Once I had my new identity in my hands, I felt a great sense of relief. I’d applied and been accepted to a university in the US, and with proof of my name change, the transition had been easy. The monster had helped me out somewhat in being able to afford the move. Not wanting others to see her for what she is, she has been generous over the years, always making sure I had spending money like the other girls in the convent turned boarding school she’d shipped me off to.
Though it was never as much as the others and nowhere near what my father’s estate could afford, it was enough for me to squirrel some away once I became old enough to understand what I needed to do. So, from the age of fourteen to eighteen, I’d been saving at least five hundred dollars a month, which was almost all the money she allowed me for my allowance.
I’d gone without anything but the bare necessities, and if anyone noticed anything, they never mentioned it. It helped that my mother the monster never visited and never cared to or showed much interest in how I was doing there. I learned early on who her spies were from the things she’d mention when she called to scold me which is the only time she’d call and knew how to comport myself in their presence so as not to give myself away.
I felt a shiver run down my spine and forced myself not to go too far down memory lane. There’s no use in letting my mind wander to the atrocities I endured because of her neglect and obvious disinterest; those days are long gone. I’d had a few blissful years without her, without the dark shadow of her existence hanging over my head, until she found me.
I bit into my nails as I paced back and forth in worry. Calen had been softening towards me last night, and sans the anal sex thing, which if I’m honest, I had enjoyed more than I had at any other time when we did it before, I was starting to believe that he might be willing to be less acidic towards me. There was no way that I could stay, but maybe we could work something out where we could both be in our son’s life.
If I were a good mother, I’d let him have our son, get him out of the line of fire, but my mind simply balks each time I think of it. And now, since seeing Calen again, I don’t know if I’d find the strength to walk away again.
Sometimes, like now, I’m mad at myself, at how weak I am in the face of someone like the monster and people like Dana. But maybe she’s right; maybe Calen and our son would be better off without me in their lives. It’s just so hard to face losing a second time around.
If only there were a way to escape my mother as I’d so bravely done in the past. But back then, I had only myself to think about. Now there’s Calen and my son. If only I could tell him the truth, what would he do? No, I can’t forget the threats the monster made against my son and the deal we made. She’d leave Calen alone let our baby live, only if I stay away from him. I dropped to the floor as my knees gave out at the hopelessness of it all.
* * *
CALEN
* * *
I had to take a few seconds to calm myself down after sending my woman and son from the room. This is the last thing I expected when I walked through the door, but many things were starting to make sense in the last few minutes. The woman standing before me has been a friend for longer than I’d been married. She’s someone I’d trusted, someone I’d turned to in my darkest hour, but now I see that it was all a mistake on my end.
I vaguely remember Giselle bringing up the question of whether or not Dana had feelings for me once; I remember that I’d brushed her off, telling her that there was no way. Now I see that my wife had seen something that I hadn’t. I had to push that all aside for now, though, and stay focused on the here and now. I could see it in her now that I was looking, the way she was trying to read me, the way she was gearing herself up to lie.
But I wasn’t interested in anything she had to say. I had only one question; there was only one thing I wanted to know, so when she started talking, I cut her off. “Calen, I…”
“When did you learn about her mother?” It was a long shot, but after overhearing what I just did, I went with my gut.
“I didn’t…”
“Don’t lie to me. I’ve known you for fourteen years, I know you as well as I know myself, now when?”
She fidgeted around and looked everywhere but at me, a sure indication that she didn’t want to face me, didn’t want to admit to what I was asking. “If you don’t want to lose my friendship, you’ll answer me, and before you do, know that any form of deceit will be grounds for severing all ties.” I knew that would get her.
“You can’t be…” I started to walk away, and she grabbed onto my arm, which I pulled away, disgusted with her and the whole sordid situation.
“Please don’t, don’t walk away from me Calen, I couldn’t bear that.” How had I missed that look of hunger in her eyes all these years? She wasn’t hiding it very well now and it was all there for me to see. I felt sick.
“Then start talking.” I couldn’t bear to look at her any longer, so I walked to the nearest window to look out over the grounds, giving myself time to regroup. It was a lot to take in all at once, not only her true feelings for me, but the fact that she’d threatened my wife and son. I’d brought this into my home, around my family. I had to close my eyes and call on all the good that was left in me, which arguably isn’t a lot so as not to attack. I need to hear everything she has to say first.
“I didn’t know about her at first. Your ex and I were never that close, didn’t have anything in common, so there was never any reason for us to discuss such things as family. But then you stopped spending any time with the rest of us, so I decided that to stay close to you, I’d have to form some type of relationship with her.”
I wonder if she realized how she sneered when she mentioned my wife. Why had I never seen this contempt before? How had she kept it so well hidden? Did our other friends know about this? No, I refuse to believe that. Surely someone would’ve warned me at some point over the years.
