“You’re telling me,” Bertice said. She closed the refrigerator door and turned to Destiny. “Do you want to go out to get something?”
Shaking her head in the negative, Destiny walked to the adjacent family room, pulled off her shoes, and dropped down on the couch.
“Tired?” Bertice asked.
“More than tired.”
Bertice sat down beside her. “What’s going on with you and your mom? It took you a long while to say bye to her.”
Destiny closed her eyes and then quickly opened them. “Her cancer is back.”
Bertice reached out and placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Destiny. What’s the prognosis?”
“I don’t really know. Mom didn’t want to talk about it. She just dropped the news on me when we got on the plane to come back home. This is her third occurrence, Bertice, so it can’t be good, can it?”
Bertice rubbed her shoulders. “We don’t know that,” she said. “Your mom is a fighter. She’s beat this thing before, twice before, and she can beat it again. We have to believe that she’ll beat it again.”
Destiny wanted to believe her friend was right, but she knew enough about breast cancer to know that the disease was unpredictable and varied from woman to woman. Help her, Lord.
“Hey, how are you holding up? You’ve had more than your share of drama these past few days.”
Destiny sighed. “You can say that again.” She turned to her friend. “They can’t have been easy for you either. How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better,” Bertice said. “Phil and I are done. I dumped him right after I went off on him. I don’t think I’ve ever been as angry with anyone as I was with him.”
Destiny squeezed her friend’s hand. “I’m sorry. There was no way you could work through it?”
“Work through it? Please. That man almost ruined my life. I could have ended up in jail.”
Destiny huffed. “Like me.”
“I blame myself for that, Destiny. I hate that I got you involved. I’m sorry.”
Destiny shook her head. “It’s not your fault. I’m a grown woman and I’m responsible for my actions. I don’t blame you.”
“I appreciate you for saying that, but you know it’s my fault.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You didn’t know it was a scheme.”
“Well, I knew it was a very good gig. I could have looked closer, asked more questions.”
“So could I. Looking back doesn’t help anything. I’m just grateful things turned out the way they did. They could have been a lot worse.”
“You can say that again. Daniel really saved our behinds. I can’t believe that he has been investigating HR Solutions the entire time he’s been in Atlanta. Did you have any idea?”
Destiny shook her head. “None whatsoever. I thought Phil was just somebody from his past.”
“Are you okay with how everything went down?”
Destiny shrugged. “It’s complicated. Daniel’s most attractive feature is his heart. He cares about people, not only with words, but with his actions. Everything he did is consistent with the man I know him to be.”
“I hear a but in there somewhere.”
Destiny smiled at her friend. “Not really. It’s just that since he’s such a high-character guy, can he really be content in a relationship with me, given what I’ve done and what happened as a result?”
“There’s more to you than that one incident. If Daniel is the man you think he is, he’ll see that. If he doesn’t, then he’s not the man you think he is and you’re better off without him.”
“That’s easy to say, but it’ll break my heart if he wants to end things. I really felt we had the beginnings of something good between us.”
“Well, don’t give up on him yet.”
Destiny looked at her friend. “Like you gave up on Phil?”
“That’s different.”
“They’re similar enough. Phil made a mistake, a big one, but there’s more to him than that mistake. Daniel told me that you were the reason he blew the whistle on the whole fraud scheme in the first place.”
“What?”
She nodded. “He told Daniel that he was falling for you and he didn’t want to see you hurt. He regretted his actions, Bertice, and tried to make things right. He really did.”
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I thought he was playing me.” She looked over at Destiny. “He told me that he thinks he’s in love with me.”
“How do you feel about him?”
Bertice shrugged. “I don’t know how I feel. A part of me wants to put the whole situation, including him, behind me and move forward. That would be the smart thing to do.” She paused and then she grinned. “But when have I been known to do the smart thing?”
Destiny chuckled. “Whatever you decide, I’ll support.”
“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” Bertice said.
“Friends forever.” She turned to Bertice. “Have you spoken to Natalie?”
She shook her head. “She’s called a couple of times, but I haven’t had the courage to call her back. Turns out she was right about me and my schemes. Do you think Daniel told her and Gavin everything?”
“Yes, he told them. I spoke to her briefly before I left Los Angeles. We should go see her. You know how she worries.”
“That she does,” Bertice said, standing up and extending her hand to Destiny. “Get up.”
Destiny took her hand. “Where are we going?”
“To raid Natalie’s refrigerator, if she’s home.”
“Good idea. We’ve made her wait long enough.”
Chapter 45
I’M GLAD DR. WELLS AGREED TO JOIN YOUR CARE TEAM, Mom,” Destiny said as she placed the bowl of salad on her mother’s dining room table. “I’m feeling a lot better after talking to her.”
“You can tell she’s a teacher,” her mother said, taking a seat at the table. “I appreciate the way she clearly presents the information to you and encourages questions. Not all doctors like questions.”
