Dylan's Redemption (23 page)

“Son? What’s wrong?”

Dylan turned partway and glared at his father, standing in the doorway with his mother. His mother stood rigid, back ramrod straight, hands clasped tightly in front of her. She could barely keep from turning away. Everything about her appeared defiant and guilty all at the same time.

“Nothing’s wrong. I was just looking at a picture of my daughter. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her.” Jessie gently slid the locket out of his grasp. She kissed the picture again before closing it with a distinct click. She tucked it down her hospital gown and stretched out in the bed on her side, ignoring everyone in the room. Including him.

He pulled the blanket around her. The dark circles under her eyes reminded him she wasn’t a hundred percent yet. In the last few minutes, she’d withered before his eyes, tired beyond anything a person should endure. The last few weeks had been rough on her. She masked it well, but right now, everything had finally caught up with her.

He cupped her cheek in his palm. “Rest, honey. I’ll get rid of them.”

“Do that.” She allowed him to take the lead when normally she’d have put her foot down and thrown his parents out herself. A take-charge person, it spoke volumes she was too tired to deal with his parents herself.

Dylan turned from Jessie and fixed his mother in his hard gaze. His father’s eyes narrowed when Dylan didn’t greet them with his usual smile. “Get out. I told you days ago you weren’t to come here again. Jessie needs her rest, and I don’t want to see you.”

Will ran to him, raising his arms to be picked up.

“Son, we need to talk,” his father said in that controlled tone he’d used to discipline Dylan when he was young. “Your mother told me what happened. In her attempt to protect you, I can see she’s hurt you. We need to find a way to work this out.”

Dylan pinned his father with his gaze. “It’s too late to work it out. Did she tell you what she did? Did she tell you my daughter is dead, and she kept her existence from me?”

“She told me Jessie contacted her many years ago, but never said she was pregnant with your child,” his father said, ever the diplomat.

Dylan couldn’t believe his father’s words. He took his mother’s side. On one level he understood. His father loved her, and they’d spent over thirty years together. That kind of loyalty was admirable, even expected. However, Dylan didn’t have to listen to him defend his mother’s lies.

“Stop right there. If you came here to defend her for the lies she told you and make it seem like Jessie was anything less than up-front and truthful, then leave now and don’t ever contact me again. If you take her side”—he pointed at his mother with an accusing finger—“or condone her behavior, we have nothing to discuss.”

“Dylan, you’re my son, and I don’t want to lose you. Don’t turn your back on us without even a discussion about what happened.”

“Let me tell you what happened.” He released Will into Greg’s outstretched arms. They sat at the end of Jessie’s bed. For his son’s sake, Dylan tried to hold on to his temper. “Jessie sent me an email after I left, asking to talk. Mom sent her a scathing response that basically told Jessie I didn’t want her, never cared about her, and never wanted to hear from her again. Jessie had no choice but to email
me
.” He used air quotes, because she’d actually been responding to his mother, thinking it was him. “She wrote that she was pregnant and even if I didn’t want her, I needed to know about my child. Mom sent her an email back, making it look like the email Jessie sent never got delivered and my email got shut down. Undeterred and determined to tell me about the baby, she called the house and got Mom. She was so rude and unbelievably callous to Jessie, telling her that it was Jessie’s fault I left because I wanted to get away from her, that Jessie had no choice but to believe those words came from me. Me. The man who got her pregnant and left her without a word of goodbye, so why wouldn’t she believe it.” Dylan turned his gaze on his mother. “You knew exactly what to say to get her to back off and never try to contact me again. This, after everything she’d been through with her father. Everyone suspected she was dead. You knew something bad must have happened to her, but you did nothing. You didn’t even ask if she was okay, did she need anything? Nothing. Not even a kind word. Hell, all you had to do is rattle off a few numbers for my cell.” He turned back to his father. “When I asked her about Jessie’s disappearance, she didn’t tell me Jessie called looking for me. She led me to believe the ugly rumors that Jessie was dead.”

He had to swallow hard. He’d grieved for Jessie, pined for her for years. Now, he grieved for his daughter.

