Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 166(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
“Whatever Maddox said, I don’t want to hear it.” She rubbed her brow, her dark hair shrouding her face like a curtain. “Did he tell you I was barely fifteen the first time he asked me to take my clothes off for his stupid camera? No, I suppose he would’ve left that part out.”
My mother began to pace, scuffing her boots with each sharp turn. She appeared to be deep in thought, like she’d fallen down a rabbit hole inside herself.
The next time she spoke, it was like a levee had burst, and the only way out was through her mouth. “We were broken people, Henry and me. Maddox took advantage of that. He had his own twisted ideas about morality that have no foothold in the real world. Right and wrong were subjective concepts as far as he was concerned.” She took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “I couldn’t raise a child around that, so when I got pregnant, I decided it was time to leave. Henry wanted to come with me, and I let him, on the condition that he wouldn’t tell Maddox where we were going or that I was carrying his child.”
My heart plummeted twelve stories.
“Are you saying…Maddox is my real father?”
“God, no. This was before you were born.” She ate the last of the granola bar and crumpled the wrapper into a ball which she kept curled in her fist. “Ultimately, we decided to give the child up for adoption. Henry and I weren’t ready to be parents. We were one paycheck away from homelessness and still very much children ourselves. I wanted to give that boy a fighting chance at a normal life, so I let him go.”
That boy… Maddox’s son.
“My brother.” The word tasted strange in my mouth, yet sweet and fresh all the same. “Do you know where he is?”
She closed her eyes. “He reached out to me a few years ago. I never responded.”
“Does Maddox know he tried to contact you?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea if he’s spoken to Maddox. He would’ve had to have gone through Henry, since it’s his name on the adoption records. Frankly, I’m surprised Henry and Maddox are even on speaking terms. But then, I suppose their mutual hatred of me gave them something to reconcile over. In their minds, I’ve stolen a child from each of them. But parenting is about more than just being there in person. It's about making impossible decisions, even when it breaks your heart.”
My own heart cracked down the center for this boy—now a young man—snubbed by his birth mother and presumably still in the dark regarding his birth father, not that I had much faith in Maddox as a person, let alone a parent. Regardless of whether my mother had made the right decision for her son back then, this more recent rejection of my surprise sibling hit far too close to home.
“What’s his name?”
“You don’t need to know that,” she said.
“Of course I do, he’s my brother.”
“No, Paige. He’s a part of my past and that’s where he belongs. You act like I’ve done you an enormous disservice. Every decision I have made was for your protection. I banished my oldest and dearest friend to keep you safe. I’m not asking for gratitude, but could you at least respect my sacrifice?”
“You forced my dad out of my life based on a hunch. I’m sorry for what happened to you. Really, I am. But it sounds to me like he made the bigger sacrifice.”
“Oh, yes. Becoming a single parent overnight was a real walk in the park for me. Meanwhile, Henry walked away from you to save his own skin.”
“Because you threatened to use his own art against him.”
She pinched the spot between her closed eyes. “Can’t you see that Henry is just using you to punish me? That painting is a slap in the face. My face.”
I scoffed. How typical that she would try to make his painting of me about them, as if our relationship were merely an offshoot of something they’d started. “You weren’t even supposed to see it.”
“Paige, wake up. Of course I’m supposed to see it. Everyone is going to see it! Shining a light on things that should be kept private is what Henry does.”
I needed to stand, to remind myself that I wasn’t as trapped as I felt and that I still had a choice. To believe her or not. To remain here or not. Though, after what my father said earlier about me living on campus, it was possible he’d already made that decision for me.
“You won’t understand,” my mother said. “Not until you have children of your own. Not until you have to look into the face of the man you love and wonder if he’s really a monster.”