“Your granny’s is our first stop?” I asked, spotting Ann on the porch.
“I guess technically yours.” He cocked his finger to come closer to him. I happily obeyed. He brushed his hand through my hair and inhaled a shaky breath. “I’m here. Lean on me.” He punctuated his words with a kiss. His lips melted over mine with a softness I didn’t know was possible. I would never want to rid myself of him.
Ann stood on the front door step. She had her arms crossed and I could tell she had been crying. Not just a few tears, but days upon days of crying.
“I think I need to take care of my other lady,” Lucas said and unbuckled his seatbelt. He got out of the car with his eyes on Ann. I watched in amazement as he walked up to her and she was immediately in his arms. She snuggled her face onto his chest as he hugged her. She had lied to him all his life but he held onto her as if he needed her more than breath in his lungs. She had to had been special to cause that reaction in him. I unbuckled my seatbelt and joined them. Ann had me in a bear hug before I stepped on the top step all while never letting Lucas go.
“I love you so much, you’ve always made me so proud,” Ann said, all while pushing me against Lucas’s side.
Lucas wrapped an arm around my waist and glanced down to stare at me. “Are you okay?” he mouthed.
He was worried about me. I’d never been better. Ann said the words I hadn’t heard or even felt in years, someone was proud of me.
“I’d dreamed about having you two together for years.” Ann hugged us hard, I felt like conjoined triplets.
“Granny, we might need to get off the doorsteps; we’re attracting the neighbors,” Lucas said and pulled away from us both. I didn’t have time to miss his warmth before he had his hand wrapped tightly around mine.
“I’ve spent my whole life worrying what others think, I’ll be damned if I care now. You two are all that matters to me anymore.” Ann turned to go inside and we followed. She led us down a long hallway and into a small bedroom covered in boxes, packed ceiling-high.
“Plan on moving and not telling anyone?” Lucas asked.
Ann flipped on a light switch and said, “Before Annie moved into the house, I spent all day clearing out Evie’s and Wes’s personal stuff.”
“What?” Lucas asked and pulled on my hand. I stood as if my heart and body had turned to stone. A strange sensation barred down on my chest; my lungs were unable to inflate. I gasped for air, causing Lucas to twist around. His eyes widen as if he could sense the panic in me. My heart churned in my chest. It pounded in unison with each ragged breath I fought for.
Lucas took my hand and lowered me on the bed. “Breathe, precious.” He kissed my forehead. I glanced around at the magnitude of boxes lining the longest wall.
“That’s my mother stuff.” I peeked up at Lucas. “I’ve been living with her stuff all this time.”
“Granny?” Lucas said, pleadingly.
Ann wrung her hands and perched down on a rocker in the corner. “Wes bought that house for Evie. Alan, your grandfather, controlled everyone, but Wes wouldn’t listen to him. He loved Evie. It was unreal how much he loved her. They use to sneak out to the field behind the house with Miles and Jennifer, but Wes wanted more. He bought that house so they could form a life together. Evie had so much fun decorating it. They planned on bringing you home there.” Ann brightened and seemed to slip farther into the past. “Wes was happy, so was Evie.”
I wanted her to tell me more, I wanted her to stop talking too. I tried voicing my thoughts ... I couldn’t. My throat refused to make a sound.
“If that house was purchased for Evie, why in the hell does Dad — Wes keep it for his affairs?” Lucas asked, the confusion and sadness in his voice caused my heart to pound harder against my chest. Lucas sat down beside me, and I didn’t waste a second before placing my head on his shoulder.
“The only person he has ever allowed in that house was Annie and Evie.” Ann stood up, completely out of nerves. “The first two years of Annie’s life, every Sunday, Wes would take her to see Evie. Evie would cheer-up every time Annie was around. I thought at first it was all in Wes’s head, but it wasn’t; Evie’s health blossomed when Annie was near. But time was slipping by, and you,” Ann said, pulled a ladder-back chair in front of me, took a seat, and held my hands, “you were so smart. You already knew who your daddy, mommy, and even I was. We knew if we were to keep you safe from Alan we had to walk away. No matter how much it hurt. Evie was off life-support by that point. She couldn’t eat and drink on her own or even speak, but she knew. You could see it in her eyes. She knew who Wes was and you. Wes hired a nurse and had Evie brought to the house to spend one weekend as a family with you.”
“You were twenty-three months old. It was the perfect weekend.”
All three of our heads snapped up in unison at the sound of Wes’s voice. He was leaned against the door jamb; his head tilted as he watched me.
“Sorry to interrupt, the front door was unlocked,” Wes said and pointed over his shoulder toward the front of the house. He started walking toward me, his eyes never leaving mine. “Your mom will always be paralyzed. Her brain was traumatized in the wreck beyond repair. Her body is no longer hers, but her mind is. Locked somewhere in there, she knows. You, me, everything.” Wes reached out and rubbed a piece of my hair between his fingers. “You really do look like her.”
