by Неизвестно
"So your mother took me in," I said, the thought just occurring, "even though it meant she was doing a favor for the woman her husband had once had an affair with?"
Tia smiled. "Yes, she did. And if you knew Mom, that wouldn’t surprise you. She would never blame a child for a parent’s actions—she helped children with some of the most wretched parents imaginable. But her keeping you here was a testament to how much she loved Dad, and to the fact that she had forgiven him." Her face darkened. "Still, she was only human. And her actions after the shooting make plain how threatened she still felt by Sheila—even years afterward."
Fletcher exhaled. "So that’s why she let Dad think the worst," he surmised. "She wanted Sheila out of their lives—preferably for good."
Tia nodded. "You have to understand, Fletch. Mom never really got over the fact that she couldn’t have biological children. I’ve always thought that her wanting so many children around, all the time, was a way of overcompensating. But Sheila could and did have children, and the fact that she was blessed with a little girl as adorable as Meara had to hurt Mom. She had to always feel inferior, in the back of her mind, not only because Sheila was beautiful, but because she was capable of giving a man something Mom never could—a biological child."
I sighed softly. I couldn’t help it. I knew that none of the problems Tia was describing were my fault. But I still felt bad for them. For all of them.
Fletcher gave my shoulders a soft squeeze. The gesture was intended for comfort, but Jake’s assault had left me so tender I winced. Fletcher lifted his hands immediately, realizing his mistake. But my own hands flew up and caught them. Soreness or no, his touch was soothing to me, and I wanted him to know that. I kissed him on the wrist and held his hands in mine.
"Anyway, Meara," Tia continued, attempting to lighten her tone a little. "You should know that Dad told the P.I. that he absolutely adored you. He was horrified by what he thought Sheila had done, but when he found out that Jake had relinquished his rights too, he wanted very much to adopt you. My mother, of course, refused. She had good reason, actually, because she knew at that point exactly what Jake was capable of, and she was afraid that if you were living here, he might come back and try to hurt you again. But I think that, in her heart, she was also worried that she could never look at you without seeing Sheila—that she could never love you unconditionally. And she believed that you deserved better.
"So she told Dad no. And with him already feeling guilty about his history with Sheila, he didn’t feel he could press the issue."
She took a breath. "Mom felt horrible about keeping the truth from Dad. It weighed on her the rest of her life. But still, she was too insecure to face the fallout, and the more time that passed, the more difficult she feared it would be for him to forgive her. She only found the strength at the end."
Fletcher continued to hold my hands, caressing my knuckles gently with his thumbs. "So, after she died, Dad was anxious to find Sheila."
"Yes," Tia said quickly, "but not to rekindle some ancient romance. He just wanted to apologize to her. To say he was sorry for abandoning her at the lowest point in her life—to try and explain what had happened. Apparently, he had promised Sheila before the shooting that he would always watch out for her daughter. It haunted him that he had let Meara go—that he had no idea what became of her."
She looked at me. "It turned out that finding Sheila was no easy task for McElron. It took him months. She was making it hard on purpose, because she was still afraid of Jake. She kept track of him constantly; she knew he was still in the area and, until recently, was still a cop. Apparently he wrote her a few ‘anonymous’ letters when she first went to prison, describing what he would do to her when she got out. Whether he ever made any real effort to find her, or had actually long-since forgotten her, I don’t know. But she wasn’t taking any chances. The P.I. had a tough time convincing her who his real client was, and even then, he had a tough time convincing her to meet with Dad herself."
She took a breath. "Meara, I know what happened the night Sheila shot Jake—or at least what the P.I. knew about it, from what Dad and Sheila told him. It’s all second- and thirdhand, of course, but it does make sense, if you want to hear it."
Fletcher walked around the couch and sat down beside me again, pulling me to him. "You don’t have to hear any more, you know," he said quietly. "It’s up to you."
I looked into his gray-green eyes, so caring, so sincere, and the nearness of him bolstered me. Whatever blasts from the past were still to come, I knew that afterward, he would still be here. Tia would still be here. And I would still be me.
"It’s all right," I answered. "Let’s hear it."
Chapter 31
Tia took a breath. "Well, as you’re already aware, Jake was not your biological father. But up until the day of the shooting, he thought that he was. And according to Sheila, so did she.
"Jake found out, quite by accident apparently, that your blood types didn’t match. Sheila suspected something was up when he called her and started coolly asking questions about her and your blood types—supposedly for some insurance forms. By the time he had finished ferreting out the truth, however, she had already called Mom and told her to pack up your things immediately—that she was leaving and taking you with her. But Jake—who had no idea where you even were most of the time, believing that Sheila kept leaving you with some mythical aunt—arrived home just in time to follow her car.
"The inn was empty that night, like it often was midweek in the winter. And since it was late already when Sheila called, Mom brought you here and put you to bed upstairs while she waited for Sheila to arrive. Not understanding that Jake was dangerous, she was furious with Sheila—thinking she was just some flighty, incompetent mother who needed a good talking to. When Sheila arrived packing her husband’s gun and insisting on taking you immediately, Mom went ballistic. When Jake arrived, all hell broke lose.
