“Right. Well the story in the middle is a little different than the one you know. And Jordan, listen, I only found out the extent of your mom’s time in Boston days before she died…”
Boston.
Oh no.
Motherfucking, no.
Annabelle – that’s my mom’s full name. I’ve always known her as Belle, but her name is Annabelle.
Anna.
Why didn’t it click before now? I’m so f**king stupid!
Belle is Anna.
She’s Mia’s mother. I know it in my gut.
“Belle is Mia’s mother.” I nearly choke on the words.
Dad sighs a weary sound. And it’s confirmed.
My heart feels like it’s just been ripped from my chest.
“Yeah, I’m afraid she is.”
My mom. The woman who raised me … is Mia’s mother.
The mother who abandoned her when she was a baby. Left her alone with that shithole of a father, is the woman who took me on as her own and raised me.
This is a wrecking ball. And it’s going to destroy everything in its path.
Mia … us.
My head drops in my hands. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”
“I’m sorry, son. She told me days before she died about Mia. I didn’t know. I promise you. All I knew was that while she was in her last year of college, she met this doctor. He swept her off her feet, they got married soon after, but he wasn’t the guy she thought he was. The instant they were married, he turned violent. He hurt her bad. She ended up in hospital a few times because of him. Eventually, she left. Came back here. Divorced him. She never told me that she’d had a baby with him.”
I feel ill.
I slide off the counter. My feet hit the tiles and feel unsteady, so I sit on the floor.
Knees bent up, I put my head between them and take deep breaths.
“When Belle knew she was dying,” Dad continues. “She told me everything – all about Mia. She said that looking back, she thinks she was suffering with post-partum depression. And she was afraid, Jordan. Her ex-husband was a bastard of a man. The scars he left her with…”
I wince at his words, an image of Mia’s scars flashing through my mind.
“When I saw them the first time … I wanted to go there and kill him, but Belle wouldn’t let me. Obviously, she didn’t want me to go because she didn’t want me to know about Mia.” He sighs.
“Why did she leave her there, Dad? I don’t understand?” My voice cracks on the words knowing the life Mia had with her father.
Then I envision a different past for her.
One where Belle brought Mia back here with her. She would have been my sister. I would never have loved her in the way I do now, but rather that, then her have the life she had.
Her life with us would have been good. She’d have grown up happy. She would have had the life she deserved.
Not one filled with cruelty, and pain. Unimaginable pain.
I feel a sick, resentful anger toward the woman who raised me. The woman who patched up my busted knees when I fell off my bike time and time again. The woman who fed me. Bathed me. Loved me.
Jesus. Christ.
I get up from the floor and start pacing.
“Belle’s ex-husband was a rich, powerful man, Jordan. He was a doctor – a heart surgeon. People respected him. He wouldn’t let her take Mia. Told her if she tried that he’d have her arrested for kidnapping.”
Yanking out a chair at the table, I sit down. “But she could have called the cops – told them what was happening to her. She had the evidence – the scars, her being in hospital because of his beatings.”
“You’re right she could have. But you know how these things go. She’d have to prove it, and she was up against a man from a wealthy family who ran in high circles. His dad was a good friend of the chief of police. Power and money can make things go away, son. But for all he did to Belle, she knew he wouldn’t hurt his own child which was how she was able to leave Mia with him.”
I bang my fist on the table, hard. “Are you f**kin’ kidding me! I can’t believe I’m hearing this shit! He wouldn’t hurt her – Dad, I’ve seen her scars.” I’ve felt her pain. “He beat her until the day he died. He made her life a f**kin’ misery! And because of him, violence was all she knew, so she ended up in a relationship with an ass**le exactly like the one who raised her! Why do you think she left Boston, Dad? The bastard she was with – he beat her – tried to rape her.”
“No.” His voice is filled with shock and disbelief. He sounds exactly like I felt in the moment when she told me.
“No,” he repeats. “I found her – Mia. That was one of the reasons Belle told me about her. She wanted to know Mia, make her peace before she died, but by the time I found Mia, it was too late and Belle had passed.
“But I still went to Boston. You remember when I told you I had that police conference? I went then. I watched her for a few days, not in a creepy way, I just couldn’t decide whether to tell her about Belle or not. In the end, I decided against it – I didn’t think it was worth hurting Mia by telling her that the mother who had abandoned her as a baby had just died. But I wanted to know she was okay – happy. She seemed it. She was in school, had an application for Harvard. Lived in a great place and drove a nice car. And I saw her with him – her father, Oliver. They seemed to get along well.”
“Yeah, well Mia can wear a great mask, Dad. She’s a f**kin’ specialist at pretending to be something she isn’t.”