“Here, I have some pictures.” Ann jumped up and pulled a photo album out of one of the boxes.
Not only the album but the boxes were filled with my mother’s memories. When Wes took her to the house to spend one last weekend with me, she did so well, he arranged for her to live there for the following thirteen years. Pawpaw and Mimi had sent them records and documents of every aspect of my childhood. Ann informed me as long as the videos and pictures came, Evie flourished. She had even started making sounds. Then everything stopped.
“Why didn’t you try to find me?” My voice was barely audible. “When they took me away, why didn’t you stop them?”
“Charles didn’t know they were taking you until the day they showed up to get you. It was too late. When we arranged for you to live with Charles and Ruth Anne, I had your records sealed to keep Dad from finding you.” Wes stoked a finger down my cheekbone. It felt better than I wanted to admit. “But in the big scheme of things, it kept us from you. We had hired some private investigators to find you. But we had no idea where you were until the day Bob called and said you were in his office. It was possibly the happiest day I’d ever had.”
It was more like I was hearing some plot for a Lifetime movie than anything directly related to my actual life.
“Bob knew?” I interrupted. “He said he didn’t know her. Who all knows?”
Life only gives you one great girl. It might offer other good girls, too, but only one great one. One you could never forget. If you didn’t find a way to capture her, her memory would follow you for the rest of your life. The problem was my one great one was the catalyst of every insecurity I’d ever had about my own life.
I stood and started to back out of the room. Her eyes went large and blank. It had amazed me how she had stayed calm throughout the whole day ... My God, I love this girl. My mind had turned every which way but up. She could handle it all but me walking away. “I’m sorry,” I whispered and turned to bolt to the front yard.
As I descended the front doorsteps, I heard the screen door open and swing shut behind me. I twisted on my boot-heel but wouldn’t allow myself to look at her. Annie reached out and wrapped her hand around my right bicep. That was when I couldn’t hold back any longer and looked into her eyes. She wasn’t mad at me, the only thing I saw was love and concern. Two of the things, I never got growing up. I needed to learn why my mom never gave that to me.
Granny and Wes had been crying and explaining their love to Annie. It had been a damn lovefest in there. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted Annie to have that. She deserved it. But hell, so did I.
I shook her hand off
my arm. “Let me go.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I’m sick of all the damn lies. I’m going to see my mom.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“No, you won’t. I don’t want you to.”
“Lucas, this is about us both.”
“This isn’t. This is about me and the bitch who gave birth to me. This is about the fact I will never know my real dad because he’s dead. I’m glad you got your happy ending, but I never will.” I glanced over her shoulder and saw Wes standing on the porch. “Daddy Dearest will take you home.”
I turned my back toward her. The hardest damn thing I’d ever done.
“If you walk away, don’t come back,” she said, and the way her voice cracked sent a shockwave through my chest.
I couldn’t do this.
I waved her off but didn’t turn back around, because if I looked at her, I was positive I wouldn’t leave.
I climbed in my Jeep and almost stripped the gears as I roared out of there. My words had hurt her, but they destroyed me. I wanted her with me, but I never wanted her to see this side of me.
She couldn’t see the person, who doesn’t even know who he was, or even where he belonged in all this shit. I’d never been more alone in my life. It was disturbing. There was no one who I could trust, especially not my mom.
I skidded onto the front lawn of my home and raced through the front door. I laughed to myself. Home. I’d never consider that box of bricks home again. Jennifer Carter was on her cell. Not a care in the world. Not even an inkling of caring that her son’s world was falling apart.
“I need to let you go, Jana,” Jennifer said and clicked end on her cellphone.
Great, Candice’s mom. Can I ever have a day without one of them in it?
I fell back into a nearby chair and tossed my leg over the arm of it, for once relaxed in the presence of my mother. “Just got through hearing how much everyone loves Annie and I can’t blame them, she’s pretty damn wonderful. I thought I would give you the chance to explain how much you grovel at my feet. Tell me how hard it was all these years to act like I didn’t matter.”
“Have you been drinking?” Jennifer asked and perched on the edge of the couch in front of me.
“No, Mother. I’ve never been more sober. Just waiting to hear how unbelievably loved I am.”
She sighed and then stood. “I can’t love you. If I loved you, I would lose you. You are him. You are my Miles. I couldn’t survive if something was to happen to you too.”
So, I was the china hidden in the cabinet as long as I didn’t get used I wouldn’t get broken. The problem with that was; I also never got to be enjoyed, useful, or even loved.
“No, Mother, I’m not. I’m Lucas. If you ever took the time to love me, you might know the difference.”
Her eyes protruded out of her head until they appeared to be popping out. I laughed.
