Purpose: Whisperer of Night
Page 68
Chapter thirty-five: Sidney Fields
Sidney’s mom has been acting more and more like herself ever since Hank had left. Sidney and her mother began to bond a little more which was an improvement for the two of them, but Sidney was ok with putting forth a little effort but she hated to think that she was about to ruin all of that by asking her mother for the truth about her birth father and everything else she was lying to her about.
Sidney was in the kitchen when her mother had come down for breakfast.
“Hey sweetie,” her mother said when she caught sight of Sidney.
“Hey mom,” she answered as she wrapped her hands around her cup of coffee and watched her mother pour herself a mug.
“What’s got you up so early?” her mother asked.
“I’ve just been thinking, something was bothering me and I couldn’t get much sleep because of it,” Sidney said which wasn’t at all a lie.
“Oh, what’s been bothering you?” her mother asked as she took a sip from her mug of coffee.
“Hank has actually,” she said as she sat down her cup.
“Oh honey you don’t have to worry about that anymore,” her mother said as she furrowed her brows in confusion.
“No not that Hank,” she said as she watched her mom slowly lower her cup.
“Then what Hank are you talking about?” her mother asked suspiciously.
“I’m talking about Hank Paul Henderson…the real one not the one that was pretending to be Hank,” Sidney said slowly.
“What do you know about that?”
“Mom I know, ok? So you don’t have to lie to me,” Sidney said a little pissed that her mother—to this day—would still try to lie to her and keep her in the dark.
“Look honey you don’t have to worry about that either, ok?” Sidney shook her head.
“No. it’s not ok. I want to worry about it. All this time you made me believe that Aaron was my father, my birth father when my real birth father died at the hands of this man who you let just come in this house and pretend to be somebody he’s not,” she said as she watched her mother’s face change from denial to acceptance of the truth.
“Sidney—” her mother started before Sidney cut her off.
“All I want to know is why you would try to keep something like that from me all of this time?”
“It’s not like that Sidney, I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you it just made for a really awkward and difficult discussion so I was just holding it off.”
“What’s so awkward and difficult in saying that Aaron isn’t my father and that Hank was?” she asked.
“Well because there’s a lot you don’t know—”
“Then tell me,” she cut in.
“I can’t.”
“And why not, it shouldn’t be so difficult now seeing as though I know most of it.” Her mother huffed obviously not wanting to get into this discussion.
“You really want to know?” she asked but didn’t wait for any kind of indication from Sidney as she went into telling Sidney what she thought she wanted to know.
“Karen who is Brooke’s mother, Brooke being your sister, was dating Aaron; they were together for quite some time. Jessica, Skylar’s mother, you know Skylar don’t you?” her mother asked. Sidney nodded her head. “Ok well Karen and Jessica they were the best of friends back in college and apparently they still are, just like Aaron and Hank were the best of friends back in college and I was friends with all of them. Aaron and Karen were going through some kind of relationship problems and decided that they were better off a part—”
“And so you stole him away,” Sidney interrupted.
“No I didn’t,” her mother said as she continued her story. “I was still dating Hank at the time and Aaron was always just my friend,” she cleared up. “Later on along the years Aaron heard from Hank that he was going to be participating in the war between the whisperers, espies, and humans and so Aaron agreed that he’d watch over Hank’s family, meaning us, and when we heard that he had passed away—”
“You took that as your opportunity to swoop in and marry him,” Sidney cut in—once again.
“No, Aaron had disappeared from some time and when he had come back he apologized for leaving and promised to see us through that terrible loss, then—”
“Then yall grew attracted to each other and then yall got married,” Sidney said.
“Correct,” her mother said with a sad smile. “But honey though Aaron isn’t your biological dad he will always be your father figure ok, so you better act as though you know know different.” Sidney laughed and her mother looked at her confusingly.
“You say that as though he’s still alive,” Sidney said, explaining her reasoning for laughing. Sidney’s laugh died as she watched her mother’s stricken face expression. “Mom what is it?” she asked
“It’s nothing—”
“Please don’t go back to this lying to me again,” Sidney pleaded. Her mother looked at her for a while before responding.
“I don’t want you to get excited or get your hopes up in any way ok, because this can be a prank or something?” her mother said as she looked around the room frantically.
“Mom what is it?” Sidney asked again.
“Last night I…I got an email…from Aaron.”
“WHAT?!” Sidney said disbelievingly.
“I don’t know if it was really him or not like I said it could have been a prank or something like that so just calm down,” her mother said as Sidney hoped out of her chair.
“Who would know to pull a stupid prank like that? Mom you have to listen to me ok, I think Hank may be the one behind all of this,” Sidney said as she looked at her mother to tell whether or not she believed her.
“It’s not Hank honey,” her mother said slowly shaking her head.
“Yes it is mom, he must still have you under his control or something like that because you have to see that it is Hank mom, you have to believe me,” Sidney pleaded.
“Listen to me I’m telling you that it is not Hank, I think I know who it is and Hank does too,” her mother said calmly.
“What?!” Sidney asked confused. “Then why the hell is Hank doing all of this?” she asked confused.
“I don’t know honey but he wants this woman caught as much as the rest of us,” her mom said.
“Woman?” Sidney questioned. “You say that as if you’re sure it’s a female,” Sidney said.
“I think I am,” her mother whispered.