Mrs. Anderson and Lauren, even my father, were all hiding the trial from me. I felt as if I had a thousand questions squirming around in my head about that as well. And what was everyone going to say when they saw me there? Would they throw me out? Could they throw me out? I had so many emotions rushing through me all at once. I had this new sense of adrenaline from Carlin helping me to escape, that I had lived through that situation, and now I was going to see Emry today. But then I had to realize that it might be a sad day. Mrs. Anderson’s scheme may have worked as she had tried desperately to turn everyone against him, to get enough false evidence to make the jury believe he was a murderer and call out the verdict guilty. He might be going to spend his entire life in jail. The sudden sadness didn’t go well with the adrenaline. I felt a little woozy from it all. I hopped over and quickly sat down on the queen-sized bed.
“Are you okay?” Carlin asked me, walking into the bathroom and grabbing towels and shampoo for me to use and tossing them onto the sink.
“I will be.”
“A little overwhelming for one day?” She peeked her head back out and smirked.
“You could say that.” I rubbed my temples with my fingers and tried to focus solely on just breathing. “Listen, I need to get you some crutches. Are you going to be all right showering on your own? I have this plastic bag that you can use to cover up your cast so it stays dry.” She held up the bag for me to see.
I nodded. “Just give me a moment. I’m trying to absorb this thing called my life at the moment.” Carlin laughed aloud.
“It’s not really that funny.” She had this odd habit of inappropriately laughing when she shouldn’t. I didn’t know if it bothered anyone else, but it always struck a nerve with me.
“Sorry.” She flashed me another quick smile. “It’s just, you sound like a whiny teenager.”
“Do I?” I narrowed my eyes at her. “I will be forever grateful for you rescuing me, but please don’t pretend to have a clue about what I’ve been through or compare it to a drama-filled teenage girl. There’s no comparison.”
“No? All right. I’ll shut up.” She threw a few more things in the bathroom and then arranged them so I could have easy access to them with my gimp leg. When she appeared again, she paused to look at me. “It’s just, it kind of is the same.”
Why did she always have to be like this? Couldn’t she just ever let things be without giving me the full analysis of her opinion? I didn’t ever want to hear it, but especially not right now. “You know,” she continued. “First loves and all. The obsession, the desperation. I mean, it’s totally normal, but it’s worse with first loves.”
“You make it sound as if there will be others.” She shrugged. “Perhaps. Who knows. But the first one, that’s the one that seems to always stick with you. The memories linger throughout the years. They’re vivid, clear, haunting.”
“I know what you’re comparing this to, Carlin.” I ran my hand over the smooth burgundy-colored comforter underneath me. “I know all about Russell.”
The mention of the name alone seemed to pain her. “Helene told you.”
I nodded.
“Well, you’d better get showered and all prettied up. You look like you just got ran over by a truck.” “Thanks.”
“I’ll be back. You sure you’re all right on your own?”
“Yeah.”
I watched Carlin leave. If I had known that all it took was talking about Russell to let me alone, I would have used it as ammo in the past. I immediately felt remorse as I thought that. She had been in love with him, and it obviously still bothered her. I actually felt sorry for my aunt. Then I glanced at the clock on the nightstand beside the bed. It was almost noon. She hadn’t told me what time the verdict was being read, but I assumed I’d better hurry nevertheless.
It had taken a little getting used to at first from the awkwardness of not being able to use my left leg to stand on, plus hoping that I had the plastic bag on tight enough so that no water leaked in to make the shower a little tougher than I had anticipated. The warm water rushed over my dirty skin and felt wonderful, despite a few balance issues. I had never enjoyed taking a shower this much before. Then again, I had never been this filthy before either. I wrapped a towel around myself and opened the bathroom door to peek out. Carlin still wasn’t back yet. I wondered where she was going to find crutches. Then I used the palm of my hand to wipe the steam off the mirror so I could get a look at myself. I had some bruising on the side of my face that had turned dark purple. I took a closer look. I hadn’t even remembered feeling any sort of pain or discomfort there. My body was probably full of bruises and scrapes that I had been unaware of, masked by the stronger pain of the ankle and ribs. Richard had initially wrapped a large bandage tightly around my ribcage, so I decided to try to wrap it back around myself, but it was too hard to manage alone. I would have to wait for Carlin to get back and ask for her help.
I looked down at the sink full of all kinds of things in front of me, powders, lotions and soaps. I doubted any amount of makeup was going to fully cover up that bruise. I would just have to do what I could to make myself look decent. I laughed out loud thinking that that could even be a remote possibility.
I started with drying my hair first as I ran one of Carlin’s thick brushes through it. I felt a million times better scrubbing Mrs. Anderson’s basement off my body. My ankle suddenly began throbbing as I realized I had no more pain medication. Lauren had been in charge of that. Oh well, I would have to do without. Maybe Carlin had some ibuprofen or something lying around.
“Choose anything to wear?”
I heard the hotel door click shut as Carlin had returned. She walked over to me in the bathroom. “Wow.”
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing. You clean up well.”