She was the only female member of our very close knit group of friends who’d met on campus all those years ago and formed a bond that has lasted until this day. Someone I trusted without a doubt and thought I knew. Now her words were those of a stranger, each one making me sicker to my gut as the ramifications hit home.
“ I started pretending an interest in her, but she was always so standoffish, always acted like she was somehow better than me. I was your best friend, someone who knew you better than she did and yet she acted as if she needed to keep me at arm’s length, as if she were closer to you.”
Maybe because she was my wife, and in fact was closer to me than you or anyone else? I didn’t say that out loud as I’m sure it would’ve put an end to her confession, but I couldn’t resist a dig. “Maybe she sensed that you weren’t sincere. Did you ever think about that?”
I was barely holding onto my calm, so I kept my hands in my pockets so as not to strangle her ass. I needed to hear all that she’d done, all that I’d missed, so I bit back my anger and waited for her to go on.
“You’re mad at me now, but I was only doing what was best for you.” As if you’d know what that is.
“Tell me about her mom; how did you find out about her?” It felt surreal having this conversation with her after the one I’d had with Gordon. It’s one of the things I’d left his house wondering about, how had her mother found her? I was almost certain after my conversation with the other man that that’s exactly what had happened. Who knew I was going to find the answers this soon?
“Like I said, I didn’t know about her in the beginning when you two got married. It’s just... one day, I suddenly realized that every time the subject of mothers or family came up in conversation, she’d get this weird look on her face and lose some of the starch in her back.”
“The more she did that, the more I realized there was something there, so I kept digging and digging on my own until I found out the truth. She went to a lot of trouble to hide her real name, but I found it. It just took finding some of her friends from the past who were only too happy
to spill what they knew for a few bucks here and there.”
“I didn’t even have to find the whole truth; as soon as I found her mom, she did the rest. I still don’t know who she really is, and neither do you. Did you know she’s changed her name? I’m not sure what her real name is, but I know that Sievers is not the name she was born with.” She rambled on for a bit before turning her attention back to me.
“How did you find out? Her mother promised to make it so that she’d never come back into our lives. She said she knew how to keep her away from you. She promised.” It was then I realized that the woman I’d called a friend for all these years was nuts.
Calen
I just stared at her, reminding myself that my son needed me, that the woman I never stopped seeing as my wife needed me. I’d realized while talking to Gordon earlier that that’s where most of my anger stemmed from, the fact that I never stopped seeing Giselle as mine while she’d found it so easy to just move on with her life.
I used to fool myself into thinking that it was because there was no closure. That I was this angry because she never said a word to me about wanting to leave and, worse, never gave me a chance to fight for us. She was literally here one day and gone the next without explanation. I never got the chance to do anything to hold on to what’s mine.
When I took my vows, I meant for them to last forever. I never would’ve married her otherwise. She was meant to be the one and only Mrs. Calen Addison, the fourth. The divorce papers meant nothing, were no barrier against what I hold dear. The fact that once I put my ring on Giselle’s finger, she was mine and only mine, forever.
I’d spent the past two years being angry at her for walking out on our forever, blaming her for a betrayal that was never her fault. And now that I know the truth, the thought of what she’d been put through right under my nose makes me sick to my stomach. Obviously, we’re going to have to have a talk about trusting her man to protect her from all and sundry, to fight all of her demons for her, including her bitch of a mother.
I have no doubt because of what I’d learned from Gordon that it was her mother who’d sent her scurrying into hiding, and now I know how she’d found her. It hadn’t been hard to fit some of the pieces of the puzzle together once I got a little bit of her history from the older man who was very forthcoming, but there had still been a lot missing.
I’d already figured out that she’d changed her name somehow between the time she’d left the boarding school and when we met and that she’d done it to escape her mother. There didn’t seem to be any other reason for it. She’d been living under her new name for a good five years before we met, so how had her mother found her? That was the one niggling question left on my mind; now I know the answer.
The self-recrimination I’d felt on the way back home after learning all that I had in the last few hours was enough to make me hate myself, especially when I recall my anger at her after the hell she’d most likely been through. As of right now, that anger has been redirected, and now it burns even brighter than before.
I’m going to incinerate down to the ground everyone who had a hand in tampering with my wife and bringing about the destruction of my marriage. Everyone who played a part in robbing me of the first year of my son’s life. I won’t forgive anyone, no matter who or what past association we might share. I’m not sure how Dana convinced herself that I would choose her over my wife and kid. I never gave her the slightest indication that I saw her as anything more than the friend she once was.
I listened to her nonsensical spouting, wondering how the fuck I’d missed the fact that she’s out of her fucking mind. With each word, she came closer and closer to never making it off the estate alive. And when I recalled how she’d been there at my side after Giselle left, offering me comfort and a shoulder to lean on, I imagined snapping her neck like a twig.
I did a very good job of hiding my inner thoughts as I listened and heard what she really thought of my wife for the first time. I was putting together her words with what I’d learned from Gordon and came to realize that she didn’t know much about Ann Winthrop. She only knew that the woman posed a threat to my wife and went with it.
