Until You Loved Me--A Novel

by Brenda Novak

  “No. I haven’t told anyone yet. I wanted to...to have some money to give her, so she’d at least talk to me. She won’t answer my calls, won’t let me in when I go over to see how she’s doing.”

  “So money from me would be your peace offering.”

  “I only want to help her.”

  “But I’m sure she’s needed things all along, things you knew I could provide.”

  “She’s never been this desperate. When I caught someone going through my garbage, picking out the beer bottles, I realized the truth was about to come out, anyway. I’m not the smartest man in the world, but I knew what that PI was after as soon as I walked out to confront him.”

  “He told you I’d hired him?”

  “No. Wouldn’t say much, just handed me his card. But I knew it the second I saw he was a private investigator. I always expected someone to come knocking on my door—eventually. A person can’t run from the past forever.”

  Hudson felt as if the atmospheric pressure had skyrocketed—and was threatening to crush him. “You ran for pretty long—and I wish you were still running. Or that you had killed me that day. That would’ve been better than learning what I’ve just learned.”

  Cort seemed shocked by the conviction in Hudson’s voice. “You’ve had a good life,” he argued. “Look at this place.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Hudson said. “Now, get out. Get out and don’t ever contact me again.”

  “What about Julia? She’ll die and leave those children motherless if she can’t get some help.”

  “I said get out!” Hudson yelled, and the murder he was feeling in his heart must’ve shown on his face, because Cort scrambled for the door as fast as his spindly legs could carry him and didn’t stop to look back.

  That was when Hudson turned to see a shocked Ellie standing at the foot of the stairs, her mouth agape.

  He was almost certain she’d heard everything.

  22

  Hudson couldn’t bear the look of pity on Ellie’s face. He’d been “that kid” his whole life. Different. An outsider. Alone in a way few people could relate to. If Cort Matisson was as desperate for money as he claimed, he could easily sell his story to the press. What was there to stop him? And if he did that, even Hudson’s fame couldn’t compensate for that kind of blow. Just when he was getting excited about having a child of his own, when he felt he might finally outrun his past and be almost like everyone else, the reason for his abandonment could very easily come out and be immortalized by his fame.

  You’ve had a good life. Crazy thing was, the old bastard was right about that, at least for the past decade. Hudson had reached a pinnacle few people attained, even if they made it to the competitive arena of professional sports. He’d fought hard to fill the holes in his life, to make himself enviable if he couldn’t be loved. It wasn’t fair that something like this, something completely outside his control, could overshadow it all in the end.

  He could only imagine what the press would make of Cort Matisson and his daughter—whose name Hudson didn’t want to remember because it made her too real, too familiar. If and when the information got out that his parents had been found after thirty-two years, and the circumstances surrounding his birth were more scandalous than anyone had ever imagined, it would spread like wildfire. His name would be coupled with incest on every TV channel. That was what he’d be remembered for, no matter how many passes he completed, games he won or Super Bowl rings he collected. He could do nothing to compensate this time the way he’d tried so hard to compensate in the past.

  “Hudson.” Ellie, her voice full of compassion, came to meet him as he stalked to the stairs, but he circumvented her. He didn’t want her to feel sorry for him. He wanted to be someone she could be proud of—as proud as he was of her.

  “Can we talk about what just happened?” she asked as he passed.

  What was there to say? His genetic contribution to their child was now tainted. He was beyond embarrassed, beyond humiliated. “You should go back to Miami, forget you ever met me. I’ll still send you money.”

  “Hudson, stop.” She followed him and stood in the doorway of his room while he jerked on his clothes. “Don’t overreact.”

  Overreact? He whirled on her. “How could anyone overreact? Could there be anything worse?”

  “It’s a terrible thing, what that man did, a terrible thing to learn that you’re connected to it—”

  “I’m not just connected to it. I’m the result of it. I wouldn’t be here if not for what he did.”

  “But you’re not the act that created you! You’re something special—with or without football. It was his actions that were depraved. You had no choice in any of it. You were simply a victim of his selfishness. So was your mother.”

  He tied his shoes. “Easy for you to say. I can’t even think about it without wanting to throw up.”

  She looked worried. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’m leaving,” he said as he grabbed his wallet and the keys to his Porsche.

  “To go where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “I don’t know,” he repeated. “Maybe I won’t come back.”

  Her eyes widened in appeal. “Don’t leave, especially like this. You’re so upset. If you stay, I’ll do anything I can to make you feel better. We’ll work this out between us—get to a place where you can live with it. I’m here for you. I’ll always be here for you.”

  “There’s nothing you can do. Nothing anyone can do.” He headed back down the stairs but, again, she hurried after him.

  “How do you know this man is even telling the truth? That your mother, if she is your mother, is actually sick? Let’s check out his story—check him out—before we get too worried.”

  “Why waste the time?” he said. “The day we got here, Samuel Jones, the PI I hired, told me he’d found someone who’d impregnated his own daughter, and I might be the result of it.”