Destiny sat next to her mother. “And I asked a lot of them, too.”
After she blessed their meal, her mother said, “You sure did. And they were good questions, too. You worry about me but you also worry about Kenae, don’t you?”
Taking a bite of her lasagna, Destiny nodded. She’d felt relieved after learning that her mother’s cancer was noninvasive, but the mere fact that her mother was experiencing her third bout of breast cancer made her concerned for Kenae. “I worry about her the way you worried about me. You know, I did that genetic testing when you had your second occurrence back when I was in college. I was relieved when the tests came back negative.”
Her mother scooped some salad from the serving bowl into her salad bowl. “Kenae’s much too young for such testing, so that’s one thing you don’t have to worry about. I’m glad Dr. Wells made it clear that you shouldn’t even think about testing her until she’s at least eighteen.”
Actually, Dr. Wells had said those ages were the recommendations given the current standard of care, but given the rapid advancements being made in the medical field, the standard could change. “It’s still hard not to worry.”
Her mother put down her fork. “There’s something I have to tell you, Destiny, and I guess now is as good a time as any.”
Destiny’s heart jumped at her mother’s statement. Please, God, she prayed silently, don’t let anything else be wrong with my mother. “What is it, Mom? Did the doctor tell you something that she didn’t tell me?”
Her mom reached for her hand. “It’s not that,” she said. “This is something I should have told you years ago.”
“Years ago. Does it have something to do with Dad?” Destiny didn’t have any memories of him since he died when she was four and her mom rarely talked about him. As a child, she’d thought they didn’t talk about him because it was so sad. As she grew older, she began to think that her parents hadn’t had a good marriage.<
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“It does have something to do with your dad, but what made you think so?”
Destiny shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe because you mentioned him when we were on the plane coming back from L.A. So what did you want to tell me about my dad?”
Her mother sighed. “He had an affair before you were born.”
“That explains why you don’t talk about him. Were you pregnant when he cheated on you?”
Her mother shook her head. “At one point, I thought he was going to leave me for her, but he chose to stay with his family.”
“Why are you telling me this now, Mom? He’s long dead and this happened before I was born.”
“I’m trying to set the stage so you’ll understand.” Her mother paused for a moment, as if she were trying to organize her thoughts. “One day his lady friend came to visit me and she brought me a gift.”
“Well, she had some nerve. What made her come here?”
Her mother sighed. “Since your father wouldn’t leave me, she wanted me to leave him.”
“I hope you threw her and her gift out of the house.”
Her mother gave a dry laugh. “I threw her out,” she said. “But I kept the gift.”
Destiny took another bite of lasagna. “What was it?”
“A baby. Her baby.”
Destiny stopped eating and looked at her mother. “A baby?”
Her mother nodded. “A baby she said was fathered by your father.”
It was Destiny’s turn to reach for her mother’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Mom. I can’t believe she brought a baby here. What did Dad say?”
“Your father wasn’t home at the time. The baby’s mother said that since I had the man, I should also have the baby. Then she left, leaving the baby with me.”
“She left her baby? What did you do?”
“I didn’t know what to do,” her mother said. “I started to call your dad and give him a piece of my mind about his woman coming to my home, but I didn’t.”
“He deserved it, Mom,” Destiny said. “You should have done it.”
“Well, I didn’t do it because I got distracted by the most beautiful and perfect baby girl that I’ve ever seen.” Her mother gave a soft smile and Destiny knew she was remembering that day. “I know this makes no sense at all, but I literally fell in love with that baby the moment I looked at her.”
“It was a girl. Does that mean I have an older sister somewhere?”
Her mother shook her head.
“Oh no, did she die?”
Her mother shook her head again.
“Then where is she?”
Her mother met her eyes. “Right here,” she said. “That baby is right here. You are that baby.”
Destiny thought she had misunderstood her mother. “What did you say?”
“You are that baby, Destiny. Your birth mother brought you to me when you were six weeks old. You’ve been my baby since that day.”
Destiny started shaking her head. “This makes no sense. Are you saying you didn’t give birth to me?”
Her mother nodded. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to respond. Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I don’t want you to worry about Kenae and breast cancer. I don’t know of anyone in your birth mother’s family who’s had breast cancer.”
Destiny sat back in her chair. This conversation was going too fast for her. “So you knew the woman?”
“I didn’t know her until she showed up at the house, but I learned who she was then.”
“And you’ve kept up with her family?”
“Not really,” her mother said. “But I did meet with her after this last diagnosis.”
“Mom, this is sounding crazy to me. You need to stop with these one-sentence comments and give me some information. None of this is making sense to me.”
“I’m sorry, Destiny. Let me go back to the beginning. After your birth mom left, it was just you and me until your father came home from work. Of course, the first thing he did was ask about the baby. I told him what had happened and his reaction was to take you and go confront your birth mother. I still can’t believe what I did next.”
