Truth Undressed (Exposed Series, #3) (7 page)

But “Mom” was a loaded word, and the more I thought about it,
the less I could convince myself that Carol didn’t have anything to do with me.
Cause even though I am at least fifty percent Dawn, there’s no question who
mothered me more. I mean, Carol was
invested
. Time, money, energy. She’d
given me the most valuable assets she had.

It made me sick to think of how many times I wished she would
just fuck off and leave me alone. Especially now that I know she could’ve.

Instead, she loved me the way my own Mother didn’t. Or couldn’t.
Even when I hated myself. Which was most of the last four years. And I know I
put her through hell at times. I hadn’t been easy. On the contrary, I had been deliberately
difficult too many times to count. But she never gave up on me or decided I was
more trouble than I was worth.

Even when I’d overheard her talking to my Dad about sending me
away, it wasn’t because that was what she really wanted. I could see that now. She
was just trying to keep me from getting hurt in ways that band-aids couldn’t
fix.

But even though I wasn’t pissed at her anymore, I had been
avoiding her. I feared there was a chance she would say
“Right. So you’re
eighteen now and you know the truth. My job is done and it’s time for you to
run free.”

And I couldn’t bear the thought of losing another Mom. Or even
worse, being rejected by another one. Especially when I wasn’t really as
independent as I liked to pretend. I mean, shit. Most of the time, I still felt
as vulnerable as a newborn.

Of course, I didn’t know what she was thinking. About me. About
me knowing the truth. And I needed to know for better or for worse. So when she
finally mustered up the courage to invite me to lunch, I said yes.

Because I had no choice.

Losing Dawn was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but
losing Carol would mean losing everything.

We were both pretty quiet in the car on the way to our favorite
all day breakfast place. And as soon as we walked in I was glad she chose it. I
always found the breakfast smells in there comforting. Homey. Maybe that’s
because it was the first restaurant I ever went to as a baby, which she usually
mentioned. But she didn’t this time.

Instead we just sat down and she ordered what she always
ordered. I didn’t, though, because I always ordered the most fattening, gluttonous
thing on the menu. And on this occasion my priorities were different. I wanted
to pay attention to what she had to say. I didn't want to spend my energy calculating
how long I could wait before I had to throw up.

So I followed her lead and got the healthy Arizona Omelet and
asked if she wanted to go halves on an order or extra crispy hash browns. Which
of course she did. Because that was our thing. One of our many things.

“So?” she asked after we placed our order. 

“So.”

“How have you been doing?”

I sighed.

“I know we haven’t had much time to talk and that you said you
needed space bu-”

“It’s okay,” I said. “I did need space. I still do.” I looked
down and smoothed my paper napkin across my lap. “But you know I can’t resist
this place.”

She smiled. “I know you’ve been going through a lot.” She folded
her hands on the edge of the table. “Even before you found out about our little
situation.”

“Our little situation?”

“What do you want to call it?”

“I don’t know.” Fuck. “My Mommy issues?”

She smiled. “I hope you know we were all doing what we thought
was best. And none of this changes how your fath-”

I raised my eyes to meet hers.

“How Fred and I feel.” She swallowed. “And Dawn always loved
you, too. She really did.” She looked at me through watery eyes. “She just
couldn’t show it in the traditional sense like we could.”

“I understand the words,” I said, “But I don’t know if I’ll ever
understand the feelings, ya know? The ones that made her give me up?”

Carol nodded.

“It’s not like I don’t know I lucked out with you guys. I mean,
no one could deny that you’ve taken good care of me.”

She laughed and shook her hands towards the sky like she’d been
waiting her whole life for me to say she’d done something right.

“But I still don’t know how you could give away your own baby.”
I leaned back in the booth. “I just can’t imagine being in that situation.”

“I hope you never understand it, honey.” She took a sip of her
ice water. “And I know you must feel kind of messed up inside.”

I nodded.

“But I think that will go away in time.” She pursed her lips. “You
see… the whole thing when it happened… It felt so
serendipitous
.”

“Serendipitous?”

“Yeah.” She tilted her head and smiled. “Dawn really wanted to
have
you, but she just wasn’t in a position to take care of you. And she didn’t want
you to go live with a strange couple she didn’t know. Especially after she
interviewed so many of them.”

“She did?”

Carol nodded. “I was so angry with her at the time. Especially
because she knew how much we wanted you.”

“She interviewed other couples? Seriously?”

“At least a dozen,” she said. “And they’re only the ones I know about.”

“Wow.”

“She wasn’t trying to slough you off on someone.”

“I guess not.”

Carol’s mouth turned down at the corners. “Honestly, I think at
that point she felt like she’d screwed up so many times in her life that she
was terrified she’d screw you up, too-” She blinked at the ceiling and took a
deep breath through her nose. “She really wanted you to get a good start.”

“And she couldn’t give it to me.”

“She thought about it a lot- how she might make it work. But she
was spending a lot of time with a pretty wild bunch back then, the kind of
people you wouldn’t want your baby around.”

I folded my arms.

“There was no stability in her life to speak of.” She shrugged.
“I think she would’ve kept you if she’d seen any way to make it work.”

“But she didn’t.”

“No.”

“When did you find out she picked you guys?”