  “That’s why you were so upset that night.”

  He wished he could throttle Jones. What’d happened was Hudson’s own fault—for hiring someone in the first place. But why hadn’t the private investigator simply walked off when Matisson caught him going through the garbage? Why had he given Matisson his card, for crying out loud? It was seeing the words private investigator that had caused Matisson to realize Hudson was looking for his parents and had precipitated his visit.

  “Hudson, stop!” She grabbed his arm, but he shook her off.

  “Let this go, Ellie. It is what it is. And there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s never been anything I could do.”

  “Let’s get a paternity test, at least.” She spoke in a tone that beseeched him to calm down and listen to her. “Make sure you really have to cope with this.”

  “There’s a DNA test in the medicine cabinet. Jones already sent it. You think it’ll change anything for me if I take it?”

  She caught the door when he opened it. “Hudson, don’t go. I need you. Our baby needs you, too.”

  He wished he could stop, but he couldn’t. He’d enjoyed her so much since she’d come to California, he’d almost convinced himself that he could overcome his childhood. That they might be able to make some sort of future together—the two of them and their baby. To extinguish that hope broke something inside him he doubted he could ever repair. “Go back to Miami, Ellie.”

  * * *

  After Hudson peeled out of the drive, Ellie paced in his big house, worrying about him—where he was, what he was doing—and stewing over Matisson’s visit. She kept hearing the old man’s voice spouting what had sounded like empty apologies. She didn’t believe he’d come for the sake of his poor daughter. That just didn’t ring true. Ellie couldn’t escape the sneaking suspicion tha
t Matisson himself stood to gain something, and it made her angry to think he was attempting to use a situation as tragic as his daughter’s battle with cancer to manipulate Hudson into giving him money. It also made her angry that Matisson didn’t seem to even consider what such a terrible secret would do to a man as successful and proud as Hudson, how quickly it would knock him off his pedestal.

  Ellie was tempted to text Hudson. To beg him to come back. She needed his help to do the research that lay ahead. He had the number for the private investigator who’d brought all of this to the surface. He was also the one who had to take the DNA test that should be performed first of all.

  But she knew he wouldn’t text back. He was too distressed. He’d told her to leave and go back to Miami.

  She thought of all the time they’d spent together, how much she looked forward to hearing his voice, seeing his smile, laughing at his jokes. She was in love with Hudson, and had slowly, over the past weeks, succumbed to the temptation of hoping and believing that he cared about her in return—that they might one day be a family. She wasn’t going to give him up so easily.

  Taking out her cell, she called Aiyana at New Horizons to get Bruiser’s number—and had Hudson’s best friend on the phone within minutes.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said when she explained what had happened.

  She hated that she’d felt she had to tell him something Hudson would consider so private, but she knew he told Bruiser more than anyone else, that he trusted Bruiser, and she felt Hudson might need his help. “No, I’m not.”

  “Where do you think he’s gone?”

  “I can’t even guess. But I’ve never seen him so upset.”

  “I feel terrible. I encouraged him to look for his parents. I thought finding them, learning some of the answers, might make it possible for him to find peace. I never dreamed it would lead to something like this.”

  “The weird thing is...I don’t believe Matisson. Can’t believe him.”

  “Why?”

  “All his actions in the past indicated he didn’t care about either of his children. Why would that suddenly change? He didn’t admit the truth about Hudson, what he did with him, when his daughter came forward. Even then, he put his own interests first.”

  “But why would anyone make up such a terrible story?”

  “Because he thinks he’s going to get paid!”

  “You don’t believe he’s trying to help his cancer-stricken daughter?”

  “Maybe he thinks that’ll be a side benefit. But I’m convinced he also thinks he’ll get ahead in some way.”

  “Hudson isn’t stupid. He’d never allow that to happen.”

  “I don’t know if he’s capable of being as objective as he needs to be in this situation.”

  “True...”

  “Hudson isn’t anything like Matisson,” she said. “Doesn’t look like him. Doesn’t act like him. He’s the exact opposite—too sensitive for his own good. I can’t see them as related.”

  “Ellie, that could be wishful thinking.”

  “Or maybe it’s my science background, telling me to check all the facts before drawing a conclusion.”

  “A DNA test will prove—or disprove—the relationship. We’ll make sure he takes one before he gives Matisson any money. But won’t that require time?”

  “It shouldn’t take too long. Hang on.” She put her phone on speakerphone and used a search engine to pull up several links about paternity tests. “If we can get a sample from Hudson and the PI has a sample from Matisson, we can have an answer in two days.”

  “I’ll try to call him,” he said, “try to get him to go home and swab his cheek.”

  She knew Hudson wouldn’t be eager to do that. Although he seemed to have accepted the worst—was certainly reacting to it—a small part of him had to be holding out hope, and could hold out hope, as long as he wasn’t staring at proof. That had to be why the DNA test the PI had sent was still sitting in his medicine cabinet. “I’m not sure he will come back.”

  “He was that upset?”

