Man of Honor (Battle Scars) (19 page)

A
s I’m sitting in the hospital waiting room in Georgia, something feels wrong. Missing.

I’ve been in contact with Ms. Ebbie’s daughter in Texas. She is arranging care for her children and will be on a flight as soon as she can. Until then, I’m here for the old lady as long as she needs me. She’s been awake, but the doctors are still running tests on her condition.

As soon as her daughter arrives and I know she’ll be okay, I can go back to the girl I’m in love with.

In love with.

It’s the fucking truth. I love her. With everything in me. I’d put myself between her and anything that might be coming for her. And that’s how I know. Risking my life for someone? That’s love.

And I’d do it for Mea without thinking twice.

“Mr. Sullivan?”

I stand when a doctor in a white coat enters the waiting area.

“Yeah.”

The doctor consults his clipboard. “You aren’t Ms. Ebbie’s emergency contact.”

Clearing my throat, I nod. “Yeah. I know. I’m just here until her daughter can make it. But I know Ms. Ebbie very well.”

The doctor nods. “Well, her condition is stable, but we would like to let her rest for now. Her daughter will be able to see her when she arrives.”

I let out a relieved breath. “Good. That’s good. Thanks for letting me know.”

The doctor exits, and I decide to head for the house. Maybe I can do something useful, like grab some pajamas for Ms. Ebbie or something.

Ms. Ebbie lives next door to my mom’s house. Climbing out of the Challenger in the driveway, I stare at the small, one-story home where I spent my childhood. There are no good memories here.

And yet I’m pulled toward it without even planning to go in.

Sighing, I walk up the drive. Letting myself into the house, I note that it’s empty. The moving company packed everything up and placed it in storage. At some point, I’m going to have to dump it or sell it. I’m just not ready to decide either way right now. I stand just inside the front door, looking around as memories bombard me from all sides.

I close my eyes, remembering. Ms. Ebbie would try her damnedest to make sure I knew I was loved when my mother was unable to do it. She would hug me, she would tell me she was proud of me when I got all the answers correct on my homework. She would try to shield me from the full brunt of the effects of my mother’s drinking.

Walking over to the pile of boxes, I notice one is set aside.

Shaking my head, I mutter, “Thanks, Ms. Ebbie.”

The box doesn’t look familiar to me.

But then again, I didn’t have time growing up to go searching for clues to my heritage between cleaning up vomit and keeping my head above water.

I take a deep breath. And then I pull off the lid of the box.

Right on top is the photo Ms. Ebbie called me about. I pick it up, feeling the old photograph in my hands. It’s definitely my mother. Long, dark hair. She was beautiful when she wasn’t carrying lines from years of alcohol abuse. Her dark eyes are crinkled at the corners. Happy. She’s staring down at her swollen stomach, her hands lovingly caressing the bump.

Me. That bump is me.

I’m blown away by how happy she looks. And Ms. Ebbie is right. The man standing beside her, with one large hand covering hers, isn’t the man my mother always spoke about as being my father. She had a photo of Timothy Sullivan stuffed inside her nightstand. Sometimes she’d pull it out and curse his name for leaving us.

Flipping the picture over, I run my thumb across the scrawling writing.

Me and Richard.

The picture is dated a few months before I was born.

This guy…he
looks
like me. Same eye color. Same big build.

I riffle through the box, searching for the DNA test that Ms. Ebbie mentioned. I find the envelope with the return address from a lab and pull out the document inside.

Scanning it quickly, I come to the same conclusion that Ms. Ebbie did. My mother requested this DNA test. She submitted three DNA samples: one from Timothy Sullivan, the man I thought was my father; one from another male, who I’m assuming is this Richard from the photo; and one from me. The test is 99 percent conclusive. The DNA from the man I thought was my father is not a match for mine.

Richard is my father.

So many thoughts chase one another through my head at that moment. Who is this Richard? Why wasn’t he ever in my life? It seems apparent that the man who was married to my mother at the time likely found out that I wasn’t his son. So he bailed. And Richard must have known. This picture with my mother proves it.

And in this picture, they appear to be so in love. Their hands are together, over her stomach. It looks like they both loved
me.