“Ha, ha.” I glared at her.
She smiled. “No, I mean it, Annie. You look so much better. Let me help you with your makeup.” “First, I need help with this bandage around my ribs.”
She looked surprised. She hadn’t known that my ribs were injured. “He did a number on you, didn’t he?” “Yeah.”
“Lauren Anderson always was a scary beast.”
She helped wrap it tight enough so as to ease the pain.
“You don’t have any pain pills by chance, do you?”
“One sec.” She disappeared around the corner and grabbed her purse. She opened it and dug around for a moment. “Here,” she said pulling a bottle out. “Better double the dosage by the look of you.”
“Thanks.”
“Sure.”
Carlin helped me with my makeup and then continued to straighten and smooth out my long brown hair. She stood back admiringly. “Take a look.” I peered at myself in the large mirror. She had done a good job. The bruise was barely noticeable, and I actually looked pretty fantastic. Satisfied, we both walked out into the larger room. There were two crutches leaning against the side of the bed.
“You found some?”
She nodded as if extremely proud of herself.
“Where on earth did you find them?”
“Oh, I have connections in this town.” She grinned. “Come on, try them out. Ever had to use them before?”
“No.”
“No? Of course not.” She rolled her eyes and walked over to retrieve them for me. “You put them under your arms like this and then walk like this.” I watched her demonstrate for me. “Yeah, I’ve seen people use them before,” I said in almost a borderline nasty tone. But Carlin never cared when I was like that. She always looked amused when she pushed my buttons and I retaliated.
“Okay. Let’s find something for you to wear.” She sorted through her open suitcase, pulling out outfit after outfit. She held up a purple dress.
“I’m not wearing a dress,” I warned her.
She quickly tossed it aside. “No, of course not.” She pulled up a pair of white slacks followed by a light green V-neck. “How about this?”
I stared at
it. It wasn’t bad. A little fancy for my taste, but everything about Carlin screamed fancy or rather, wannabe fancy, I should say. “Not bad.”
“Try it on. We’re about the same size.”
I stood in front of the mirror, the crutches securely under my arms for balance. I still looked pretty damaged but overall much improved. “So, you were pretty mad that father left me there?” She tossed up her head as if mad were an understatement. “I couldn’t believe it. Well, he wouldn’t tell me where you were. I knew he knew. I knew it had to be bad. Good thing Helene breaks a little easier than him. I don’t think he’d ever tell me. I don’t know if I would have thought to look at the Anderson place either.”
“Where else would you have thought?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just knew I had to get Helene to talk.”
I sat down on the bed and waited for Carlin as she seemed to be sorting through her purse of what she did and didn’t need. I watched her toss a few items into the trash can that was sitting along the wall. “I was pretty upset when he left me. He just turned around and walked up the stairs. Horrified was more like it, but I can’t say I blame him. I mean, it’s not like I’m even his real daughter anyway.”
She turned around to look at me, surprise written all over her face.
“Oh, come on. Like you didn’t know.”
She returned to what she had been doing. “No, of course I knew. I just didn’t know you knew.”
“Yeah. I found out in kind of a strange way. Emry’s adopted mother actually was the one to tell me.” She stopped again and turned to look at me again. “Really? What else did she tell you?” “Not much else. I went home and questioned Helene. She started crying and everything.” Carlin rolled her eyes. “Of course she did. So did you ask her who your real mother was?” “Yeah.”
“What’d she say?”
“Well, basically that my mother abandoned me and someone found me and took me to some
adoption agency.”
“What?”
I gave her a hard look. “That’s not how it happened?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Helene lied to me?”
“Unbelievable. I can’t believe she told you that.”
I took a deep breath. The force of the hard expansion against the bandage caused me to wince slightly and bend over in pain. The pain pills hadn’t kicked in yet. I probably was in need of something stronger. “Tell me what you know, Carlin. Please,” I begged her.
She sighed and then zipped up her purse and tossed it on the nightstand. She came over and sat down beside me on the bed. “Annie,” she began.
“I hate it when you call me that.”
“I know.” She pressed her lips together. “I have something to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“You already said your day was overwhelming enough.”
“Just tell me. You can’t just say something like that and leave me hanging.”
“All right.”
She swallowed hard as my mind raced with what she was about to tell me. Maybe she knew who my real parents were. “I’m your mother.”
I felt my throat grow instantly dry. “What did you say?”
“I’m your real mother.”
I tried to stand up and get away from her. Now she was lying to me, too? How could she say such a thing? We were nothing alike. “Just sit back down before you hurt yourself,” she instructed me. “I came back here for you. It’s time you knew the truth. You’re miserable here with them. I just know you are. It’s written all over your face. Then, when I found out you were missing, I went absolutely crazy.”
“Wait.” I held up my hand to stop her. “You’re my real mother?” She nodded, giving me a moment to absorb it. It seemed utterly impossible to wrap my mind around. “You gave birth to me?”
“Yes.”
“Why would mother lie about that?”
“Because she’s a coward.”
I sat down as my head began to spin again. I needed to eat something.