"He started screaming at Sheila, you woke up and started crying, and Mom headed up the stairs to calm you down. Then Jake told Sheila that he was going to take the both of you home—and that she and her bastard daughter were going to pay. Sheila aimed the gun at him and told him to leave. But when he advanced on her anyway, she shot him.
"The bullet hit him in the side. He wasn’t critically injured, but it did stop him from climbing the stairs to get you. He just sank to the floor and started shouting about how Sheila was going to jail. That he would tell everyone she was crazy and they would believe him, that it was his word against hers—there were no witnesses.
"Unfortunately, he was right—Mom didn’t see what happened, and she hadn’t overheard any specific threats. What she did know about the situation at that point could actually have been damaging to Sheila’s case, because Sheila had never admitted any abuse to her, and she knew that it was Sheila, and not Jake, who had brought the weapon to the inn.
"Jake then threatened both women—telling them that if he got any grief from the law, that someday, somehow, you would simply ‘disappear.’
"That’s when Sheila got her idea. She wanted you away from Jake, permanently. And she figured she had two ways to do it. She could tell the truth about why she had shot him and try to get you away by explaining that he was dangerous and insisting he wasn’t your biological father anyway. But she knew how risky that was. She had crossed Jake in spades; her next encounter with him might very well be her last. And if the law did take his side over hers, neither she nor the Blacks would have a prayer of keeping you safe from the man who was legally your father.
"But she did have another option. She could confess to having shot him without cause, ensuring that she would be safe from him in the only place he couldn’t follow her—a women’s prison. She knew she would lose the right to raise you herself, but if it was the only way to ensure that you, too, were safe from Jake, then it was a sacrifice she was willing to make. So she offered to Jake that she would take the rap for the shooting and never tell anyone of his abuse
or his threats to you, if he would agree to terminate his parental rights—allowing you to be safely—and anonymously—adopted."
I thought of my parents, and tears swelled. Whatever mistakes Sheila might have made in her lifetime, the decision to give me up was not one of them. My adoptive parents had loved me without reservation. They had given me safety, security, and stability. They had given me everything Sheila could have hoped for.
A tear escaped and rolled down my right cheek. In the midst of turmoil, under the threat of violence, and in the face of a long prison term, Sheila had managed to make one, incredibly selfless decision. She had let me go.
"At first, Jake just laughed at her," Tia continued. "But then Mom, who finally now had a grasp of the situation, stepped in. She told Jake in no uncertain terms that if he did not terminate his rights to you, she would be perfectly willing to perjure herself on the stand and claim that she had witnessed everything—that Jake had threatened to kill you, and that Sheila had had no choice but to shoot him. She also claimed she would lie about seeing bruises on Sheila or whatever else it took to substantiate previous abuse. That got Jake’s attention. He was cocky, but he wasn’t stupid; he knew there was a significant chance he would run into trouble if there was credible eyewitness testimony against him. He was livid, but in the end he realized that the only thing he had to lose by cooperating was the custody of a child that wasn’t his anyway. So he agreed. Sheila pleaded guilty, and Mom backed up Jake’s story about the couple arguing over finances. If Jake hadn’t kept up his end of the bargain, Mom was prepared to recant and give the whole truth."
I let out a long, slow breath. My brain seemed numb. I tried to imagine my four-year-old self at the center of such turbulence, but I couldn’t. How could so many horrible, hurtful things have happened—to and around me—when I grew up so blissfully oblivious? It was as if my whole life as I knew it had never existed. As if it were some sort of fantasy.
I began to tremble again.
Tia took my hands, making me look her in the eyes.
"Don’t you dare start feeling guilty about any of this," she ordered. "You had absolutely no control over anything. The adults involved were adults—they were entirely responsible for their own actions. Nothing that came out of this is your fault."
"Still," I said weakly. "It was my coming back here that stirred all this up. You would have been better off thinking your father had just met Sheila—"
"Meara," Fletcher interrupted, his voice gentle, but firm. "Would you quit worrying about Tia and me? For heaven’s sake, we’re not going to fall apart over something that happened between our parents ages ago."
His sister looked up at him then, seeming a little surprised herself.
He caught it. "All right," he confessed. "I can’t say I’m thrilled about all their choices, but I do realize they weren’t perfect. In fact, the more I think about it, the more in character all this seems.
"The important thing," he continued, his eyes meeting mine again, "is your peace of mind, Meara. Are you all right with this?"
I took another breath. I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. All I could feel was the same vague, nagging guilt. I felt like I should leave.
When I didn’t answer, Tia spoke. "Meara," she said softly. "When the P.I. finally convinced Sheila to meet with Dad face-to-face, one of the first things he did was offer to pay the P.I. to find you. When Sheila said that you had already met, and that you were alive and well and had grown up happy, he was ecstatic. She also told him that she didn’t need the P.I., because since she’d learned your adopted name she had always kept tabs on you."
A surge of joy swelled within me, dampening some of my guilt. Mitchell had cared about me. My unruly hair hadn’t frightened him off forever. He had thought about me all those years, as had Sheila. She had even kept track of where I was.