Her face lifted and her eyes smiled. “I remember exactly,” she
said. “Dawn was in the seventh month of her pregnancy, and I’d been by her side
since the beginning. Because she was my sister, and I didn’t think any of her
friends could look after her as well as I could.”

“Shocker.”

Carol rolled her eyes. “Anyway, she had this crazy craving for
Dairy Queen ice cream cones when she was pregnant-”

“The chocolate dipped ones?”

“Yeah.”

“We went for one recently,” I said. “Just before she died.”

Carol smiled. “Well that’s what we were doing when she told me.
We were eating chocolate dipped cones at the picnic table outside the DQ, and
the bottom of her cone sprang a leak and started dripping all over the place.”

I nodded.

“At first I laughed at her, especially when she held the cone up
and tried to plug the bottom with her mouth.”

I leaned forward and put my elbows on the table.

“But then I pulled some napkins out of my bag and made her
switch cones with me. And she started eating mine, while I wrapped the napkins
around the bottom of hers so I could finish it without getting sticky.”

I rested my chin in my hands.

“And I’ll never forget it.”

I swallowed.

“She said
I think you’ll be a good Mom, Carol
. And I said
thanks.” She took a deep breath. “And then she said,
you will be won’t you?
And she put her hand on her tummy and her eyes filled with tears, and when I
realized what she was saying my eyes filled with tears, too.”

I smiled. “That must have been a sight. Two grown women crying
into their ice cream cones.”

“I think we probably got some looks alright,” she said. “Of
course, Fred and I were ecstatic. We’d been trying to have a baby for two
years, for as long as we’d been married at the time. All we ever wanted was a
family of our own. So you were a dream come true for us, Kate. You really
were.”

I watched Carol try to keep it together on the other side of the
table. I didn’t know what to say. All this time I had been thinking I was an
accident, a reject, that nobody wanted me. But that wasn’t the case at all. I
was wanted. Desperately. Just not by the woman who gave birth to me.

“After that I continued to spend every second with Dawn. We
hadn’t spent that much time together since we were kids.”

I nodded.

“I didn’t want to miss a kick, a cramp, a bout of morning
sickness.”

“Cause you wished you were pregnant.”

She shrugged. “That’s part of it, I suppose. But I was also so
eager to know you. I didn’t want to wait until you came out.”

“Wow.”

“But I did my best to look after her, especially after Scott left?”

“Scott?”

“Your biological father.”

“When did he leave?”

“Before you were born.” She shook her head. “I don’t know,
exactly. I know it was around the time Dawn couldn’t hide the fact that she was
pregnant anymore.”

“What a jerk.”

Carol shrugged. “He had other nice qualities-”

“Like?”

“Like he was really handsome. And funny. A great
conversationalist, too. Dawn used to say she could take him anywhere and he
could get along with anyone.”

“But he didn’t want to get along with me.”

“It wasn’t that,” she said. “He was just too young and selfish.
He wouldn’t have been a good dad.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he didn’t want to be one.”

“Right.”

“It’s hard work taking care of a baby. Your heart really has to
be in it.” She took a deep breath. “If you want to do a good job anyway.”

“And he never wanted to see me after I was born?”

She locked her eyes on mine and didn’t say anything for a
moment.

I could see it was hurting her to tell me this stuff, but
keeping secrets is like building a damn. Once the damn is broken, the secrets
just come flooding out.

“Honestly?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Never. He might as well have been a sperm donor.”

I nodded.

“And in case you’re wondering, he definitely wouldn’t have
played tennis with you at the park, built you a princess fort, or let you watch
The Simpsons behind my back.”

I smiled.

“Okay. Maybe he would’ve done that last one, but he wouldn’t
have tucked you in afterwards. And if he did he probably would’ve been drunk or
high on drugs.”

“Drugs?”

“Yeah. Honestly, the guy was fit enough to be your dad, but not
worthy of being your father.”

“And Dawn loved him?”

Carol nodded. “She did. Maybe too much. Or at least, when he
left… Well, I’d never seen her so upset.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I don’t think she ever fully got over it, but I don’t
know. That’s probably unfair for me to say. It’s just speculation.”

“Thanks for telling me anyway.”

“I’m sorry for all the secrets, Kate. I am. It’s just that
there’s never a good time to tell a truth that’s been buried so deep for so
long.”

“So why now?”

Carol pursed her lips. “Well you’re eighteen. So legally you
have a right to know. And Dawn wanted you to know now. She didn’t want it to be
later when you forgot about her and the time you spent together recently. It
meant a lot to her to get to know you. Especially because you’ve become such a
lovely young lady.”

“And a head case.”

She smiled. “But you hide that pretty well.”

“I’m glad I got to get to know her, too.” I shrugged. “Despite
the shitty circumstances that brought us together.”

“Good.” Carol nodded so the waitress would top up her coffee and
waited for her to walk away before turning back to me. “You have nothing but
time to make sense of all this. And I know it’s a lot to deal with, but there’s
one thing I want to make very clear.”

“What’s that?”

“As far as Fred and I are concerned, you’re still our daughter.
Always have been, always will be. We have loved you since before you were born
and every day since, and as long as you want us in your life, we will be there
for you. Because we’re a family. Your family. And I know you didn’t get to
choose us the first time around, but now that you are old enough to choose, I
hope you’ll stick with us. I really do.”

“Thanks,” I said. And I don’t think I’d ever meant the word
more.