle, you have every right to be angry, but please, let me explain.” Sophie thought that if she could get Michelle to hear her side, that things would be okay. Michelle would understand, and all would be forgiven. Naturally, she did what she had to do.

  “Explain what, Mom? Didn’t you love her? What right did you have to take my twin?” Michelle felt more anguish at this moment than she had at any other point in her life. Brianna was not only her sister but her twin. Their connection was not only a matter of familial ties but something more, something deeper. They shared the same womb and entered into the world together—only to be ripped apart by people charged to protect them. It was almost too much for Michelle to stomach.

  “I know . . . I was afraid. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  Sophie did not know how to speak her truth. How could she tell Michelle that she did not know if she had loved her? That she had pondered, planned, and poised herself to love one child, not two. That it was not only easy to give that baby away, but it brought her comfort and relief? She felt very little, if any, emotional attachment to a child she had only known about for a few minutes.

  “So, you gave me that blood money to live on?” Michelle felt sick. This was simply not fair.

  “Michelle, sit down, please.” Sophie searched for the words to make things right, to soften the harshness of what she did. “I need you to—”

  “Are you insane?”

  “Michelle, sit down! Please. Just . . . just . . . sit down.”

  “I don’t know who you are anymore. What kind of mother are you?”

  Hearing that question triggered something in Sophie. She had done the best she could do at the time. She would be the first to admit her mistake, but she was not about to let anyone, including Michelle, make her feel guilty about it. “What kind of mother am I? Michelle . . . You are young. What do you know about this world? What hard days have you seen? Don’t you dare stand there and judge me.”

  “I know that I would never sell my daughter for money,” Michelle spat.

  Those words, “sell my daughter,” pierced Sophie’s soul. The weight of her choice cemented her place as an active participant in what had to be one of the worst possible things a mother could ever do to her children. She did not only separate them, but she chose between them. “Sit down.”

  Michelle sat down on the couch farthest from her mother.

  Sophie tried to find the words the best way she knew how. “You have no idea what I went through with your father before you were born. I am only sharing this with you now in hopes that you will have a better understanding of what happened.”

  Michelle doubted there was anything her mother could say that would change how she felt, but she forced her mind open to listen.

  “I was young, in love, and very naïve. I thought I could handle being away from my family. I thought I was ready to start a family with your father. Maybe I was, but he was not, and it was not easy for us. I didn’t even know about—”

  “My sister . . .” Michelle finished her sentence. She wanted to remind her mother of who the child was. She was not some stranger or some other mother’s daughter. She was her daughter.

  “Her . . . until I delivered. It all happened so quickly. We made the exchange; then she was gone. I did not even know the man’s name. I had planned to take the money and leave with you.”

  Michelle was not satisfied, but she could see that, for the first time, her mother was being completely honest. Still, there was no excuse for what she had done. “Where was Dad? Did he know?”

  “No, your father was not there, and he did not know. Anyway, once we got home, I realized that I had made a huge mistake, and I could not leave without your sister. So, I stayed. We stayed, and I hoped to see her but never did.”

  “Touching.” Michelle’s mind was all over the place, and her response was more of a knee-jerk reaction, devoid of emotion.

  “That is the truth, Michelle. It is the truth, regardless of whether you agree.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you? Okay, let’s say I believe you. What do you think is supposed to happen now? What do you want me to do with what you have told me? How am I to live with it?”

  Sophie could not tell her what to do. She could only hope that it would allow Michelle to forgive her one day. “I am sorry. I have regretted what I’ve done, every day, but it could not be undone. I could not change anything. I thought of her every day . . . every single day.”

  “You made a decision out of hurt, causing several others to hurt too.” Michelle looked at her mother, and it was like she was seeing her for the first time. Her mascara left patches of blackness on her face as evidence of the pain she failed to shed. Below her gentle blue eyes were pockets that exceeded the depths of the Grand Canyon, carrying in them a lifetime of heartaches, joy, and indifference. Her mother had always been a woman with a quiet strength. It was a quality that Michelle always admired about her, and on some level, envied. But this woman was broken and needed to be healed, to be helped, loved.

  “That song you used to sing to me about the lost little girl was about her.”

  Sophie nodded in agreement.

  “I never understood why you were so sad. I felt like I wasn’t enough. That I wasn’t the little girl you had expected. I would sit in your lap, and you’d just cry. It was terrible.”

  It was the first time Michelle had ever said it aloud. She had not even told Armand, and she could not bring herself to look up at him, but she could feel him watching. He wanted to comfort her, but this was between her and her mother. He could not, and would not, interfere.

  Sophie did not think she could feel any worse until that moment. “Michelle . . . I have always been proud of you. I love you. You have exceeded all my expectations. You saved my life, baby.” Sophie spoke slowly to allow her heart to wrap around Michelle. She loved her and hated that she ever made her feel that way.

