“How do you know this, Ms. Ramsey?” she asked, her tone chilly. “Because my mother told you? Maybe she didn’t want to admit leaving her husband and three-month-old baby.”
Allexxiss sucked in her breath at the sharp pain that accusation caused, then her own eyes narrowed. “I happen to know, Tabitha, because I was there. And my parents confirmed that he called them.”
Again Tabitha’s brows furrowed, then they widened as she realized what Allexxiss was saying.
“You’re …” Tabitha began, her voice trailing off as Allexxiss nodded her head.
“Yes, Tabitha,” Allexxiss said. “I’m your mother.”
Tabitha sat back, staring at her openmouthed for a full minute. Allexxiss could see that her mind was processing the information.
“But …” Tabitha said, not continuing.
“But, what?” Allexxiss asked gently, already sorry she’d taken the approach she had; attacking Brenden was not likely to endear her to her daughter.
“Why haven’t you ever contacted me until now?” Tabitha asked, sounding hurt. “And why now?”
Allexxiss looked down, taking a deep breath. “Because, Tabitha, I had no idea until a few days ago that you were still in contact with your father.”
“In contact with?” Tabitha repeated.
“I mean that you two had stayed in contact over the years,” Allexxiss said.
“Stayed in contact?” Tabitha echoed again, shaking her head slowly. “Dad raised me.”
Those three words fell like stones in the room. Allexxiss was stunned.
“Alone?” Allexxiss asked, feeling shocked.
“Yeah,” Tabitha said, “alone. He didn’t really have a choice.”
Allexxiss shook her head, blinking back tears. “I just thought …” she said, sounding lost suddenly. “I mean, I assumed that he’d given you up, like he gave me up.”
“I still don’t believe that he initiated you leaving. He’s always seemed pretty devastated by the whole thing,” Tabitha said.
“My parents didn’t magically appear to take me home, Tabitha, and I know I didn’t call them. They told me he had called them and told them to come and get me. He also didn’t stop them from taking me home,” Allex said, feeling desperate to convince her that she hadn’t left her voluntarily. “Why would I go through having you, Tabitha, if I didn’t want you?”
Tabitha didn’t answer for a long moment. “I don’t know, I don’t know why my father did what he did, but I know that your marriage was very important to him.”
Allexxiss gave Tabitha a sympathetic look. “How do you know that, Tabitha?” she asked gently. “Maybe you’re important to him,” she qualified, “but I can’t believe that our marriage was.” She shook her head sadly.
Tabitha put her left hand on the table between them, her eyes staring directly into her mother’s.
“Look familiar?” Tabitha asked softly, her head nodding toward her hand.
Allexxiss looked down and saw the silver band on Tabitha’s ring finger. It has a tiny rope engraving on either edge, just like …
“Oh my God,” Allexxiss said, “is that?”
“Yes,” Tabitha said, “it’s your wedding band. My father gave it to me when I was six.”
Allexxiss looked surprised, but then shook her head sadly. “That doesn’t prove the marriage was important to him, Tabitha, it only proves that he wanted to give you something of mine.”
“Then why does he still wear his wedding band on his right ring finger?” Tabitha asked.
Allexxiss’ mouth dropped open at hearing that. She had no answer. And Tabitha wasn’t done with her proof.
“Why does he still get depressed as hell every year on what would have been your anniversary? Why do half the songs he writes talk about “the dream” when he told me that you were his dream? Why hasn’t he allowed any other woman to love him, or allowed himself to fall in love with anyone else in the eighteen years since you two were together?”
Allex shook her head slowly, unsure of how to answer, but sure there had to be some reason. He had let her go, he had called her parents, and she knew that. Even if Tabitha didn’t want to believe it.
“How did you find out about me?” Tabitha asked then.
“I,” Allexxiss stammered, her mind still reeling from all the information Tabitha had just rattled off so blithely. “I saw the picture of you in the New York Post. The headline had referred to BJ Sparks’s daughter. I didn’t figure he had another one around the same age.”