  She pictured the hopelessness in his eyes. “You should’ve seen his face.”

  * * *

  Hudson drove slowly down the street. This was the intersection of Hudson and King, the place he’d been left to die. If not for a random pizza delivery—what if the family who’d ordered pizza that night had decided to cook instead?—and his own stubborn nature, which kept him clinging to life and crying for help, he wouldn’t have survived.

  After pulling to the side of the road within sight of that same privacy hedge, he turned off his engine and watched as various vendors came through the neighborhood to deliver furniture, put up shutters, mow lawns and clean houses. When he’d been a child, everyone had made a big deal about his being found here—in such a rich area. He’d always dreamed that his parents were wealthy and they would one day come and rescue him from the orphanage. That he’d have normal Christmases and birthdays, just like other kids. That his folks would put him in Little League or Pop Warner and come watch him play, eager to video the whole thing. That he’d have someone who’d come to his graduation from high school and then college.

  Now, when he was thirty-two, his father had finally shown up. But Cort Matisson was a far cry from anything Hudson had ever imagined. He wasn’t a man Hudson could be proud of.

  All those dreams seemed silly now...

  As soon as the road was clear, he got out and walked over to get a better view of the spot where he’d been abandoned and discovered a crudely lettered Los Angeles Devils sign posted there. “Hudson King—the best quarterback who ever lived—was rescued from this very spot as a newborn babe. Praise God. Go Devils.”

  He had to laugh, in spite of everything. Someone else, a Devils fan, must’ve bought the house since he’d been here last, because he’d never seen that before.

  “Hey, don’t you dare touch my sign!”

  The sun was so bright it was tough to see, but when Hudson turned, he thought he spotted a little old lady standing in the house, peering out at him through a screen door.

  “I’m not hurting anything,” he called back, but he heard the screen door squeak open.

  Sure enough, it was a little old lady with dated glasses and a white sweater over her dress, even though it had to be eighty degrees. The screen slammed behind her and her walker scraped the cement as she came out to defend her sign. “I’ll just put it back up if you do,” she threatened.

  “I was only looking at it.”

  “So...are you here to replace the rain gutters?” She spoke loudly enough that he guessed she had a hearing problem.

  “No, I was passing through the neighborhood.” He started to walk away, but she called out to stop him.

  “Are you one of Archie’s friends? Because I baked a loaf of date-nut bread this morning, if you’d like to try a slice.”

  He couldn’t stalk off without answering; the poor thing seemed lonely—and quite nice now that her sign wasn’t in danger. “No, thanks. I’m afraid I don’t know Archie.”

  “There he is now,” she said as a black Cadillac SUV turned into the drive. “Archie’s my son. You have to meet him.”

  Hudson wanted to get away before he was recognized, but this old lady seemed so happy to have a visitor—even one who hadn’t actually come to see her—that he waited. He could say hello to these people; it wouldn’t kill him.

  “Archie, what took you so long?” the old lady asked. “You said you’d come for lunch, but that was hours ago.”

  “Sorry, Mom. Got held up at work.” He looked harried as he climbed out, as though it was too much trouble to visit his mother but he felt duty bound to do it. Then he glanced over and spotted Hudson—and nearly tripped.

  “Oh, my God!” he said. “How’d you get Hudson King to come here? D
on’t tell me he finally answered your letters.”

  “That’s Hudson King?” The old lady nearly teetered over—had to grab hold of her walker to avoid a spill. “I need new glasses, but I thought there was something familiar about you! I’m Cecille. Cecille Burns.” She gestured with one arthritic hand as she looked back at her son. “See that? There he is. I told you he’d come.”

  Hudson glanced from one to the other. “Was I invited here?”

  “You didn’t know?” Archie said. “My mother’s been writing you for years. She’s your biggest fan. Watches every game. I mentioned this house was available when she was moving up from San Diego, and she insisted I buy it for her, just because it’s where you were found.” He gestured to the sign with its handmade lettering. “And then she made this and put it up. The neighbors keep trying to take it down. They claim it’s an eyesore. But she watches over it, won’t let anyone touch the damn thing.”

  “That’s hallowed ground right there,” she said, as if they should follow up with an amen.

  “God saved you,” she went on. “He knew you were meant to do great things.”

  Hudson cleared his throat. “I’m not sure playing football can be considered great things.”

  She slid her glasses higher on her face and tilted her head back to meet his eyes more directly. “I’m not talking about football. I’m talking about what you did for my grandson.”

  “Your grandson?” Hudson echoed in surprise.

  “Sean Parks. He was adopted when he was two, struggled with behavioral problems and depression and started taking drugs when he was only twelve. How he got them is beyond me,” she said with a baffled shake of her head. “But by the time he was fifteen, we weren’t sure he’d make it to sixteen. We were desperate for help when we got him into New Horizons—”

  “I remember him,” Hudson murmured, suddenly recalling a shy, dark-haired, dark-eyed boy he’d met almost a decade ago, just after he’d begun mentoring at his old school.