by Rebecca Shea
“I know. It just kind of happened,” she says apologetically.
“If now’s not a good time, I can leave. I understand,” my mom says quietly. Her hands are folded in her lap. They are marked with wrinkles as well, but they are still my mother’s hands. There are few things I remember of my mom, but I remember her hands. Her fingers are long and perfectly manicured. A large diamond sits on her left ring finger, a sign she moved on—without us, and my blood boils.
“I’ve got to get to work,” I mumble as Lindsay sets a large mug of coffee in front of me.
“I talked to Matt; he’s talking to your sergeant, letting him know that you’ll be a little late. If anything comes up, he said he’d call me.” I flash her a look, letting her know I’m not happy.
“Well, then, looks like we have a little time,” I say, stirring some creamer into my coffee. Lindsay sits back down on the stool next to my mom, across the island from me.
“Landon, let me explain a couple of things.” Lindsay picks at a blueberry muffin as she stutters over her words. “I found Mom with the help of a private investigator.” I choke on a sip of the hot coffee.
“Why would you do that?” I ask, knowing it sounds insensitive. My mom sits and watches me intently, showing no emotion to what I’ve just said.
“You remember Adam Gerard, the other partner in Reagan’s practice, right?”
“What does this have to do with that douchebag?”
Lindsay sighs. “Reagan came to me, asking how you two knew each other. He had made a few remarks to her about you, about Dad, and mentioned some things about our family that no one knew, not even me. It raised some red flags, so I hired an investigator.”
“Why wouldn’t she say anything to me?” I question her.
“Do you really have to ask that question?” she says sarcastically.
“Continue. What does this have to do with him?”
“The investigator gave me a lot of info on him, the usual… stuff you could find out at work, or I could find out on the internet if I tried hard enough. Things like where he went to college, medical school, who he dated, and so on. What the report also told me was who his father is, his brother is, and his stepmother is.” I glance at my mom, who hasn’t so much as blinked since Lindsay started talking.
“You?” I raise my eyebrows and ask.
She nods her head and a quiet “yes” falls from her lips.
“Goddammit,” I spit out, and slam my hand on the granite counter. The spoon inside Lindsay’s coffee cup rattles, and both my mom and Lindsay startle at my outburst.
“Landon, let her explain.”
“Explain what? That you left us.” I glare at her. “That you moved in with another family, a family that has kids I went to school with, and never… not once… came back for Lindsay and me? Explain that!” I yell at her. “You know, I’d heard rumors that you were still in Wilmington, that you’d moved on and had a new family—but I never wanted to believe that you’d do that and not come back for Linds and I.” I can feel my heart beating wildly and I ball my hands into tight fists to try to stop them from shaking.
She sits calmly, taking deep breaths as she gathers her thoughts. “You have every right to be angry with me. I don’t blame you,” she starts. She moves her hands to the island and plays with the coffee mug that sits in front of her. “Before I start, I need to ask you both to forgive me. Forgive me for not taking you with me that night. Forgive me for not trying harder to protect you both.” Lindsay reaches out and places her hand on my mom’s. Anger simmers to the surface as I listen to her ask for forgiveness when all I can remember are the beatings I endured after she left.
“You were both so young, so I’m not sure you fully understand how everything happened and progressively got worse. I met your dad when I was in college. He was already a police officer and had been for almost five years. I was graduating with my degree in elementary education. We fell hard and fast. Within a year of meeting and dating, we got married. From the beginning, he was always a little controlling. At first I found it sweet, almost protective—but as time went on, it was anything but. He questioned where I was, who I was with all the time. Even when I was alone, he never believed me. He started showing up at the elementary school where I worked, just to check in on me.” Her voice wavers.
“He quickly moved through the ranks at the police department and when he made assistant chief, he suggested I quit teaching. I was newly pregnant with you.” She gestures to me. “He was doing well financially, and I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, so I didn’t question him. I finished out that year teaching and never went back. I had you that spring, and things got worse. He was so jealous of you, a little baby,” she says, her voice strained.