  Michelle’s eyes were swollen red and burning. She hated all of this. For a moment the two, mother and daughter, let the silence clear the air. A lot had been said, and it would not be fixed overnight.

  “Where is she? How did you find her?” Sophie broke the quiet with her questions in the same way the question itself had cracked the silence in her mind . . . abruptly.

  Armand, who had made himself scarce while they hashed it out, suddenly became visible again. Michelle kept her eyes on him as she responded. “She was kidnapped. Armand is helping me to get her back.”

  Armand cleared his throat. Michelle answered the question in his eyes with a shrug of her shoulders. She was tired of all the secrecy. No more lies.

  “Some people were following me, and we think they grabbed her by mistake.” Michelle felt numb as memories of Brianna flooded her mind. She missed her and prayed she was all right.

  Sophie was immediately alarmed. Her body tensed, and she searched Michelle’s face for an answer. This girl did not tell her anything. “Dear God, Michelle, are you in danger?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “Does she hate me?” Sophie felt it might have been the wrong question to ask, but it was the first question that popped into her mind.

  Michelle rolled her eyes, annoyed with her mother’s selfishness. This was not about her or
about how Brianna may feel about her. Her concern should have been for Brianna’s safety. Of course, true to form, when it was Brianna’s life on the line, Sophie, yet again, made it about her own emotional state.

  “She probably will, Mom. I almost hate you, and you kept me.”

  That hurt. Sophie did not know how to respond to that. Michelle was being hateful, but she deserved it. Undeterred, she continued to press for information. “What’s her name?”

  “Brianna. Her name is Brianna.”

  Sophie had found some comfort over the years in the idea her daughter had been better off. She did not want anything to happen to her before she ever got a chance to hold her and apologize. She mused over the name. “Brianna . . . That’s beautiful.”

  She turned to Armand, “Do you have any idea where she is?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’m doing everything I can. Michelle, we need to get going.”

  Michelle got up to leave. “I don’t understand how you could do it.”

  “Michelle—”

  “You looked me in my eyes and lied to me like it was nothing.” She was ready to go. She needed some fresh air and some space from her mom.

  “I never lied to you,” Sophie countered.

  “Each second that passed by without telling me . . . counts as a lie.”

  “That’s not fair, Michelle. Circumstances didn’t allow for that . . . There was never an appropriate time. I wanted to; believe me, I did.”

  “Bottom line . . . If you wanted to, you would have. Who is my father, by the way?”

  “Lewis is . . . was your father.”

  With that, Michelle left without saying another word. Sophie cried and prayed that her daughters could forgive her.

  Chapter 37

  Lisa felt liberated. Lewis was dead, and there was no chance that Frank would ever learn of her past. Lewis’s wife looked very familiar, but she couldn’t remember where she might have seen her. She was not overly concerned, though; that part of her life was finally over. She could move on with a clean slate and didn’t have to leave Dallas. She tried calling Brianna again, but she still didn’t answer. Number two on her list of things to do was to repair that relationship.

  She might not be Brianna’s biological mother, but she was still her mom. She wished she would pick up or text or something. Brianna was simply being stubborn. Nobody’s perfect, although Brianna liked to think her father was. Lisa had been in the hotel since the funeral. She even missed visiting day with Frank yesterday, so she would have to wait until Friday. It was a beautiful day outside. Walking weather. She decided to take a stroll.

  As soon as she stepped outside, she was made aware of her error. She mistook the Texas sunshine for a warm day, but it was freezing outside. Maybe she could walk around the hotel instead. She still had not seen the majority of it. She wandered around the expansive first floor of the building. There were various statues, restaurants, cute little boutiques, and other artistic pieces throughout the hotel. Lisa enjoyed herself throughout her stroll. She did not make a purchase, but everything seemed to feel different now that her situation with Lewis was finally over. Quite literally, her reality had changed.

  She was headed back to her room when she thought she saw a familiar face. It couldn’t be. What were the odds? Though she was resistant to believe it, the more she stared, she realized that it was true. Brianna was at the hotel.

  “Brianna! Brianna!”

  Michelle heard someone screaming Brianna’s name. Excitedly, she turned and looked wildly for her sister. After she didn’t see her, she realized the person might have been calling to her. She stopped to locate the feminine voice. She scanned the sea of people walking around and found Lisa. Lisa? What was she doing here? She motioned with her hand for Armand to keep walking, watching him board the elevator and head up to the suite. She waited as Lisa walked toward her. Michelle did not want to talk to Lisa in such a public place; she needed some privacy. Lisa extended her arms for a hug, but Michelle declined the contact.

  “Brianna . . . Do you want to go somewhere to talk?”

