Fighting to Stay (Fighting Madly Book 2) (27 page)

“When’s the last time you’ve checked on her?”

“Dad did, when I got serious with Sarah. I needed that behind me, no baggage to take with me into this one. Andrea’s drug use was at an all-time high.”

“After the funeral, when you knew she showed up, you didn’t look for her afterwards?”

Mark sighs and runs his hand over his chest, as if talking about this makes him hurt physically. “Yes. I did my research. But I only know where she lives. I didn’t dig too deep. I was wrapped up in Sarah and you. And it’s too much—she hurts everything she touches. You have to understand that.”

I reach for his hand. “I want the address. I need the answers. I can’t tell you how it feels, or this undying drive that’s willing me to get the answers. When I find it all out, I’ll have all the old demons out and be able to move forward.”

“If you don’t like what you find out, are you going into self-destructive mode? Because you can’t, Hadley. That son of yours deserves someone that doesn’t flake when things get tough.”

“No, I’ll walk back here and never look back. Same if I like what I find out.”

“I don’t like it, I don’t agree with it, and the whole mess is hurting Dad. Your relationship is fragile with him.”

And there it is. I knew, I
know
it’s going to be awful and difficult for my father. Yet I still need it, I have this place in my heart, inside my soul that needs things to be resolved. I don’t answer Mark, not a nod or a word. But he gets it. For the first time in my life, he understands me.

“How are you going to do it from a hospital bed?”

“It was a cyst, so I should be leaving later today. If Dr. Lewis gives me the okay I’m doing it. And I’ll get an ultrasound before I would ever leave. ”

“You would have gone to Gus, wouldn’t you?”

I squeeze his hand as my heart dances in my chest. “I went to you first. My family first. But yes, I would have. I gotta know what she was thinking and then I’m done. She wasn’t my mom just like you weren’t my dad. But I have your answers. I came to terms with them, and regardless how I feel about them, it was the best decision for me. Hers are still up in the air.”

Mark creases his forehead and runs his fingers through his hair. “You will get it then. But if she hurts you, remember, I warned you. This time, though, I’ll be there.”

I reach for the door only to bring my hand back, to reach for the handle again, yet I still bring it back again. I glance down at the folder in my lap and open the file for the hundredth time. I shouldn’t be feeling that this is the wrong step after getting the courage to find out. But as the doubt creeps into my bones, something feels off.

Fishy.

Wrong.

My knowledge is minimal about her. Andrea Markus married Joseph Markus in 2010. They had a four-year-old son together and she’s the stepmother to Joseph, twelve years old. Andrea stays at home while her husband is the gym teacher and football coach at the local private school.

Now, that’s a normal life, as cookie cutter as it seems.

Could be looks can be deceiving, but I don’t know.

Maybe that perfection is why I have my doubts.

This is the information I have at my disposal, literally at my fingertips. I’m sure my dad’s folder is full of details. He has all the vast knowledge on her in his office under lock and key, and every little dirty secret of hers is hidden there.

But he didn’t want to give me any of it. I had to pry this much out of his hands.

And now I sit three weeks after I got discharged in a smelly rental car, down the road from where she lives. A regular house in a regular neighborhood, in a regular city just outside of Columbus. It’s not a drug den that Mark made it seem like it would be, and not some rich, upper-class area that she lived in when she was younger, either.

A lady, probably Andrea, is on her knees in front of a flower bed, a wheelbarrel filled with dirt. Like she’s Suzy Homemaker herself, not some druggie, crazy lady my family made her seem like.

My phone vibrates in the cup holder and Reed’s name reflects back. I ignore it like I’ve ignored since he found out I’m not in Atlanta. I left a note for him on my pillow, but this was a short, be-back-tomorrow note. I didn’t tell him what I wanted to do, where I was going, or who I’d be searching for. I have to do this by myself. If I spoke to him, let him in on my plan, he would talk me out of it, or worse, be in the seat next to me. I have to prove this to myself, prove to my son, to others around that I’m strong enough.

