Off Chance (40 page)

Yet, here I find a woman who has apparently been grieving over a supposedly dead daughter.

“You abandoned her though... all those years ago,” I accuse.

“Now wait a minute,” Peter says, stepping toward me.

“No, Peter,” Susan says, laying a restraining hand on his arm. “He’s right. I failed my daughter in many, many ways, and I’ll answer for it. I hope I can answer to Anne Marie. I hope she’ll let me beg her forgiveness.”

“It’s Rowan,” I snap.

Susan nods her head at me in cautious agreement. “Of course… Rowan.”

“Do you have any idea the damage you inflicted on her?”

Susan bows her head, sniffling. “I know I destroyed her.”

“Wrong! You damaged her, but you could never destroy someone as strong as her.”

She looks back up at me, taking a step forward to grab my hand.

“Please,” she begs. “Tell me everything about her. Give me something.”

I shouldn’t. I should walk out that door and let this woman suffer under her guilt. But there is something in her eyes that stops me. She looks like she has truly suffered, and damn if that doesn’t pull at my heart just a tiny bit.

The fact that she has Rowan’s gray eyes makes me hesitate.

“She’s wonderful,” I tell her. “She’s beautiful, smart, and kind. She’s a survivor and I love her very much.”

Susan’s smile lights up her face and she walks over to the kitchen table, gesturing for me to take a seat. “Tell me more,” she begs.

I sit down and I tell her everything.

I unlock my apartment door and step inside, quietly shutting it. I immediately see Rowan on the couch and she pops up quickly, looking at me with relief. Capone bounds off the couch and charges me. I take a moment to lean over and give him a hug.

Looking back up, I see Rowan’s eyes travel up and down my body, and well, shit... even as pissed at her as I still am, her look causes desire to sweep through me.

I push it back, because I have something else I need to do.

“You’re back,” she observes with relief.

I nod. I take a moment to look at her. She looks tired and pale, with dark circles under her eyes. She’s clearly not been sleeping. I want to take her in my arms and hold her, but I don’t know if she’d accept that.

I don’t know anything at all.

“Where have you been? I called Tim and he said you were out of town.”

Rubbing my hand along my neck, I nod. “Yeah... I took an impromptu trip.”

She cocks her head at me with inquisition.

“I went to Texas,” I tell her and watch her face blanch. “To see your parents.”

Rowan’s hand comes up to her throat and flutters there. She takes a step back and sits down on the couch heavily. “Are they... okay?”

“Your dad isn’t. He had a stroke and is in a nursing home.”

“You saw him?”

“Yeah. His mind is there... he understands everything. But he can’t talk that well.”

“Did he ask about me?” Her voice is small, and filled with a child’s hope that perhaps she is actually loved by that fucker.

“I’m sorry,” I say and understanding sweeps over her face.

She lets out a shaky breath. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected anything. I guess... I guess maybe I thought he’d grown... matured. Maybe had some regret.”

“I don’t think your dad is capable, Rowan. I’m sorry. But I made sure he knew exactly how badly you proved him wrong. He’ll go to his grave knowing he didn’t break you.”

She gives me a small smile, and then looks down at her hands clasped in her lap. “I guess that’s something.”

“I saw your mom, too.”

Her face snaps up but there is fear. She’s already been let down once by me, and I can see she’s expecting it again.

“She left your dad a few years ago. She’s remarried.”

Rowan doesn’t say anything and I can see she’s holding her breath, her bottom lip trembling. Her pain is so visceral I can taste bile in my throat.

“She looked for you. Starting the night you left. The police wouldn’t file a missing person’s report for at least forty-eight hours, but she made your dad pull some strings. She hired several private investigators but they all kept coming up with dead ends. She even checked in all states to see if you changed your name. But, of course, you didn’t do it legally so there was no paper trail.”

“She looked for me?”

“Yeah... apparently your dad didn’t want any part of it, and ultimately... that led to their split. She finally gave up about a year ago, when the last private investigator told her that you were probably dead.”

Rowan lets out a short sob and I take a step toward her but she holds her hand up to stop me. She turns her back on me and looks out the window, her shoulders hunched. “I can’t.”

My heart falls, and I wonder if this has all been for naught. Maybe Rowan doesn’t want to be any different than she is right now. Maybe she doesn’t need love in her life.

Regardless, it doesn’t change the fact that I’ve brought the past to her doorstep.

I turn and walk to the door. Opening it, I motion the couple inside. Susan and Peter Grantham step in, their hands so tightly locked together their knuckles are white.

“Anne Marie?” Susan says, her voice unsure.

Rowan spins fast and pins her mother with stormy, gray eyes. “It’s Rowan.”

Susan releases Peter’s hand and takes a tentative step toward her daughter. “I can’t believe you’re alive. I had hoped for so long... but then they told us you were probably gone... dead.”