“Something changes inside of you when you become a parent. For most people, except your father, obviously, your life isn’t about you anymore; it’s about that precious baby.” Lindsay raises her eyebrows at me and I glare at her in return.
“I was head over heels in love with you. Everything was about you,” she says, pausing. I can tell she’s trying to contain her emotions, and she takes a sip of her coffee before she continues. “I spent every minute of every day with you. Your father would question me if I took you to the park, to the library, even to the grocery store. He wanted to know where I was every minute. It became smothering—and I began to resent him. But, here I was with a little baby and no job. We depended on him, so I dealt with it.” She twists her fingers and I notice them shaking as she continues.
“I figured that things would eventually change. That he wouldn’t question everywhere I went, or everything I did—that he’d understand my life was about him and you. When you were three, I found out I was pregnant with Lindsay. As excited as I was, I was nervous and then things got worse at home. Your father became increasingly more abusive verbally. He hadn’t started hitting me yet, but he was horribly mean. I could do nothing right. Dinner was never prepared the way he wanted, the house was never clean enough, and I was never a good enough mother. He hated that you,” she looks at me, “would curl up in my lap every night to read a book. He was never around, yet he expected you to want to be with him.” She takes a deep breath and swallows hard.”
“After Lindsay was born, things got progressively worse. I wasn’t allowed to grocery shop without him. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house with you kids. He didn’t even want me to walk you down the street to the park. I used to have to sneak out the back door immediately after he left for work so that I could take you down the street to put you on the swings for a few minutes.” She smiles. “He would drive by the house multiple times a day and stop in at random times to make sure we were home.
“One day, I snuck you kids out of the house to the park, and there was my old friend from college, Louis Gerard, Adam’s father,” she explains. “We were good friends in college. His wife had recently died and he had a set of twin boys he was raising on his own. Your father knew Louis well; he was a prominent banker here in town and donated a lot of money to many of the local charities. I saw him at many of the local law enforcement fundraisers. Anyway, he was at the park with his boys and their new nanny. We reconnected that day, talking and catching up on old times. We quickly became confidants—nothing more than friends, though.
“It felt so good to laugh, and have someone to talk to. I confided in Louis about what was going on at home, and he promised to help me get out. There were never any feelings on my part for Louis, but he was always a good friend to me, offering me help and even giving me money to get us away from your father. One day, your father came home and confronted me about Louis. Someone had told him that they had seen us talking at the park. I swear everyone in this town told your father everything.” Her voice is angry at the memory.
“That was the first time he hit me. He hit me so hard across the side of my face, I blacked out. He told me if I was going to act like a dirty little whore, that I’d be treated like one. Each day got worse. There was never a day
he didn’t come home and hit me. Louis would call and check in on me because I stopped going out in public at all. He was working to figure out how to get us away. He offered to call the Department of Children’s Services, but I discouraged it because I knew that your father would think I did it, and my worst fear was that they’d take you both away from me.” As my mother talks, I remember her on the phone many times, whispering quietly to whomever was on the other end of the line. I remember not being allowed to go to the park anymore—and I believe everything she is telling me, even though I want so badly not to believe her.
“Louis was arranging for us to escape to Arizona. He had a job lined up with a family member for himself and had a house in Tucson. He was working on gathering everything I needed to divorce your father, and gain custody of you kids. The problem was being able to take you kids out of the state. Here in North Carolina, judges don’t like to allow parents to just uproot their children from the other parent in a divorce and I had never filed a police report against him for the abuse, so there was nothing to show that he didn’t deserve custody or even visitation, and there was no way they were going to allow me to just pick up and move with you both.” I sit and listen intently as her voice fluctuates and she relives those painful memories.