After another call and text message come through, I power down my phone. I take a deep breath and open the car door. It’s now or never. Now is my chance to get answers.

My feet and legs move on their own as I walk down the sidewalk. The nerves ball into my stomach the closer I approach the house. With one deep inhale past my lump in my throat, I’m here, at her house. My tongue feels like Jell-O as I try to get words out of my mouth, to grab her attention. But I can’t move, can’t do anything but stare at the side of her face as she digs in the mud. We have the same nose and chin; her lips pulls up to the same side as she works, just like mine do.

It’s like looking at an older version of myself.

A dog barks across the yard from me and comes running my way. However I’m frozen. In fear, shock, sadness, plastered to the sidewalk while my emotions play havoc on me as she turns to see what grabbed her dog’s attention.

“Buster, stop that. Sorry, he gets a little crazy. Can I help— Hadley? Is…oh, God, they told me you didn’t… I mean.” Her gaze searches around the streets, never making any lasting contact with mine. “Why don’t you come inside, get you out of this heat?”

I clear my throat and nod, my knees slightly buckling as I will them to move with my upper body. My legs finally move and I’m a measly inch away from her as we cross the lawn, climb the stairs, and pass through the doorway of her house.

I freeze in the foyer as she disappears too fast for me to catch up. Pictures of a happy family stare back at me everywhere I turn. I clutch my purse over my chest as I realize she may have it all. The little house, with the perfect family. She may.

“Hadley, I got you some water. This heat wave came out of nowhere. I bet you feel like you’re in Atlanta now with all this humidity.” She looks me over, much calmer then she was only a few seconds ago. Andrea’s eyes trail down my whole body and back to my stomach. Her eyes widen when she sees my bump. “Oh, wow, well this is certainly a surprise. How far along?”

I drop my purse and my hands move over my belly as I rub my boy. “Just turned twenty-three weeks.”

“Is this with Reed Collins, that fighter?” The way she says fighter, like it’s a curse word, a dirty word, doesn’t sit right with me.

“Yes.” I twist the rings on my finger. Small talk has been my thing yet this is the tiniest talk you can get. And rubbing me wrong.

“Why don’t we go sit down in the living room?”

She sits in a chair by the window, crosses one leg over the other like she wasn’t just outside working in the yard, like I’m not the daughter she gave away. “You came a very long way, pregnant and all. Want to tell me why?”

I shake my head, clearing all the mindless thoughts out. “Okay… I found out that you—you know, that you and Mark, I mean…”

She takes a sip of her water, places it back on the coaster, and lays her hands in her lap prim and proper. “That I am your mother and Mark is your father? Yes, it’s true. They told you about my breakdown, too?” Andrea speaks the words like they mean nothing to me.

I offer a straightforward nod.

“And now that you’re pregnant, you want to know the hows or whys?”

Another nod and no words.

“Let’s see if I can set this straight for you. I was in love with Mark, crazy, head over heels. I think you only fall that deep once, and I did it with him. Your brother was a partier, heavy into things.”

My eyes bug out. “Mark, the straight-arrow Mark?” I’d never envisioned that, ever.

“Hadley, yes,
that
Mark. He was the bad boy in our school. Your parents and their money, their influence, made him untouchable. Everyone wanted him, but he picked me out of all the girls. I was the younger one in the front of the class, nose in my book. He was the older one, a football player, and he wanted me. We fell hard. And the good girl I was disappeared just as fast. Parties on the weekends, drinks and drugs flew around like crazy. You have to understand, we all had money to buy the best drugs, and our relationship was circled around getting drunk and using drugs.

“When I found out I was pregnant, he changed. Stopped all of it, and I did, too. For a while.” She pauses and looks off into the distance, her eyes far away from the here and now. Andrea exhales hard. “My father, he didn’t handle it well at all. Locked me away in the house to only let me leave for school. Hadley, you have to understand, my family made their money from the church, a huge mega-church, shows on national television, one that even my brother preaches now. Me, the fifteen-year-old pregnant, party girl wasn’t the perfect image a pastor wanted for a daughter. Your parents helped a little, trying to talk sense into them, but once I started showing they…” Her voice breaks off.