"When they met again," Tia continued, "something happened that neither of them expected. They reconnected. There was something real between them, something that even a quarter-century of separation and misunderstanding hadn’t completely dissolved. It could have been friendship, but under the circumstances, it turned to love again."
Her lips curved into a smile. "And if Dad weren’t so organizationally challenged, that might be all we’d know now. But of course, he kept forgetting to pay the P.I.’s final bill. McElron called to bug him about it just a month ago, and Dad gave him another earful. He announced that he and Sheila were going to get married."
She studied her brother’s face. "According to the P.I., Dad sounded extremely happy about it."
I cast a wary glance at Fletcher myself.
"What?" he protested. His eyes smiled, and both Tia and I breathed a sigh of relief. He really was all right.
Tia grinned back at him. "They were keeping their relationship a secret for several reasons. Sheila had kept a low profile for years because she was still very much afraid of Jake. But also, like we thought, she couldn’t bear to have Dad’s friends and family know that she had been convicted of shooting her first husband. Plus, Dad was still very ashamed of the infidelity. He wanted to tell us about Sheila, and to explain everything that had happened with Meara. But he knew that he would have trouble explaining Mom’s actions without admitting that he had been unfaithful to her, and he was very worried about how we would take that."
Fletcher narrowed his eyes at his sister. "Liar. He was worried about how I would take it."
Tia looked at him with fondness. "You said it. I didn’t."
They exchanged a grin.
"Anyway," she continued, "The P.I. said Sheila was thinking of having her first name legally changed, that they were thinking of passing the property on to Fletch and moving to another state—anything to escape their past. Apparently they had lots of ideas, but neither of them was the decisive type."
She looked at me. "But there was one thing they had decided on, according to the P.I.. As soon as they got back from their honeymoon, Meara, they were going to contact you."
My heart skipped. "Me?"
She nodded. "Dad convinced Sheila that the best thing for you would be the truth. He was certain that if you were as intelligent and grounded as Sheila said you were, that you would believe your birth mother’s version of the story and understand her decisions. He promised to be there, too, to back her up.
"He was concerned that if you ever did proceed with a search for more information, you would be devastated to discover Sheila’s criminal record without explanation, and would then almost certainly wind up walking right into Jake’s clutches, assuming that he was your birth father."
"Smart man," Fletcher noted.
My feet felt suddenly antsy. I stood up. It wasn’t bad news, I told myself. Not really. I was sorry that my birth mother had once been the source of such angst in the Blacks' marriage. But I was no more responsible for her actions than Tia and Fletcher were for Mitchell’s, and they understood that.
I walked a few paces away and looked back at them.
"Meara?" Fletcher asked cautiously, rising.
A queer fluttering seemed to have attacked my stomach, but it wasn’t unpleasant. In fact, it was a lightening. A final lifting of the mental burden I’d been laboring under since the day I received the call from the hospital. No—even before that.
I had spent most of my life living in fear of the unknown. I feared that I had grown up without love, and that those lost years, somehow, had damaged me. It wasn’t about finding a blood relative—not really. That desire had been born primarily of loneliness. What I had really wanted, and needed, was a better understanding of myself. Of what had made me the person I was.
Reflecting on everything I knew now, I felt, at last, oddly settled. Mitchell and Rosemary had had a lasting, loving relationship that had not only succeeded in raising two terrific kids, but had nurtured countless others, including me. Mitchell and Sheila had loved each other too, in their own way, and they had been happy at the end. The fact that, if they had lived, they would have f
ound me again meant more than I could say. It was all right. Everything was all right.
A realization struck me, and my eyes widened. "Fletcher," I said brightly. "I figured it out!"
He raised his eyebrows. "Figured what out?"
"What Sheila said! She was having such a difficult time talking—I misunderstood her. She was trying to explain to me about the shooting. She said that she had always loved me. Then what she was trying to say was, ‘I was protecting you. Rosemary lied. Stay away from Jake Kozen.’"
He walked to my side. "That makes sense. I bet you’re right."
Tia rose and joined us.
"I feel so much better now," I explained to both of them. "Thank you. I know where I spent the first four years of my life, and why. And I know that at least some of that time, I was happy."
The siblings looked at each other. Fletcher stepped forward and took my hand. "Meara, Tia and I have known a lot of kids who grew up in bad situations. Abused, neglected, unloved. And we can promise you, you don’t have those kinds of scars. I don’t know how Sheila managed it, honestly, but she must have shielded you from Jake somehow, all along. She and my parents must have worked together to make sure you always felt loved—and secure. Because you wouldn’t be who you are today if they hadn’t."
I looked at them both, and my heart felt near to bursting. "Are you two really okay with this?" I asked in a brief moment of panic. "Considering what happened? Is my being here going to bother you? Because if it is, I can just go…"
They stared back at me for a second, flabbergasted. Then to my surprise, Fletcher laughed out loud. "You’re unbelievable," he said, stepping close and putting his arms around me. "Frankly, I’m proud of the way my father handled things, considering. And my mother, too." He raised a hand to my hair and pushed a lock gently back over my shoulder, his eyes twinkling. "God knows I’m glad she refused to adopt you."