I want to go scorched earth, I want to leave a path of destruction in my wake, starting with this thing standing in front of me, but I keep reminding myself that my family needs me. And besides, I need to know all of it before I make a move. So I can’t throw her ignorant ass out the window, which for all that it was on the first floor was still a good ten feet up from the marble terrace down below.
So I kept my calm and turned back to face her finally. “So, you, under the guise of friendship, found her mother, and what? How did you know they were estranged, or that the mother would do what she did?” I couldn’t bear to look at her, so I kept my gaze trained somewhere above her head.
“It was obvious, wasn’t it? I mean, why else would she go to such lengths to keep her out of her life? Someone like her should’ve been announcing to the world that she was marrying someone like you, but instead, no one but that stupid friend of hers from college was here for the wedding and no one ever saw or heard anything about her family.”
“That still doesn’t answer why you went looking for her mother or how you knew that what transpired would be the end result.”
“Like I said, it was easy to read between the lines. I wasn’t sure who Ann Winthrop was, or what she was about, but I knew that her daughter had a very healthy fear and dislike of her.”
“I figured at the very least if you saw that and maybe met the mother that your infatuation with her would change. You always seemed to have her on a pedestal, like you thought she was above everyone else. I never expected things to work out as well as they did.”
For a second, she seemed to forget that I was in the room and the sickening smile on her face was almost too much for me to handle. “If I’d known she would turn out to be such a threat, I would’ve gotten rid of her sooner.” She turned those eyes of near insanity on me again, but I couldn’t find any pity for her. It was obvious, at least now it was, that she’d gone off the deep end. Or maybe she’d always been like this, and I just never noticed.
“Why did you have to work so hard on changing her, building her confidence? Why couldn’t you have left her as she was? That insipid fool who barely spoke above a whisper? I knew you could never spend the rest of your life with someone like that, not to mention the fact that she’s poor.” She turned up her nose as if being poor was an offense.
“She’s not poor; in fact, she can buy and sell you twice over and still be a millionaire.”
“What’re you talking about?” I saw the first crack in her armor. Since she puts so much stock in wealth and family standings, I wasn’t surprised.
“Do you know who her father is? Sterling Winthrop, the famous architect.” I dropped the name and watched her blanch. “How did you find Ann Winthrop without learning that?”
“I don’t… you’re lying, she can’t be.” Watching her crumble at the fact that Giselle had a wealthier pedigree than her was satisfying but not satisfying enough. I want to make her bleed. It took everything in me not to put hands on her, but I knew of better ways to make her pay for what she did. I started to speak when I saw movement in the doorway and turned, thinking it was Giselle.
My heart dropped at the thought that she’d overheard all of the nasty things Dana had said about her. I never want her to face such ugliness again. But it wasn’t her who stepped into the doorway and walked across the room to stand in front of Dana before slapping her hard across the face. “Mom!” She lifted her other hand to smack the other cheek, and the sound reverberated around the room.
I took a step forward to get between the two of them. “Stay where you are. Someone needs to do this, and you’re not going to do it because of some archaic nonsense about hitting a woman, and my daughter is too much of a gentle soul to take out this trash.” She moved in even closer on a stunned Dana until there was barely a hair’s breadth between th
em.
“You are the reason I missed the first year of my grandson’s life. You are the reason my son almost lost his wife.” She poked her in the chest with each word, it seemed, making Dana take a step backward with each attack, which was no use since mom kept coming at her. “I want you out of this house; you’re not to go back to work, you’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me; I work for…”
“Calen?” Mom just said, my name.
“You’re fired,” I answered. What else was there for me to do? Mom was right; as much as I want to throttle Dana, I wouldn’t put hands on a female. Seeing mom tearing into her was very satisfying, though.
“There, you’re fired, you’re also no longer needed on the charity committee, that’s a place for my daughter. Is she connected to anything else with our name on it, Calen?”
“Uh, no, I don’t think so.”
“Good, we’ll keep looking, and if anything else pops up, we’ll take care of it. Now get out of here and forget you two ever knew each other.”
Dana looked at me as if expecting me to go against the tyrant, but I just shrugged my shoulders. “You got off easy. I’d have done a hell of a lot more.” And still plan to, but she doesn’t need to know that.
“Calen, how can you throw away our years of friendship? How can you choose her over me?” There were genuine tears in her eyes, and I admit I did feel a slight pang of pity because there was obviously something wrong with her wiring. Mom didn’t have that sympathy gene; it looked like.
“Is this a leftover from all the drugs you did in college, or the harder ones you’re doing now? He’s been around you for fourteen years and never even looked at you in that way; get a grip.”
“Drugs? What drugs?” I looked between the two of them at sea.
“She snorted her way through college, among other things. If you look between her toes, you will find the needle tracks, I bet.”
Dare To Love Again Page 12