The look on his father’s face told Dylan he’d heard this part of the story a little differently. More half truths and lies from his mother.

“Your mother didn’t believe the baby was yours. I have to say, I would have been skeptical myself.”

“Then, I’d expect you to ask me if it was possible. I’ll tell you, not only was it possible, it was the truth. Hope was mine. Jessie was fifteen and went through her pregnancy alone.” He felt Greg’s eyes on him and decided credit was due. “Well, not alone. She had two very good friends to help her out, but not the father of her child.

“I can’t imagine what she went through. Sixteen years old, lying in a bed about to give birth, hurting and scared, and thinking the father of her baby doesn’t want anything to do with her, that I’ve gone out of my way, shutting off my email and changing my cell number, so she can’t contact me.” He shook his head at his mother. “The more times I think about it, or discuss it . . . it makes my stomach turn and my heart bleed.”

He ran both hands through his hair in sheer frustration. Why didn’t his mother get it? Why couldn’t she see what she’d done and be contrite about it?

“Jessie gave birth to our daughter, and I didn’t get to see her come into this world. I didn’t get to hold her. I didn’t get to help Jessie pick out her name, or dream with her about what our child would be like when she grew up. I didn’t get to hear her cry. I didn’t get to hold her in my arms and feed her. I’ll never know what she smelled like, or how soft her skin felt against mine. I’ll never know how strong her little grasp was when she held my finger.” He spoke to his father from his bleeding heart. “I never got to tell her I love her. I never got to say goodbye. Hell, I never got to say hello!” He raged at his father, because his mother didn’t get it and he needed his father to understand. “Shall I go on? There are millions of things she took away from me. All because she doesn’t like Jessie. It’s unforgivable what she’s taken from me.”

“You have Will, son. I know it isn’t the same, not even close, but at least you know what it is to have a child,” his father offered.

“Don’t you see, she was only here for a short time, and I didn’t get to see her because Mom lied? She lied to Jessie. She lied to me. She lied to you. She knew that baby was mine. She just didn’t want to accept the fact I love Jessie.”

Will chose that moment to chime in. “I’m keeping her. She saved me. She’s my new Mommy. I chose her like I chose Daddy.”

Surprise and disbelief crossed both his mother’s and father’s faces. He turned to glance down at Jessie lying quiet in the bed. She stared up at him, eyes wide and devastated, and he knew. She’d never heard her own daughter call her Mommy. One more thing she’d never get. He wasn’t sure how she felt about Will’s declaration. He had a lot of explaining to do about Will, and how they’d become a family, one that needed a wife and mother.

“Will is adopted,” he said to Jessie. “He chose me. I’ll explain later.”

She didn’t say a word. She’d had no idea that he’d adopted the child. Will didn’t look like Dylan. She’d figured he resembled his mother. It did something strange to her heart to know another woman didn’t have Dylan’s child.

Greg decided now was a good time to give her a push, and she’d have liked to smack him. “You couldn’t pick a better mom than Jessie,” he said to Will and gave him a squeeze. “You’ve got great taste in women, kid.” Greg only smiled when she kicked him in the thigh.

“You don’t owe her an explanation,” Martha said to Dylan. “Jessie is better now and going home tomorrow. I’m sure she knows how much we appreciate her saving Will. We should let her get back to her life. After everything that’s happened, I’m sure she’d be happier if we all just left her alone.”

Jessie couldn’t let that pass. “What you’re really saying is you want Dylan to stay away from me. You don’t want him around me because you think he can do better.”

For some people in Fallbrook, she’d never measure up. She didn’t care anymore. She’d spent too many years making herself into something
she
could be proud of. She’d overcome so much, and she wasn’t going to let someone like stuck-up Martha McBride make her feel unworthy.

“You two have nothing in common,” his mother said.

“We have more in common than what separated us. I grew up privileged. She didn’t. What does that have to do with who she is as a person? She has the kindest, warmest heart of anyone I know. She’s got more strength in her little finger than you do in your whole being. She stands up for what is right, and fights for what she wants. So don’t tell me she’s not good enough for me, because the truth is she’s better than I could ever hope to be.”

