Who Is Sarah Randall (THE RANDALLS Book 1)

by Gail Haris

  It’s so warm and firm. I desperately crave his touch, so much that I know without a doubt I would’ve let him take my virginity.

  He holds my face in his hands, and what he says next surprises me. “We’re both inexperienced in this area, but I do know I want our first time to be special. It’ll be special no matter what, but I don’t want it to be rushed in my cramped truck with the fear of your parents hunting for you. In fact, before we do anything I want us to first go on a proper date. Okay?”

  I smile and whisper. “Okay.”

  He gives me a few more lingering kisses. Leaning his forehead to mine, he whispers, “We need to get you back to your car, but before we do, I want to make sure one thing is clear.” He leans back and tells me to open my eyes. I hadn’t even realized that I’d closed them. He has an intense look on his face and his voice is strong when he says, “You’re my girlfriend now. You’re not my cousin, so never refer to my mom as Aunt Andrea again. Never. Again.” Then he whispers in a pleading voice. “Please.” I laugh, but he’s still so serious. “No laughing. No more auntie or protective cousin crap. I was never being the protective platonic figure. I was being the jealous guy wanting you to be his.” He gives me one more kiss and then slides me back to my seat.

  I buckle up and give him a sideway look. “It’s not going to be easy to quit calling her Aunt Andrea. That’s how I’ve known her all my life. It just flows.”

  He turns the key and gives me a pointed look. “Try.”

  BY THE TIME I ARRIVE home, the house is dark. I’m about to climb the stairs to go to my room when I hear a faint sound coming from my left side. It’s so faint that I’m not sure I even heard anything, but then I hear another sound that resembles glass breaking. I debate on going to investigate or sneaking into my room. For some reason, I’m compelled to go see what it is. My feet are moving before I can talk myself out of it. I see a faint glow coming from the den. I creep down the hall and try to listen for any other sounds. I hear sniffling and muffled cries.

  It’s Melissa.

  I peak my head around the corner and gasp. She’s standing in front of the fireplace with a glass of wine in her hand. She turns her head to look at me, and I see her face is red and blotchy. Her eyes are blood shot and puffy. What has my heart in knots and sends me running toward the fireplace is what she has in her other hand. My mother’s journal. Or rather, Cindy’s journal. I reach for it, but she pulls it away.

  “What? Just what do you think you’re doing, my daughter?”

  The way she says “my daughter” makes me stop and my blood run cold. Her voice is off. She’s clearly drunk, which might be the reason there is meanness laced in her voice. She lifts the journal up and holds it open with one hand in front of her. She takes a long sip of wine and then chuckles while staring at the pages.

  “That sorry bitch actually wrote down all the details of how she plotted, schemed and finally stole you. From me! She then goes on to write about the joys of motherhood. As if she was ever your mother. Fucking delusional.” I flinch. I’ve never heard her swear. I’ve never heard her raise her voice. Then again, I’ve never seen her in this condition. She turns to face me again and holds the book to her side. “Delusional! You were taken and held captive by a pathetic psychopath who managed to raise you to love her. Did you love her?”

  I don’t want to answer that, so I look at the floor.

  “Sarah. Sarah!” She yells at me. Then she pauses as if a thought has occurred to her. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She speaks in a hushed ominous tone. “You’re not Sarah, right? Your name is Olivia.”

  Her voice grows so cold that I’m beginning to get a chill up my spine. “Well, Olivia, did you love her?”

  She isn’t going to let this go. I desperately wish Richard would wake up. Maybe Landon could calm her down. I gulp and whisper in a pleading tone, “She was all I knew. I thought…I thought she was my mother.”

  Melissa is visibly shaking, and I can’t tell if she’s about to cry from anger or grief. She paces. I’m about to panic and go for help. She seems like she’s on the verge of a mental break down. She stops and turns to me. Her facial expression has me terrified. “But she wasn’t! She was never your mother!” She shouts at me with so much resentment that I feel she’s angry with me, but for what? That I did not leave her willingly.