“What did you do?”
“I told him he could go wherever he wanted to go, but he wasn’t taking my baby anywhere.” Her mother chuckled. “He looked at me like I was crazy, but when he left, he didn’t take my baby.”
“Your baby?”
“From that day on, you were my baby. Your dad and I had been married about four years at the time and we hadn’t been able to conceive. I knew the moment I looked at you that you were God’s gift to me. I knew it then and I’ve never doubted it since.”
“What happened after Dad came back?” Destiny asked, still trying to wrap her mind around the story her mom was telling.
“Well, he found your birth mother. She essentially told him that she wanted him and his baby, not just his baby. You see, she thought I would leave your father because of the baby and then she’d get them both. What she didn’t know was that I would have given her your father, but she was not going to get my baby.”
Destiny smiled because she could imagine her mother saying just that to somebody. “So what happened?”
“After your dad came home, we talked and decided that we would raise you as our own.”
“And you never saw my birth mother again?”
“No, she came back a couple of years later, but by then I wasn’t giving you up. All three of us decided it would be best if she gave up her parental rights. To be honest, I strongly suggested that she do so. In all honesty, coerced might be a better word than suggested.”
Destiny stared at her mother, taking in her every feature. Over the years, she’d looked for pieces of herself in her mother and had not found them. As a result, she’d assumed that she was more like her father. Turned out she’d been right. “I still can’t believe this. I don’t know what to say.”
“This is a lot to hear. I’m sorry I waited so long to tell you. I really should have told you when I had the last recurrence and saved you the genetic testing and associated worry, but I didn’t have the courage. It’s been me and you for so long that for stretches of time I forget that I’m not your birth mother.”
The woman who raised her was not her birth mother. Destiny couldn’t make sense of it. She knew she’d have a thousand questions over the next few days, but right now she had none.
“I know it will take a while for you to digest all this, so take all the time you need. I just hope you get a little relief by knowing that Kenae is not predisposed to breast cancer because of me. You’ve had so much come at you recently. You don’t need that worry.”
Destiny knew her mother meant well. While she appreciated not having to worry about Kenae and breast cancer, her mother had given her a whole new set of reasons to worry. She asked the only question she had at the moment. “Who is she, Mom? Who is my birth mother?”
Her mother looked her directly in the eyes. “Annie Robinson.”
Chapter 46
DESTINY HADN’T GOTTEN MUCH SLEEP LAST NIGHT AS her mind played the conversation she’d had with her mother over and over. It was such an incredible story that she wouldn’t have been surprised to get a call from her mother this morning saying, “April Fool.” Only it wasn’t April. And her mother had not been joking.
Destiny had told herself that she would wait until after work to go see Annie at the salon. Yet here it was, almost two P.M., and she was walking through the Career Center doors. Even though she’d needed to catch up at work for her extended weekend away, she hadn’t really been able to focus on her given tasks. It seemed best to deal with Annie since she couldn’t stop thinking about her.
“Hey, Destiny,” Leslie called when she reached the reception desk. “I didn’t expect you today. Are you here to see Mrs. Robinson?”
Destiny nodded. “Is she here?”
“She sure is. You can go on back.”
Destiny thanked the young girl and headed back to Mrs. Robinson’s office. She stopped just before she reached the door, realizing she had no idea what she was going to say. Well, she was here now, she told herself, she had to go in.
“Hi, Destiny,” Mrs. Robinson said as she entered the door. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“I should have known my mother would call you,” Destiny said, searching the woman’s face for a likeness.
“Have a seat,” she said. “Yes, your mother told me about your conversation last night. She thought you might drop by today. She knows you well.”
“That she does,” Destiny said.
Mrs. Robinson cleared her throat. “I know you have questions, Destiny, so feel free to ask me anything. Before you get started though, I want you to know that I never intended to intrude on your life any more than I already have. You have a mother, a good mother. I’d consider it an honor if you could call me a friend.”
Destiny didn’t want to think about what she should call this woman. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were when we first met?”
“It wasn’t my place. Your mother and I made a deal when you were a baby and I’ve abided by it. Back in those days, I didn’t keep too many promises, but I kept that one. It was best for all of us, especially you.”
Destiny nodded like she understood, but she didn’t. Not really. “Why did you leave me with her in the first place?”
“Because I was young and stupid, and too smart for my own good.” She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I wanted your father and I was determined to have him. I thought you would be my ticket to a life and family with him, but I was wrong. Very wrong. Your father was not going to leave your mother for me, baby or no. He made that very clear.”
“But he cheated on her with you.”
“He did, but he ended it before your mother found out. She never would have found out had I not showed up at her house with you.”
“That was cruel and you had some nerve.”
She shook her head. “It was a desperate move by a desperate woman. I’m sure I hurt your mother, but that was not my intent. She was a nonentity to me. I saw her only as an obstacle between me and the man I wanted. I was pretty selfish back then.”
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