  Michelle nodded, in order to not speak and give herself away yet, and Lisa proceeded to lead her to her room. Lisa’s room was on the second floor and, thankfully, did not take long to reach. Michelle became increasingly upset with each passing minute. She thought of how disrespectful Lisa had been to her family at her dad’s funeral, and how rude she had been to her mother and felt she might explode. She was tired of all the lies and secrets. Enough was enough. Brianna did not like her, and now Michelle had her own reasons for disliking her. Someone needed to check this woman.

  “Brianna, how are you? I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  Michelle did not respond.

  “Brianna, do you hear me? I’m talking to you.”

  Still nothing. Lisa sighed in frustration. Her daughter was even less cooperative than she anticipated. If they were going to mend their relationship, it would take some effort on her part too. “Look, I know you don’t like me very much right now, but I love you. I’m trying here, but you’ve got to meet me halfway, Bria. No one is perfect.”

  “Kiss my ass.” Michelle could barely believe she’d said it herself. Oh well, it was out there now, so she figured she might as well run with it.

  Lisa was shocked at her daughter’s sudden callousness. “Excuse me? Who do you think you’re talking to? You may be upset, but you will not speak to your mother that way.”

  “You know, that is the second time I have heard that in the past two days. Both of you claim to be my mother, but one of you has been playing make-believe. I think we know which one of you that is.”

  Lisa was flabbergasted. What in the hell had gotten into her daughter? “Brianna, what are you talking about?”

  Michelle started laughing. An uncomfortable, pain-filled laugh. Her heart was broken, and her hurt ran deep. This laugh was the only thing holding her together. “All of you—you’re a bunch of liars . . . every last one of you.”

  “Brianna, I don’t know what your father has told you but—”

  “My father is dead! He has not told me anything.”

  Lisa looked at Brianna curiously. Brianna was clearly unstable and needed some help. She reached for her phone to call 911. Brianna was freaking her out. Michelle grabbed her phone before she could get to it.

  “Brianna, calm down. Everything will be okay.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  Michelle was not in the mood to play games, but she found Lisa’s facial expressions mildly entertaining. Either she did not know about her existence, or she was going for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in Drama.

  Lisa was adamant on having the upper hand on the conversation. “Your father is not dead. He’s in jail, but he’s very much alive.”

  “No . . . My father is dead. I saw you at his funeral. My mother saw you standing over him. You touched him like you had a right to do so. The nerve. You are a real piece of work.”

  Lisa put her hands on her head and looked wide-eyed at Brianna. This girl had clearly lost her mind. The only funeral she had attended in years was for Lewis, but surely this could not be who Brianna was talking about. Why would she think Lewis was her father, and who was the mother she was referring to? “What are you talking about, Brianna? What’s gotten into you?”

  “Please, stop calling me that. Clearly, I am not Brianna.”

  Now, Lisa was convinced that Brianna had truly lost her mind. She realized that she would be having a hard time dealing with her father’s incarceration, but this was a bit much. She seemed to have created a whole other reality.

  “Brianna . . . listen—”

  “I am not Brianna! My name is Michelle. Michelle Lewis.”

  Lisa did not understand. Michelle saw the confusion in her eyes, so she took a different approach, burying the proverbial hatchet squarely across her forehead. “My father’s name was Leonard Lewis. I believe you and the rest of his whores called him Lewis.”

  No, this
was simply not possible—or was it? She and Lewis never discussed their families. “Did you just call me a whore?”

  “I am Brianna’s twin sister . . . her identical twin sister. I guess your husband did not share the details of the adoption with you. Please, allow me.”

  Lisa plopped down on the bed and tried to wrap her mind around the news Michelle dropped in her lap. Frank never said anything about a twin.

  “Frank, your husband, in name only, gave our mother a lump sum of cash and took Brianna right out of the hospital room.”

  Lisa suffered from the shock of the allegations . . . except they were no longer allegations. Michelle was living proof of her husband’s deception. Frank could not do that. She wanted to believe that he couldn’t. She had accused him of it, but she didn’t think that he was actually capable of doing something so inhumane. No wonder he reacted so violently when she had said that . . . She had struck a nerve.

  “Okay . . . Michelle? This is a lot to take in at once. I’m sorry, I need a minute.”

  “You can think on your own time. I need answers now. I think twenty-two years was enough time for you to get this mess sorted out, and you failed. All of you failed. So, no, I’m not giving you one more minute.”

  “Who do you think you are talking to like that?” Brianna was one thing. She was her daughter, whom she had raised and loved. This . . . Michelle . . . was a woman. Sister or not, Lisa was not going to be disrespected.

  “I’m talking to you! Trust me . . . This is not what you want. You’re the woman Bria has called Mom, and that is the only reason I have not gone there with you. To me, you’re nothing but a lying, disrespectful, high-class whore, and I would want nothing more than to mop the floor with that long, black hair of yours. You fucked my father, knowing he was a married man . . . Oh, and that shameful display you put on at the funeral? You are fortunate that I didn’t just handle you in the lobby. If you step to me . . . step correct. My dad was not the only one in the family with a mean streak.”