  I stare at her in disbelief. “You act like I ran away to be with her. I was a child! I was an infant! Why are you yelling at me?”

  Melissa narrows her eyes at me. “Why did you keep this journal? You know the truth. You know more of the truth than anyone. How long have you known that we were searching for you? Did you want to stay with her even after you discovered the truth? You never even wanted to be found!”

  I throw my hands up. “I never knew until she died! She had the journal hidden and left me a note in her will. You honestly think I was okay finding out about all of this? This is horrible!”

  She takes another big drink from her wine glass and gives me a sour look. “Then why, daughter dearest, didn’t you turn the journal over to the police? It was hidden here in your room.”

  I cross my arms and hold myself. “I haven’t even finished reading it. I was too scared to read it for a long time.”

  She pours more wine into her glass as she continues to question me in a clearly disgusted tone. “Why read it to start with? Once you learned who she really was, why read any more of her deceit?”

  I rub my arms, unsure of how to continue, “Um, well she said she wanted to explain. I was curious. What does any of this matter? I’m here now, and she’s… dead.”

  Melissa nods and narrows her eyes at me. She raises her glass to me. “You are absolutely right, my sweet girl. That bitch is dead. I’ll drink to that!” She takes a drink from her glass before placing it on the fireplace mantel. Then, she lifts the journal up. “And none of this matters.” She throws the journal into the fireplace.

  I scream and rush around the sectional toward the fireplace. Melissa, however, stops me by pushing me onto the couch. My scream must’ve woken everyone up because I hear the pounding of feet coming down the stairs.

  Landon comes rushing in and freezes when he sees both of us in tears. Richard and Denise do the same. Melissa looks back and forth between me and them before she finally crumbles to the floor. Her whole body shakes as she sobs uncontrollably. Richard touches my shoulder and asks if I’m all right. Of course not! But I merely nod. He then hurries to his wife’s side and rubs her back, whispering what I assume are comforting words. I should feel pity for this broken woman, but I can’t. How could she? How could she throw away my mother’s journal in the fire without a single thought? Okay, Cindy wasn’t my biological mother and she did destroy Melissa. What about consideration for me that I still wanted to read it?

  I feel two arms wrap around me in comfort.

  “I’m here for you,” Landon whispers. I sink into him and allow my tears to flow freely.

  Denise goes to her mother and asks her what happened. Melissa cries out, “She still loves her! She still loves her! She’ll never see me as her mother!” Her voice begins to crack and we can barely understand her, “She’ll never love me that way! Don’t you see?”

  I’ve had enough with feeling blamed for this. I’ve had enough with her constantly making me feel guilty that I had a relationship with a woman who raised me. I especially have had enough with not being able to move on with my life.

  I stand and shout at her, “You won’t let me! You won’t give me a chance because you keep bringing her between us! You bring her between us! You focus more on her than you do me! Everything you do with me, you bring her into it! New clothes, because of her. New phone, because of her. You want to erase my life with her, but some of that is what made me the person that I am. If you could just allow us to spend time together freely, with no resentments, then maybe we could grow closer. It’s like you resent the fact that she cared for me. Why can’t you be happy that I did at least feel loved and got along with he
r? Be happy for me that I had a good life growing up when I could’ve easily been abducted and abused. This was terrible for you, I get it, but you’re taking your anger toward Cindy out on me.”

  I catch my breath and cry, “Our relationship can’t grow into love because you are filled with too much hate!”

  I run out of the room. I continue to run out of the house, down the driveway, and out to the street. The cold night air burns my wet face, but I keep running. I run until I’m out of breath and my legs feel like jelly. My throat burns and my sides ache. I flop down on the cold ground and stick my head between my legs to try to catch my breath. I feel nauseated and exhausted. Once I’ve calmed down, I stand up and begin walking back toward the house.

  Headlights approach me and as it gets closer, I can see it’s Richard’s truck. The truck stops, and since I’m exhausted, I hop in.