Tabitha nodded. “He doesn’t like me telling people who I am. He’s afraid people will try to use me.”
Allex sat back feeling beaten. She couldn’t answer anything that Tabitha was telling her. All she knew was what had happened. She didn’t know why. She hadn’t lived with Tabitha all these years. There was no way she could know what was in Brenden’s mind. She still couldn’t believe that Brenden harbored any deep feelings for her, not when he’d basically kicked her out of his life.
“Haven’t you ever listened to the lyrics of his songs?” Tabitha asked.
Allexxiss shook her head. “I don’t listen to his music.”
“How do you manage that?” Tabitha asked. “You’d have to hide under a rock with ear plugs on not to hear his music, it’s everywhere.”
“I don’t listen to rock music,” Allex qualified.
“He’s crossed over a million times at least,” Tabitha said.
Allex laughed softly. “You sound like his agent.”
“No,” Tabitha said, grinning, “just his biggest fan.”
Allexxiss smiled fondly. For some reason it warmed her heart that Tabitha obviously loved Brenden deeply. It made her feel worse for trying to denigrate him. She really had no right. She’d known Brenden was in Los Angeles all these years. She could have at least contacted him to ask about their daughter, but she’d been too afraid to face him again. Her own fears of rejection and ridicule had kept her from her daughter all these years, not Brenden.
As if he knew he was being talked about, he appeared in the doorway to the conference room. He opened the door, popping his head in, oblivious to the highly pertinent meeting going on. He looked straight at Tabitha, ignoring at first, the other person in the room.
“Tab, I need—” he began, then his gaze fell on Allexxiss.
Her eyes were already on him.
He looked stunned. He stepped inside the door, his eyes fixed on Allex. Their eyes locked.
“Allex …” he said softly, his voice sounding almost reverent.
“Hello Brenden,” she said quietly, her face showing her own hesitation.
Tabitha looked from one to the other, wondering if she should suggest they talk and she leave the room. She saw her father shake his head as if to clear it, then he looked over at her.
“When you’re done through here,” he said briskly, “come see me so I can get some numbers from you.”
Tabitha nodded slowly, as Brenden looked back at Allex for a quick moment, then nodded curtly to her. He turned and walked out closing the door softly. Tabitha glanced over at Allexxiss and saw the flash of pain on her face, as if Brenden had just slapped her. Tabitha grimaced. She didn’t know how to explain it. She knew her father well enough to know he’d just been very affected by Allex’s presence, but he was too proud to show it.
Even as Tabitha thought it, Brenden was standing outside the conference room, leaning against the wall taking slow deep breaths. He felt like knives were being driven into his heart, it had hurt so much to see her. He squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing convulsively willing the pain to go away. He pushed off the wall and strode to his office, kicking the door closed and locking it. He walked over to the bar and poured a juice glass full of Jack Daniel’s and drank it down, before pouring another. It took three glasses to take the edge off his pain. He took a fourth glass and sat down at his desk. He turned his chair around to put his feet up on the credenza behind his desk, staring down at the Los Angeles skyline. It was smogg
y as usual and it fit his mood perfectly.
Back in the conference room, Tabitha was still searching for words.
“Ms. Ramsey,” she began.
“Please,” Allex said, holding up her hand. “At least call me Allex,” she said, smiling sadly.
“I’m sorry,” Tabitha said, shaking her head miserably. “My father is notorious for his pride, and for his ability to hide his feeling behind a perfect cold mask.”
Allex shook her head. “Then he’s changed a lot since I knew him,” she said. “When we were together, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t say to make me feel loved.” Even as she said the words, Allexxiss felt tears sting the backs of her eyes.
She turned away from Tabitha desperate to spare some of her own pride. She was surprised when Tabitha moved to kneel next to her, reaching out to touch her hand.