“You two were the one thing your dad dangled over my head time and again. He threatened to kill you both if I ever considered leaving him. The night I finally left, I had full intentions of coming back to get you the following day. I ran down the street to that gas station and called Louis from the pay phone. I truly believed that if I had stayed the night in that house, he would have killed me.” She chokes up and stops speaking for a moment. “I hid behind the gas station in the dark for him to come and pick me up. We went back to his house and he gathered his boys and a few belongings, fully intending to get you two in the morning and leave for Arizona.”
“Then why in the hell didn’t you come back to get us?” I bite out.
“I tried. I came back the next morning. Louis parked down the street and I walked home to get you. I snuck in the back door, and he met me in the kitchen. He held a gun to my temple and told me if he ever saw my face again, he’d kill you both. He would have. He was certifiably insane. He told me to get the hell out and never come back. That I was an embarrassment to him and his family.”
“Bullshit. If he wanted to kill us, he would have. He tortured me for years, damn near killing me a couple of times, but he never did,” I snap, interrupting her. Her eyes look apologetic as she continues.
“So I left with Louis to Arizona. His plan was that we’d be away from North Carolina and we’d file reports to Child Protective Services about the abuse at home. Since I was out of the picture, I couldn’t be blamed. So we did. We filed and filed and filed. Every case was either never investigated or dismissed. How, I don’t know. Landon, I heard the stories of how you’d show up at school covered in bruises. I’m so sorry.” She apologizes and dabs tears at the corners of her eyes.
“We moved back to North Carolina and I finally filed divorce papers, but since I fled to Arizona previously, I was severed of any parental rights. If I had known that, I would not have left. I tried, God, did I try.” Her voice cracks. “I ended up marrying Louis.” She pauses. “He’s a good man, and he tried so hard to help me get you back.”
“So you married Louis and played mom to Adam and Aaron, while Dad was beating the shit out of me every night.” I know I’m an asshole for rubbing it in her face, but she needs to hear it. She watches me as I rub my head, another headache brewing from this conversation, before she continues.
“By the time you were in your early teens, I’d been gone so long, I knew it was just better if I stayed away. There was not a day that went by that Louis and I didn’t try to get you back. We did everything, even talked of kidnapping you. After your father died I struggled with whether I should contact you,” she pauses with tears in her eyes.
“But you never did,” I say quietly.
The room is silent as we sit and absorb everything she just said. Lindsay wipes tears from her cheeks and I just sit, looking at both of them seated across from me. It amazes me how much Lindsay looks like my mother. I try to pull from my memory the good times we had. The trips to the park, her reading to me, but those memories aren’t what I remember.
“So what do you want?” I ask, short and to the point.
“I want you to forgive me.” It’s straight to the point. Matter of fact. I chuckle at her request. As if forgiveness is just something you hand out.
“What?” she asks after I’m done smirking.
“You want forgiveness and all Lindsay and I ever wanted was a fucking mother who loved us enough to not leave us in the hands of a monster.” I stand up and push myself of the stool. “Do you see that?” I point to the scar along my side, the one that Reagan questioned me about. My mother nods her head. “Do you want to know how I got that?” She stares at me, her eyes opening wider.
“I was in eighth grade. I played baseball that year, and one night, when I got home, Dad was drunk as usual and waiting for me—waiting for a fight. I disappeared into my room as I usually did, but he wasn’t having any of that. I sat down at my desk and pulled out my homework, hoping that if I didn’t come out of my room or that if he found me studying, he’d just leave me alone.” I shake my head at the memory. “He busts through my door, telling me what a fucking loser I was, that I was a worthless piece of shit, and that even my mother left because of me. He told me this family would be better off if I just killed myself.” She gasps at that comment.
“Finally, he picks up the wooden bat that I had in the corner of my room and breaks it over my desk. The bat splinters, and he’s left holding the handle with a long, sharp piece of wood sticking out. He wasted no time in stabbing me twice in the side. I was convinced that was the night he was going to kill me, and that was the first night I almost killed him. If I hadn’t lost so much blood, and wasn’t in so much pain, I would have. Lindsay is the only reason I survived that night. She walked in and stopped him.”