Was she for real?
Mom started to pace the floor in front of the couch, back and forth, but not a word came from her lips.
“Cat got your tongue? Maybe I should call Jana back. You love running your mouth off to her.”
“You think this has been easy for me. I lost the only person I ever loved, the only person who ever loved me. My own parents had him killed. And I was told to smile and act like it never happened. I didn’t even know I was pregnant. I never got a chance to tell Miles. So, don’t come in here acting all high and mighty. You have no idea what it's like to have no one.”
I slammed my feet to the hardwood floor and stood so fast the ground vibrated under me. “You had me. You’ve always had me.” I stumbled then fell back in the chair. “I love you, damnit.”
My mother’s eyes locked with mine, there was an ache in her heart clearly seen in those baby blues. I’d prayed so many days to have those eyes look at me with the devotion I was finally seeing in them. “You honestly think I don’t love you? That it hasn’t killed me to act like you are not the most important thing in the world to me.” The snot smeared over her cheeks was streaking with her tears. For the first time, I finally saw what a shell of a person my mother was. She had been dying a slow death all these years. “My father arranged that wreck. Wes and I could never prove it, but it was him and Alan. I’d lost everything than I found out that Miles left me with one last miracle. You.”
My breath caught as I watched her fall to her knees, and collapsed into my lap, gripping me with both hands.
It wasn’t that my mother didn’t love me, she couldn’t love anybody. Her ability to love died the day she lowered Miles Blankenship into the ground.
I couldn’t take it, and pushed her off me.
MS would one day put me in a wheelchair. Annie wouldn’t love a damn broken-down crippled. Even if she stayed now, she would leave me one day.
The pain seeped into the marrow of my bones. It was indescribable. If loving someone meant I might have to live with that amount of pain, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t afford to love Annie.
Shit, it was my only option. I had to walk away.
Chapter 35
Annie Prieto
Wes held me as I stood stunned on the front porch of Ann’s. He was bracing me for a fall. I didn’t fall, but Wes never stopped holding me anyway. He seemed to enjoy our physical closeness.
Wes wasn’t running.
Lucas’s modus operandi was to run and hide to process when life got hard, but he always came back. Something told me he wasn’t coming back this time.
“He’ll be back,” Wes whispered in my ear as if he could read my thoughts. “He always believed we built that treehouse to get rid of him, but we didn’t. He’s like Miles, they both had to be by themselves to process stuff. Lucas needs space to think, but he will always be there for the ones he loves.”
Wes kissed me on the forehead.
My daddy kissed me on the forehead.
I liked the sound of my daddy.
“Lucas is a very determined person, very capable, and you might not know this because he's very humble too, but he’s a genius. There is nothing he can’t do if he puts his mind to it. He’s always been focused on the future, never took time to be a kid. He’s different with you. He’s carefree. He’s been happy. Try, he needs you more than either one of you realizes.”
“Come back in. I have something to show you.” He tugged my hand, and before I knew it, I was in a small office right off the living room.
Leaned against the couch was a large pencil drawing. Wes picked it up than sat down on the couch, staring down at the picture with a look of longing that was captivating.
“This was the last piece Evie drew before the accident.”
Wes swiped at a single tear rolling down his cheek. I wanted to keep my distance, but my heart had a different idea. In a single movement, I was sitting beside him. He leaned the picture in my direction where I could have a better view.
“My mom drew this?” I asked.
I discovered drawing when I was alone in my room as a teenager. A distraction from a bumpy world. Mine was a hobby. Evie Prieto had true talent. She had the skills of impressionism like a Monet and the smooth lines of someone in the line of a Renoir. The ethereal tranquility of the landscape was both peaceful and familiar. It was the field Lucas had recently taken me to. His mother’s happy place. The people were a little more abstract, making it hard to tell who they were, but I quickly put two and two together. On a blanket having a picnic was four young adults, Wes, Jennifer, Miles, and my mom.
“I’ve had this hung over the fireplace at your house for years. Mom removed it when she cleared out Evie’s and my personal stuff. I liked to put it back up as a reminder to us both that true love really exists. Lucas runs, he builds walls, it's hard to love someone like that but fight for him. I’ve never seen him care about anything like he has you. He needs you, and something tells me, you need him too.”
Wes’s eyes locked with mine, and he refused to look away. I was the first to crack. I shifted my sight from
him to the drawing and noticed my mother’s signature in the corner. I traced my pinky over it. It all felt too surreal.
Not knowing what to say about Lucas, I ignored the subject and focused on my mother's memory instead. “I want all her stuff back in the house. It’s her home.”
“I want it back there too,” he whispered.
We spent the next two hours sorting and loading my mom’s stuff into Wes’s truck. We made two piles. Her personal stuff we were taking it back to the house and all the medical equipment we were donating to the nursing facility she was in.
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