What the hell happened?

I need more answers. So I grab the box and head for the hospital.

When I arrive, I ask at the nurse’s station for the room where they’ve placed Ms. Ebbie. And I tell them I’m her son.

Because now isn’t the time for technicalities, and they’ll still only let immediate family see her.

Pushing open her door, I see she’s still, lying under the blankets. She looks small, frail, something Ms. Ebbie’s never been.

Her head turns toward me as I pull a chair beside the bed.

I reach for her wrinkled hand and clutch it.

“You look good, Drake.” She coughs.

Her words are slightly slurred, the wrinkled skin on one side of her face drooping slightly.

“Thanks. There’s a girl back in Lone Sands who has something to do with that.”

Ms. Ebbie beams up at me. “I’m glad to hear it, boy. A good man like you needs a good woman in his life. Now, tell me what was in the envelope in that box.”

I arch one eyebrow. “How’d you know I opened the box?”

She pshaws. “Can see the confusion all over your face.”

“What am I supposed to do now, Ms. Ebbie?” I’m practically begging her to solve this problem for me.

“There was some talk, years ago.” Ms. Ebbie coughs again. “There was a woman who was close with your mother while she was pregnant. They’d been friends since grade school. But after your ma fell apart, this girl felt she had to step away. I think if you go see her, she’ll have a story to tell ya.”

I glance up. “What’s her name?”

“Sheridan. Sandy Sheridan. And she lives over on Oak.”

The turquoise blue front door creaks open. A slight, mocha-skinned woman stares out at me. Her long black hair is swept up into a ponytail, and impossibly dark eyes stare out at me.

“Can I help you?” She leans against the jamb. Her hand grips the edge of the door, ready to slam it shut against the towering, muscled, tattooed stranger standing on her doorstep.

“Ms. Sheridan? Sandy Sheridan?” I try to keep my tone gentle so I don’t scare her.

Her eyes narrow anyway. Taking a step back, she prepares to close her door. “Do I know you?”

Shaking my head, I try to appear as unintimidating as possible. I lower my voice, adopting a gentler tone. But I can’t hide my gruffness. It’s a part of me. “My name is Drake Sullivan. Miranda Sullivan was my mother, and Ms. Ebbie told me you used to know her.”

Her eyes widen, and she glances behind me. Her house is on the very edge of town, explaining why I never ran into her. She’s completely unfamiliar to me.

Stepping back from the door, she gestures inside the house. “Come in.”

She leads me into a casual sitting room just off the foyer. A striped sofa takes up much of one wall.

“Please,” she says without a smile. “Have a seat, Drake.”

I do, folding my hands in my lap and scanning the room.

Sandy sits down across from me, in an adjacent armchair. She mimics my posture, leaning forward. She searches my face. When recognition washes over her features, I sit up straighter.

“You have her eyes, you know? They used to be alert and clear, seeing everything. Just the way yours are now.” Sandy’s voice is full of the memories showing up as moving pictures inside her head. She loved my mom, at least at one time. It’s there in her eyes.

“You knew her well?” I try to keep the ball of emotion at bay, but damn this is hard. I’ve buried feelings about my mother for so many years that now they’re rushing to the surface, tiny air bubbles of emotions that I can’t ignore.

Sandy tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “We were best friends in high school. Before that, even. Can you tell me why you’re here? Is there something you want to know?”

I allow the silence to stretch between us before I run both hands over my face. Sighing, I nod. “Yeah. My mom kept this photo in a box in her closet. It’s her when she was pregnant with me. But it’s not Timothy Sullivan, who I thought was my father, in the picture with her. Do you have any idea who that man could have been?”

Her expression doesn’t change, and I know she was expecting the question. She’s not surprised by it, nor does she have to sift through her memory to find the answer. She holds up one finger, leaving the room. I stand up and begin to pace. My body can’t stay still; it’s full of nervous energy that forces me to move. When Sandy returns, she startles when she finds me prowling her living room like a caged panther.

Moving back to my seat, I incline my head toward the large book in her arms. “What’s that?”