“Actually,” Tabitha said softly, “I don’t think he’s changed that much, Allex. He is so different than people think he is, and he goes out of his way to help people.”
Allexxiss nodded, thinking that maybe he’d just shut his heart down all together.
In the end, Allexxiss and Tabitha made a date to have lunch that following Saturday. Allexxiss told Tabitha she wanted to get to know her, that she felt like she’d missed so much and wanted to do as much making up of time as possible. Tabitha assured her she felt the same.
Later that day, she located her father, still in his office. She noted suspiciously that his eyes had a glazed look to them, and she suspected that he’d been drinking. It was for that reason she decided to push him a bit.
“Can I ask you a question?” she asked, watching him light a cigarette.
She noticed his ashtray was already full. So he’d been chain smoking all day too. Strike two, Mr. Sparks, she thought.
“Yeah,” he said, leaning back in his chair putting a boot up on the desk and rocking the chair back and forth.
Yet another sign of agitation for him.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me who my mother is?” she asked him.
He took a long drag off his cigarette, narrowing his eyes at her through the smoke he blew out a few moments later.
“I assume you mean, that she’s a movie star,” he said.
“Well, yeah,” she said.
He shrugged. “Up until she came to town five years ago, I didn’t bother to tell you because what would her name have meant to you?” he said, taking another drag and blowing out the smoke. “When she blew into town, I figured she’d contact us if she wanted to have any association with us, right? It wasn’t like I’d been a hiding out for the last thirteen years, right? If she’d wanted to get ahold of me before that she could have.”
“Okay …” Tabitha said. “But why not tell me who she was then?”
“Well, when she didn’t bother to contact us,” Brenden said, his blue-green eyes reflecting ice, “I didn’t figure telling you would serve any purpose. The last thing I wanted was for you to go hat in hand begging for her attention.”
Tabitha nodded slowly. She was silent for a few minutes, watching her father. He finished his cigarette and lit another one immediately.
“She says that you initiated her leaving England,” Tabitha told him, expecting to surprise him with that information.
“I did,” he answered her simply.
“You did?” she asked.
He nodded, his face drawn and unhappy. “She was miserable, Tab. Before you were born she was unhappy, having come from a life where everything was provided for her. Coming from some grand home in Kentucky, to some bloody hovel in London. I could never give her what her parents had. On top of that, she was pregnant and probably terrified, and there was nothing I could do to ease that fear,” he said, shaking his head miserably. “And after she had you, Tabitha, she wanted nothing to do with you, or me, or life.”
He looked out the window to his side, his lips compressing in his effort to control his emotions. “She wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t move, she wouldn’t even talk to me,” he said, sounding so sad at the memory.
When he looked at Tabitha again, he looked so sad she had tears in her eyes instantly.
“What was I supposed to do? Make her stay there, because I’d condemned her by falling in love with her and getting her pregnant? Make her stay with me? Make her love me still? She was a kid, Tabitha, I should never have been with her,” he said, his tone self-loathing. “But I thank God I was, because she gave me you. But I didn’t think that gave me the right to go on ruining her life too. So, yeah, I called her parents. I told them to come get her, because I thought she had the right to have her life back. Not the slow death I’d condemned her to.”
With that said, he turned his chair around, putting his back to her. She could hear him taking gasping breaths, and she knew he was forcing himself not to cry. The very thought made her cry. She thought about all he’d said, and knew that her mother was very wrong about him. He’d loved her so much that he’d let her go to try and put things right. He said she hadn’t wanted anything to do with him, or with her for that matter. But Allex had asked her, “Why would I go through having you if I didn’t want you?” Tabitha didn’t understand.
She left her father’s office a little while later, walking back to her own.
Later that day the mood in the studio hadn’t improved, in part because of Brenden’s tension over coming face-to-face with Allexxiss. He was tense and angry and everyone in the band could feel it. Unbeknownst to anyone, Devlin was dealing with demons of his own. He was supposed to be working on new material for the album they were working on and he was coming up empty. It was making him crazy. He’d spent the night before trying repeatedly to get something going with his writing, and he’d finally pulled out a bottle of Jack Daniel’s to help him. In the end, he’d gotten drunk and passed out, having come up with nothing.