“Don’t say that. You are a good and decent man, destined for great things,” his mother said, her eyes filled with pride for a man she didn’t know or understand. She didn’t see the real him through her rose-colored glasses. “That baby wasn’t yours. She wasn’t yours,” she tried to convince Dylan. “Jessie only wanted to use you to get away from her father. She used you to get to the McBride money.”

“The McBride money has kept you well all these years, Mother. We have money making money. Tell me, how much is enough for three people? I mean, how much should Will get? He isn’t blood after all. Maybe I should just make sure he gets the clothes and the food he needs. He can go to public school. Wouldn’t want to waste any of that precious McBride money on a private school for him. I suppose college is out of the question.

“And what about Jessie? How much would it have cost you to give her my phone number? How much money would it have cost to pay her doctor bills? How much would it have cost to call in a specialist for Hope? How much would you have been willing to spend to save your grandchild?

“I’ll tell you what your granddaughter was worth to you. Nothing. You threw away any chance I had of seeing her. All because you look down your nose at a girl born into a family you find beneath you. You were on the school board and head of the PTA. You knew that man was hurting her and you did nothing. Your indifference and position in the community led the way for everyone to turn a blind eye.”

He brushed a hand over Jessie’s hair. “The pretty girl I fell in love with turned into a beautiful woman, who runs her own business. Two, actually. She’s successful. She put herself through school. She’s been on her own since she was fifteen. Fifteen.” He shook his head, unable to imagine what it must have been like to have everyone you wanted to love you leave you or treat you like you weren’t worth a penny. He never meant to be one of those people. “What would someone have to do to be acceptable to you?”

“You left her. You didn’t want her. It was just a phase.”

“I don’t call falling in love with someone a phase. You either love them, or you don’t. I loved her then and I love her even more now. I left to get away from you and Dad. You were so busy pressuring me to go to college and be
him
that I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think about what I wanted. Jessie made everything clear and simple. I wanted her. I wanted to help people like her.”

“That’s just it. People like her. People who are poor and get drunk and break the law. Those are the people you help. You could be so much more.”

“I’m enough. I’m a good father, who loves his son unconditionally. I help people who need help because someone hurts them. Do you know how it kills me to think that all those years we were friends she was being abused, and I never saw it? She wanted to be with me because she needed a safe place. I was her safe place. And when she needed me the most, I wasn’t there. When our daughter died in her arms, I wasn’t there.” He hadn’t meant to yell at her, but his frustration got the better of him.

“It can’t be changed. It’s time to move on and be a father to Will,” his mother coaxed, like it was that easy to forget what she’d done and all he’d lost.

“I don’t care what you think, or what you want. It’s my life. Jessie is my life. She’s my future. I don’t want you here. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you near my son. How did you get Will, by the way?”

“We told Lorena we were coming here to see you. We assured her you wouldn’t mind our spending time with our grandson,” his father said, unhappy with how this turned out. Dylan stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his mouth set in a firm line, letting his father know he truly meant to keep them away from him and Will.

“Dylan, I don’t want to see the family fractured because of what happened years ago and can’t be changed.”

“Like the way she convinced you what Brody and Owen went through with your brother was none of your concern. You had your perfect family. No need to muck up your life by interfering in theirs. Not your responsibility to step in and help them when their own father couldn’t help himself. If he squandered his money on booze and left Brody and Owen hungry, not your fault. If no one cared whether they did their homework, or went to bed at a decent time, so be it. If your brother went too far and smacked them around because they got out of line, they deserved it, right? Unruly. No discipline. No drive to be the best.” Dylan shook his head. “No one to care and love them.” He glared at his mother. “No one to step in and give them a better life. But hell, they’re family and that’s how we treat family we don’t want. The way you treated my cousins. My daughter. We only care about the McBrides standing in this room. Everyone else, including Brody, Owen, Jessie, and Hope, can go to hell before you step in and offer the help they desperately need.”