Taking a seat beside me on the couch this time, she smooths a hand over the front of the burgundy book. “It’s our high school yearbook.” She opens to an earmarked page full of smiling faces. Senior portraits. She points toward the picture of my mother. Glancing at it, my heart constricts. God, what must she have been like at this age? Full of life, full of hope? A different person from the broken woman who raised me. Her eyes were bright and shining, her smile beaming out from the page.

“She was beautiful, wasn’t she?” Sandy’s voice is sentimental. “Charmed every single person she came in contact with. But it was this year that she met Timmy. And he was bad news for her.”

I look sharply at her. “What do you mean?”

Sandy’s gaze is steady, intense. “I mean they started dating, and it was like he took possession of her. He wanted her all to himself, didn’t want to share her with anyone else. Not even me, her best friend. We tried to tell her that he was no good, but she didn’t want to listen. I think she saw something light underneath all his layers of grime, and she thought she could shine him up until he was brand-new again. But it wasn’t possible. Not with Timmy Sullivan.

“She married him right out of high school. He went to work at the tire plant, but he wouldn’t let her work. She was home all the time in their little trailer out by Route 11, and none of us knew what to do to help her. Her mother, your grandmother, tried to go over there one day and pack her bags. Timmy came home and kicked her out, told her he never wanted to see her on his property again.”

My jaw is clenching so hard my teeth are starting to ache. “Did he hit her?”

Sandy’s eyes fall downward. “I’m guessing he did. If he didn’t, he sure put the fear of God in her, and that was enough. I would call her, but she’d beg me to stay away.

“One Friday, Miranda called me. She said that Timmy was going to lay pipe for another company for the next week, and she just wanted me to take her out of there for a while. I was ready to get her as soon as he left, and she stayed with me. It was like old times…well, almost. She was still Miranda, but Timmy had dulled her shine. She was the same, and yet she wasn’t. One night we went over to Athens for a girls’ night out, and she met a man there. If she had only let Timmy go back in high school, she could have had a chance with this one. I knew from the moment they met that they were perfect for each other. He was going to college at UGA, and he was a real good guy. They exchanged numbers that night, but Miranda didn’t tell him she was married.”

My mind is swirling, a tangled mess of confusion. I’m trying to grab hold of this story, comprehend what it all means, but it’s so hard. I can’t imagine what my mom was like back then, stuck in a marriage to a bad dude like Timothy. A man she didn’t love. A man who hurt her, scared her, intimidated her.

And no one could help her.

The situation was like stacking kindling on a fire, slowly but surely. No matter what happened, as soon as someone lit a match, the whole damn thing was set to burn.

“What happened between them?” My voice is ragged, dry. I cough, trying to clear my throat.

Sandy notices. “Would you like some water?” Her tone is sympathetic. It must be showing all over my face what this story is doing to me.

Nodding, I try to give her a grateful smile. I think I fail.

When she returns with the water, she settles back onto the couch. Turning the yearbook to another page, she pulls out a photo of my mother and the man she met in Athens.

She hands the photo to me. I study it, marveling at how happy she looks. She’s riding him piggyback style, and her chin is resting on his shoulder as they both smile.

“I took that,” offers Sandy. “They were so happy. And I kept Miranda’s secret. I never told him what her real life was like back here.”

I must look bewildered, because she rushes on. “Timmy took a job with the company laying pipe permanently after that week. So he was gone for two weeks at a time. During those two weeks, Miranda would spend every second she could with Richard.”

I look up, startled. “Richard?”

She nods. “Richard. That was his name. And…as you can probably expect, Miranda got pregnant with Richard’s baby.”

I suck in a sharp breath.
Me. She got pregnant with me. Richard is my father. Where did it all go wrong? Why didn’t he try to help her? Why didn’t he stay with her?

Staring at the picture of my mother, I can only imagine what her life would have been like if she had left Timothy and stayed with Richard.

“Well, naturally, she couldn’t hide a pregnancy. She had to come clean to Richard about Timothy and her life here in Blythe. He felt lied to, cheated. And I guess in a way that was true. But Miranda’s heart belonged to him. He just couldn’t see it at the time.”

Rage fills me, and I suck in a deep breath so it doesn’t explode all over Sandy Sheridan’s living room. “He ditched her?”