“I know it’s pretty hard for you to believe given that you can’t even stand the sight of me and all, but we’re more alike than you think. This little rebellious thing you have going on here right now, that’s all me.”
“Now isn’t the best time for jokes.”
“Okay, okay, sorry. I’ve never been so good with the serious stuff.”
“Well, try.”
She took a deep breath. “All right. Here’s the cold hard truth. Helene told you about Russell, right?”
“Yeah.”
“We were in love. I mean, I can’t even begin to tell you how inseparable we were, but he was a little older, and when you’re a teenager, a few years makes a big difference.”
“But she said that he was in love with her, too,” I interrupted, wanting to get all of the details exactly right this time. “Well, not exactly. I always suspected he had a thing for her, too. I know she liked him and was jealous that he was with me. I always thought they hung out together because he felt sorry for her because he knew she liked him. The whole triangle thing was kind of complicated, but anyway, a long story short, I got pregnant.”
“So this Russell is my real father?”
“Right. Russell Flaherty.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, if you let me get to it.”
“Sorry.” I tried to remain quiet so I could listen, but I couldn’t guarantee that I wasn’t going to interrupt again. “So I was only fourteen, a freshman in high school. I wasn’t ready for you yet. I had no means of taking care of you. But I couldn’t just get rid of you. I never abandoned you like she claimed. You meant too much to me. You were Russell and I’s love child.” She paused a moment so as to let that all sink in. “Helene was furious, but we came to an understanding. She and Russell were supposed to get married and take care of you. It was perfect. She was my sister and so we figured you’d look similar to her, that it’d all work out, all fall into place. That way at least you would have your real father with you.”
“So they were really engaged?” “Right, but not for long. He only stuck around for a short period of time after you were born. He got cold feet. He didn’t want to marry Helene. He wasn’t sure he could handle a child at that age either, so he left her there all alone with you. I helped her as much as I could, but I was so very young and incapable of such things. I hit the road the first chance I got when I turned eighteen to get out of Seneca. But it broke my heart, especially the older I got. I never stopped loving Russell, wondering where he went. I couldn’t stand that Helene was raising you, but what could I do? I couldn’t tear you away from the only home you’d ever known. It just didn’t seem fair to do that to you, so I stayed away as much as possible. It was easier that way.”
“So what happened to Russell?”
She folded her hands in front of her and clasped them together. “I don’t know. Never heard from him again.”
“So Matthew?” I asked.
“They really did adopt Matthew a few years after you from an adoption agency, but not you. You were mine.”
I stared at her for a moment. Maybe I was more like her than I thought. Maybe that’s why we never got along because of our similarities. “This day is insane.” “Enough drama to fill up the life of a teenage girl.” She winked at me.
I rolled my eyes.
“I didn’t really expect this from you. I thought you’d be mad.”
“Huh,” I said thinking about that for a moment. “I would’ve thought so, too, but for some odd reason I’m not. A strange twist of fate for sure though. I wasn’t expecting that one coming.” “You see, Helene loves you so much. You were the child she always wished she could’ve had with Russell but never could. She lives in a fantasy world, Helene does. I’m so sorry that you found out that way and thought that you’d been abandoned like that. I’m just plain old sorry.”
“That story makes more sense though,” I admitted. “Being fourteen and Russell’s le
aving.” “So you see we are all family. You have a real family. You were loved by everyone in different ways. You don’t have to call me mom or anything. I mean, I’m not expecting anything to change. You can still hate me if you want to.”
I stared into her eyes, the reality and shock of it all hitting me. Carlin was my real mother. Wow. “I don’t hate you.”
“Anyways,” she said, motioning toward the clock. “We’d better get going. Don’t want to be late.”
“Can we go through a drive through or something on the way? I’m starving.”
“Sure. Whatever you want.”
I put the crutches under my arms as I stood and practiced on them by heading toward the door. They were a little awkward as I struggled to get a steady pace going with them.
Carlin grabbed the keys to the room and shoved them in her pocket. “By the way, the reason I call you Annie in that way?”
“Yeah?” I looked back at her as we left the motel room. “It’s because the deal I had made with Helene was that she could name you. I didn’t want you to be named Anna. That’s why I just say Annie. It was always hard for me to swallow that I didn’t get to name my own kid.”
“So what would you have named me?”
She thought for a moment as she opened up the passenger side door of her car and helped me in. “Juliet.” “Really?”
“I always liked that name.”
For the first time in a long time I had a sense of belonging, even if it meant Carlin was my mother. It was as if one of the many voids from within me had been filled. I did have a family, and I was loved. “I came back to help you find your love. I don’t know how it’s all going to pan out, but I don’t want you to lose him like I lost Russell. If you love someone, you have to fight for them. I admired your courage of standing up to Helene and John when I was staying there,” she told me as we started to drive down the road.
“You said love didn’t exist.” “It doesn’t matter what I said. That was just part of the act. I do believe in love. I do. I don’t know who this Emry Logan is, but if you like him, there has to be something good in him. Plus, he’s hot.” She flashed me a big smile.
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