The tension in the studio was palpable and true to their name, the sparks flew. Tempers flared between Devlin and BJ over a bridge in one of their finished songs. BJ wanted it played one way and Devlin didn’t like it. They ended up screaming at each other and eventually almost coming to blows.
Tabitha heard about it later that day. She knew that Allexxiss coming back into their life was causing her father stress, but she had no idea what was going on with Devlin. She only hoped that she could get onto even footing with her mother and find out what she was missing about Allexxiss and her father.
♫ Three ♫
Tabitha got answers to her questions that Saturday when she had lunch with Allexxiss as planned. They were meeting at a local pizza place. Allex had pulled her long blond hair up into a ponytail and was wearing no makeup, and sunglasses. It seemed to help keep people from noticing her. They also sat far back on the terrace where it was more private.
“Okay,” Tabitha said, “I have a question.”
“Okay,” Allex said nodding as she took a bite of her salad.
“Dad says that after you had me you didn’t want to have anything to do with him or me. Is that true?”
Allexxiss grimaced. “Honestly, Tabitha, I can’t really tell you.”
“What do you mean?” Tabitha asked.
“I mean, I can’t remember much about after you were born,” she said with a sad sigh. “It’s all a blur of images and memories, I’m not even sure which ones are real and which were dreams. When I got back to the States, my parents took me to the doctor to have me checked out. I had lost a huge amount of weight and apparently looked horrible to them. The doctor diagnosed me with postpartum. He said it was severe, and he believed it was because of my age, that it had just hit me harder. My mind was unable to cope with the huge change in my life as well as the change in my body, and so the chemical imbalance caused me to become extremely depressed. That’s probably what your father was referring to. I didn’t realize until you just said that how bad it must have been. I thought I’d at least done some things. I imagined doing things, like holding you, feeding you, all that. So I guess I convinced myself th
at I had.”
She shook her head. “My God, Brenden must have thought I was the worst mother on the planet, no wonder he didn’t want me around anymore.”
“Actually,” Tabitha said, “he blames himself completely for all of that.”
“Why?” Allexxiss asked, surprised.
Tabitha shrugged. “He said a lot that day in his office. I think he’d been drinking and he was smoking like a train, so I know he was worked up. But basically he said that because he’d ruined your life by falling in love with you, it was his fault things were so awful for you.”
“Ruined my life by falling in love with me?” Allexxiss said incredulously.
“That’s what he said,” Tabitha told her.
Allexxiss shook her head in amazement. “Do you know how many nights I laid awake wishing for just one more night with him?”
Tabitha shook her head slowly.
“There are still nights, twenty years later, when I wake up from a dream that he was there holding me and just want to cry because it was only a dream.”
“Wow …” Tabitha said.
“Yeah,” Allexxiss said, smiling sadly. “Pretty bad, huh?”
“You still care about him,” Tabitha said.
Allexxiss looked at her daughter for a long moment, trying to decide how honest she wanted to be with both Tabitha, and herself, at that moment.
“I still ache every time I hear his name,” she said finally.
Tabitha bit her lip, wincing in empathy for the look on her mother’s face.
They ate in silence for a while. Then Tabitha sat back, looking at her mother.
“I think you two need to talk,” she said.
Allexxiss grimaced, shaking her head. “I think talking to me is about the last thing your father wants to do right now.”
“So?” Tabitha said doggedly. “Mom, the man is still hurting over you; he still wears the ring that tied him to you. Come on, that’s got to mean something!”
Allexxiss sighed. “I don’t know, Tabitha, maybe it’s been too long. Jesus, what am I saying? I’m married for God’s sake. What could I do anyway?”
Sparks (Wild Irish Silence Book 1) Page 7