“You don’t have to go on if it’s too hard.”

“Thanks, but no. It needs to be said. My parents went crazy, talking about sending me off to a group home and adoption. I couldn’t. One night I went out and, Hadley, I don’t know what I was thinking, but I got high and everything after that unraveled. I had you early—too early—and my parents and your parents and even Mark, went behind my back, working your adoption out. I didn’t have an option. I wasn’t given any. After that I unraveled, fell down the hole. Drugs, too heavy drugs for years and years.

She pauses, her voice reaches for something as she speaks her truth. “Hadley, I gave you up, not because I didn’t want you. But I wasn’t in the right place, and when I became clean, I found you and you were ten. You seemed happy. I didn’t want to crash into your life. Your mother found me outside one of your school functions and I made a deal with her. When you were twenty-one, I was going to come back, not as your mother but as a friend of sorts, and build a relationship with you. But I relapsed and your mother found out and she threw the deal out, said if I came to you, the wrath of hell would follow me. I had no other choice but to not tell you. And at the funeral, I was engaged and wanted to see you one last time.”

My mother, my sweet wonderful real mother, hid things from my father and from my brothers for me. She knew I couldn’t handle more clutter in my life. She knew my plate was already too full. My mother, I would kill to hug her neck for sticking her nose in everything. She knew this lady wasn’t my version of the mother I needed.

“How did Mark tell you?” Andrea remained poised, very proper, not showing any real emotion, and now I see the lines in her perfect life, the life she drew out for herself, the life she built on unsteady ground.

“Mmm.” I clear my throat, my back arching as I sit up straighter. “He didn’t… I had some problems, and someone dug around and I found out that way.”

“Oh, well that’s not fun. So when’s the wedding?” Andrea glances down at my rings and a forced smile pulls on her mouth.

“No date set. No rush on anything.”

“Do you know what you’re having?” And the tiny talk just turned into miniscule talk.

“A boy.”

“A name yet?”

“No, no name yet, either. Listen, Andrea, is this awkward for you, too?”

“A little.” Her phone beeps and her brows shoot up and her mouth forms an O as she looks it over. “Listen, Hadley, I hate to cut this short, but my husband is on his way home. So I think it’s time for you to leave.”

“What?”

“He doesn’t know about you, and I had no plans to bring that old life into my new one. That’s why I told that private investigator about two years ago the truth. I don’t want my mistakes to tarnish my life now.”

Shock, yes this is shock. I wasn’t expecting a welcome mat to meet me, but to be a secret after the things she just said? I never thought it would happen. Never in my wildest dreams did I see this one coming. “Do you know who you told?”

This is how Bennett found out, because she’s written me off as a slip-up.

“I don’t remember the name, but he came in and told me if I didn’t tell him, he would ruin it all. I gave him all the things I had left of you and never heard from him again. But, Hadley, really, you need to get going. Why don’t you leave your phone number and I’ll call you later? We can go over more.”

She sold me out to keep this life.
Her
precious life meant more than me. I don’t know if Bennett came, but the timeline would be wrong. He was in jail with no bond, so he had to have paid someone to do this dirty work for him. But I don’t care about that. He’s dead and the secret is out. Never again to bother me. But
this
makes me feel dirty. Sleazy almost.

“You know what, Andrea? I’m good. You said what you wanted to say, and I got all the answers I need. Thank you so
very
much for that.” I stand up, surprised by the spring in my legs.

I walk out the door and I strain my head to keep my gaze looking forward as I leave, to not give it another minute or thought.

Not to give her another second of my time.

I mentally close the door on any hope for this relationship. Slam it, place the lock on it and anything Andrea-related again, will be blowing in the wind.

My son kicks, a real kick for the first time. And I know life’s too short to worry about things we cannot change, to ponder over a past that we can’t relive.

Goodbye to her.