Lindsay bursts into tears and my mom tries to comfort her, but even she pulls away slightly at her contact. “So forgive me if I’m not willing to hand out forgiveness like fucking candy on Halloween, all right? I need to get to work. Glad we had this little chat. You can run home to your little family. Lindsay and I are just fine here by ourselves. I’ll make sure nothing ever happens to her, even though, as a mother, that was something you should have done.”
“I’m sorry,” I hear her cry as I walk away to get myself ready for the day. Something stirs inside of me as I stand in the hot shower, trying to wash the stress and anxiety away. I will never let anything happen to my child. I will never let anyone hurt that baby, or Reagan. That is all it takes for me to make the decision I was struggling with.
“Hey, do you have a minute?” I ask nervously as I enter his small office. It’s set up much like mine, except more masculine. Black and white abstract art hangs on his wall.
“Yeah, come in. I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” he says. I sit down in the chair opposite him. It’s uncomfortable, and my heart races.
“What about?” I ask curiously.
“You,” he says dryly. He turns away from his computer to face me. “As the newest partner in the office, you’ve been gone a lot and leaving early… I’m just surprised by this.”
“Let me explain,” I interrupt him. I take a deep breath and slide my hands into the pockets of my lab coat. “I’m pregnant.”
“Jesus, Reagan,” he says, shaking his head. “As an OB/GYN, you should know better than anyone there are ways of preventing that.”
“I don’t need a safe sex speech, Adam. I need some time off.”
“I think you’ve taken enough time off lately,” he fires back.
“Look, I’ve been dealing with a really bad case of hyperemesis gravidarum. I’ve been on Zofran for a day now and it seems to be helping a bit, but I’m hoping if I give it another day
or so that I should be feeling great. I already planned a trip back to Minnesota next weekend, so I just figured that I could take the rest of this week and next week off and be back to work when I get back. It’ll give me some time to clear my head and, hopefully, start feeling better. I know I don’t need to ask your permission, I’m partner here, but you’d be carrying the brunt of the load while I’m gone, so I’m asking as a courtesy. We need to work together, and I don’t want to dump patients on you…”
“That’s fine,” he interrupts me. “Get your head on straight—and for Christ’s sake, eat, and take the Zofran.”
“I am,” I respond sincerely. “I’m really sorry if I have come across as anything other than professional, Adam. I love my job. I love this office. It’s just that this really took me by surprise.” He nods his head, but doesn’t say anything. “There is something else I wanted to talk to you about.” He leans back in his chair and props his leg up on his knee.
“Sure,” he says, tapping his fingers on his desk.
“I know about your connection to Landon.” He stares at me and leans forward, scooting himself closer to the desk.
“What do you think you know?” he asks.
“I know that Josie is your stepmom, and I know that Josie is Landon’s and Lindsay’s real mother.” I pause to gauge his reaction to this news. He doesn’t say a word; he just narrows his eyes and purses his lips. “What I don’t know and would like to understand is why you hate him so badly, when he didn’t do a damn thing to you, and never even knew about Josie and your dad?”
“Quick question first. Is the baby his?”
“Yes.”
He sighs. “It’s a long and complicated story,” he says, looking away from me.
“Give me the Cliff Notes version, but don’t lie to me.”
“Where should I start?”
“From the beginning,” I state.
“I don’t know all the gory details, but Josie was hardly a stepmother to me and Aaron,” he says as he picks at a string on the hem of his pants. “Here’s what I do know: Captain Christianson was an angry man, everyone knew that—but no one knew exactly how angry he was. From my understanding, my dad and Josie were good friends in college. After my mom died, they reconnected and continued their friendship. I remember being maybe eleven, almost twelve, when one night, my dad packed us up and moved us to Tucson. Josie was with us. I was scared to death, as she had clearly just been beaten—and badly.” He exhales loudly before he continues.