Tears are streaming down Susan’s face and Peter steps up to put a hand on her shoulder.

“Why did you look for me?”

Susan is startled by the venom in Rowan’s voice. “Why wouldn’t I look for you? You’re my daughter.”

“But you did nothing,” Rowan says with deadly calm. “You stood by while my father told me to leave and never come back. You ignored me for years. So I ask again... why would you look for me? Surely you were better off without me.”

“Never,” Susan says vehemently. “You were the one good thing I made with my life. I was just too weak to see it. I was too weak to stand up to your father. And that is all on me. It’s not on him, and it’s not on you. It’s my failing. I failed you because a mother should always protect her child.”

My heart breaks for both women. Rowan stands there, so clearly wanting to believe she was actually loved by her mom. Susan is seeking absolution, a little something I know about personally.

“I’m so sorry, Rowan. For all the pain I caused you. I know I have no right to ask, but I need your forgiveness. Flynn told me how strong you are... despite what we did to you. I need your strength now. I need you to be strong enough to forgive me.”

Rowan sneaks a glance at me, tears glistening in her eyes. I don’t give her any indication of what I think she should do, because this is her decision alone. I hope to God she forgives her mother, because then maybe she can let go of the past.

But then she turns her back on all of us, crossing her arms across her chest. I see her shoulders are shaking and I die inside for her.

Susan puts her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob and Peter takes her arm. “Come on,” he says softly. “Let’s go.”

They both turn to the door but when it opens, Rowan blurts out, “Don’t go.”

Susan turns around, hope filling her eyes.

“Please stay,” Rowan says on the heels of a deep breath. “Let’s come into the kitchen and talk. I’ll make some coffee.”

Rowan walks past me into the kitchen, giving me a look that’s unreadable. Susan and Peter follow her in. I hear Susan say, “You know... we have a Bernese Mountain Dog, too.”

I’m relieved that Rowan will give her a chance to talk. I hope that something good will come of all of this.

Turning away, I walk out of the apartment. I have to be on shift in a few hours.

I wake up surprisingly refreshed after the emotional overload of last night. When Flynn had walked in that door, I had to restrain myself from jumping on him. He looked like my oasis in a hot desert and I was literally parched for him.

I had been doing a lot of thinking since he had been gone. I had done a lot of missing him as well, and maybe that’s why he left. To show me what I’d be missing.

I missed lying in bed with him at night and having him wrap his arms around with me. I missed his soft kisses and the way his eyes would heat up when he looked at me. I love the way he would swat my ass when I walked by and say, “Lookin’ good, baby”. I missed all those things so much and not one of those had a damn thing to do with friendship. They had to do with intimacy and I’ve apparently been an idiot to think those things were less important than the friendship aspect of our relationship.

I was prepared to tell Flynn all of those things and more, but he threw me for a loop when he walked back into my life and started talking about my parents.

There was a moment—just a split second—when he said he went to Texas that I despised him. Anger surged through me, white hot that he would dare to dredge up those painful memories. But it left just as quickly when I came to the complete and absolute realization that Flynn did it out of love for me. He did it as a way to let me confront my past.

I would like to say I was devastated over my father’s reaction, but I really couldn’t even muster up enough energy to care about him. The fact he lays broken and withering in a nursing home really doesn’t bother me at all. I wonder if that makes me a bad person, a numb person, or a realistic person.

When my mother walked through the door, I thought she was a ghost. I didn’t spare a glance at her new husband, but stared at the woman who birthed me and then threw me away. Anger surged again, and I wanted to claw her eyes out. But then, that faded quickly and hurt and confusion took its place.

I couldn’t believe the things she was saying. That she had failed me... that she was taking complete responsibility for everything that was done to me. She wouldn’t even let my father take the fall, because as a mother... she said it was her absolute duty to protect me.

It was only when she was getting ready to walk out that door that I let my heart make a split-second decision to let her back into my life. I certainly had no clue to what extent that would be, but I knew that for my own sanity and emotional well-being, I had to hear her out and I had to make peace with it.

She and Peter followed me into the kitchen and I waited for Flynn to come in. When he didn’t, I walked back out into the living room and he was gone. This made me sad, because I really wanted him by my side, but with everything I had done to him... with the way I had let him down, I deserved no less than to have him walk away.

My mom, Peter, and I talked until the early morning hours. I learned that my mother had an early love-hate relationship with my father. She loved him for the security and companionship he brought, but she hated the control that came with it. I believe her when she said that she sort of drank the Kool-Aid he offered to her, and she let her maternal instincts wither away to keep him happy.

I also believed her when she told me that her wake-up call came within hours of me leaving. She begged my father to call the police and go after me but he refused. She got in her car and drove the roads for hours, searching for me. Ironically, she even went to the bus station but I wasn’t there. I know I wasn’t there because I sat across the street in a diner until my bus was ready to leave.