  It’s quiet in the truck, with only the hum of the engine. He doesn’t say anything right away, but he doesn’t go back to the house. He drives around the block twice before he begins, “She’s jealous. She loves you so much but she’s jealous, Sarah. Please, try to understand. I hope you never know the pain of losing a child. We all thought we’d lost you, except Melissa. She never gave up hope.”

  He pauses. I think he’s fighting for control of his emotions. He shakes his head as if to clear it. “We lost you. The hardest part was that you were taken right in front of her, we’re supposed to keep you safe. She was there when it happened. You have no idea what that did to her. She was there with you… and that woman slipped in and took you away. Melissa felt like she didn’t even get a chance to fight for you. You slipped through her fingers.”

  I look out the window. It’s dark but I can make out the shapes of playground equipment in the distance. He turns left, driving around another block. His tone changes from depressed to disbelief as he speaks, “Then, we get the call that you’d been found and were returning home.” He shakes his head, and says, almost as an after-thought, “You know, we almost sold the house.”

  His eyes glisten and he clears his throat twice before speaking again. Then he says more firmly, “We’d discussed selling the house because it was a constant reminder, but Melissa had some crazy notion that you might find your way home. We couldn’t live with it, but we couldn’t quite move past it, either. She blamed herself. She blamed herself and tortured herself with your memory almost every single day.” He clears his throat and then slowly exhales. “Anyways. When we found out you were coming home.” He cuts his eyes to me and shakes his head. “It was unreal, and we didn’t believe it.”

  He’s quiet and in deep thought. I don’t know if I should respond to what he’s telling me. When I think we’re finished with our talk and going to the house, he makes another left turn.

  “Then, there you were at our front door. But you weren’t our baby anymore. I guess a little part of me almost wished they would’ve showed up with you just how you were. Like we would pick up right where we’d left off. I got a call while at work that my baby girl had been kidnapped. Then, I get the call while at work that my teenage daughter had been discovered and was returning home.”

  “Seems things are always happening when you’re at work?” I offer him a tight smile.

  He nods in agreement. “You’re a young lady now, practically an adult.”

  He makes another turn leading away from the house. He clears his throat again and quickly wipes at his eyes and nose. “She lost all that time with you. We lost all that time. We missed so many firsts with you and were not able to mold you and help you grow. That hurts. What hurts more is that she got to. She got to experience what was supposed to be ours—our moments. Your mother is jealous that another woman got to experience everything, and that same woman also got to experience your love.”

  He doesn’t turn again but pulls into the driveway. He puts the truck in park but doesn’t turn the key. He looks broken as his head hangs low. “We all love you. She loves you. I think she was expecting you two to immediately form a mother/daughter relationship. None of us know…we don’t know what to do or how to make this right. I’m sorry for…everything.”

  He turns the truck off, opens his door, and climbs out. I sit there and try to make sense of everything.

  The house is dark and quiet as I make my way to my room. I find Landon sitting outside my door.

  “I wanted to make sure you were…well, I know you’re not alright. Want to talk about it?” he asks.

  I shake my head. He stands and follows me into my room. I flop onto my bed and hug my pillow. I feel the bed sink beside me as Landon wraps his arms around me. I don’t know how long Landon stays, but I know he’s still holding me when I fall asleep.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I GO down for breakfast, and everyone acts as if nothing happened. I decide to go with it. There’s no point in arguing or bringing it up. It’ll only make things more awkward.

  I’m about to walk out the door for school when Melissa gently takes my arm. “I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes plead for my forgiveness. Even though I haven’t forgiven her, I give her a half-hearted hug before walking out.

  As soon as I find Noah, I rush to him and squeeze him as tight as possible. I’m about to start crying again. “Can we find somewhere private to talk?”

  He nods his head and leads me to his truck. I’m surprised when he starts the engine. “Hey! We have class in fifteen minutes. Where are we going to go?”

  He looks me up and down. “You said more private. Plus, you seem like you need the day off.”

  I hesitate before finally relaxing into my seat. He waits until we’re at the edge of town before asking me what I wanted to tell him. I begin telling him everything. I watch his facial expressions as I recall the horrible incident with the journal.

  We reach the next town, and he pulls into the parking lot of Aunt Becky’s Kitchen. He doesn’t turn the truck off until I finish speaking.

  He lets out a heavy sigh. “I-,” he lets out another sigh, “Shit, I don’t know Liv. This would seem less awkward if I called you Sarah. Olivia was my cousin, so I’d much rather you be Sarah Randall. I don’t agree with what she did, but I understand. She’s hurt, bitter, jealous, and… I mean, in her mind, you love the woman that hurt her more than anyone. You don’t see it that way because in your mind, a loving woman raised you. Cindy is two completely different people to you both.”

  He explains it better than anyone else has so far.

  “Who was Cindy to you, Noah?”

  “Honestly, nobody. I didn’t know her that well. Yeah, she’d send gifts on birthdays and holidays. It’s not like I miss her. That sounds terrible, but I just knew of her. Like you. I met you a handful of times, but you were someone that I knew existed and was out there. She kept her guard up around herself and you. Mom sent photos of me all the time, but Cindy only sent a couple photos of you. She didn’t want us to be close. Now we know why.”

  He takes my hand in his. “You don’t have to stop loving her to love Melissa. You’re not betraying her by accepting Melissa. Honestly, from what it sounds like, I think she’d want you to have Melissa as your mom. She’d want you to be happy and loved.”

  “I just think Melissa could’ve went about last night-”

  “Dude. She just read some sick stuff. I mean, put yourself in her shoes. She read about how a stranger stalked her and planned the abduction of her daughter. I kind of want a drink myself after hearing about that. Give the woman a break.”

  Despite myself, I laugh a little. He’s right. That had to have been horrible to read from the mother’s perspective. My life is so messed up.

  “This is heavy stuff for an empty stomach. Well, I didn’t eat anyways.” He shrugs and gestures toward the restaurant.

  I smile and nod that I’m ready to go in. “There’s always room for blueberry pancakes.”

  We get out of the truck and enjoy a delicious breakfast with no more heavy talk. I look around the small diner and ask Noah if he knows which one
is Aunt Becky. He laughs and looks around. He points to a middle-aged lady behind the register. “That’s Aunt Becky’s grand-daughter. Aunt Becky passed away about ten years ago. Mom talked a lot about her. Apparently, we went to the funeral, but I was a little kid, so.” He shrugs then continues, “She left this place to her daughter and niece. Their families now manage it. Funny, Aunt Becky had only one daughter and so did her sister; now their daughters each only have one daughter. Seems like they only have girls in that family.”

  I take another bite of my pancake. “The food is amazing.”

  He nods in agreement before putting a fork full of fluffy scrambled eggs in his mouth. “That’s why we’re here.”

  After we eat breakfast, Noah suggests we go hang out at the mall. We rent the motorized animal scooters for kids. I get the panda, and Noah chooses the tiger. We crack up as we zig zag at a snail’s pace through the mall. There aren’t a lot of people since the stores are just now opening so we have the halls to ourselves, allowing plenty of space for us to spin around and play bumper cars with our “set of wheels.” I keep laughing every time I look at Noah’s long legs bunched up trying to fit on the tiger.

  Between fits of giggles, I get out, “It’s going to break! Any minute now one of those little wheels are going to go rolling down the aisle.”

  He tries to appear offended, but the twinkle in his eyes conveys otherwise.

  I shake my head at him. “There’s no way you’re comfortable.”

  We finally tire of the mall and decide to catch a movie. When Noah orders a combo with two drinks and large popcorn, I lean in and whisper, “Are you going to let me stick my hand down…” I make it a point to look down and back up to his eyes, smiling mischievously.

  He coughs a laugh as he takes the popcorn from the gentleman at the concession stand. He raises an eyebrow at me as we’re walking toward the theater room. “Down?”