Jasper was tense before, but his grasp on my hand was so tight now it was bordering on painful. I didn’t say anything. “I won’t allow you to hurt her or say anything to upset her. You’ll be out without a dime. Do you understand me?” his tone was so cold it made me shiver.
Portia didn’t look concerned. Her shoulders remained straight. Her head held in that lofty way I was accustomed to from her. “You’ve made a grave error, son. One that you’ll no doubt blame on me, but one you were going to find out eventually. Secrets can’t be hidden forever. I’ve learned that the hard way. But this secret? The lies? They have to come out now. It won’t just hurt her, it’ll hurt you both.”
My heart began to beat nervously. There was something she hadn’t shared. I knew there was a secret she was hiding. It was the only thing that made sense about her taking care of Heidi and me. I just couldn’t figure out what it was.
“What the fuck are you rattling on about? I’m not going to waste time listening to your bullshit.” Jasper looked unamused by Portia.
Her chin lifted and she sighed wearily. “I’ll meet you both at the house in an hour. I have things you both need to see,” she paused and looked from me back to her son. “So you can see I’m not rattling on about bullshit.” Even when she cursed it sounded polished.
She turned on her heel, the chauffer opened the door of the limo, and she climbed back in. We didn’t move until she drove away.
Jasper’s body was wound so tight, he reminded me of a bomb about to explode. “We don’t have to listen to her. Let’s eat,” his tone was hard and the anger was there sizzling.
“I want to hear what she has to say. This is about my mother. I know it is. I’ve always known there was something Portia hadn’t told me. The reason she had helped us. After hearing all that, I think we should listen to what she has to say. I think we have to, Jasper. You hate her, but that doesn’t make it okay to ignore this.”
He took my hand and tugged me to him. Then he held me there tightly as if I were about to evaporate. Like I would leave him for good. “I don’t trust her. She is going to try and end us.”
I didn’t think that was what she was doing. “Let’s see her proof. That’s all I’m asking. Hear her out.”
He sighed and continued to hold me. We stayed that way for several moments. When he finally let me go he nodded once. “Okay.”
Jasper
NOTHING HAD EVER TERRIFIED ME like this . . . this unknown. Not even when my father had a heart attack. I had never been so wracked with despair over possible impending doom. I fought the urge to turn the car south and drive until we were in the Florida Keys. Or west until we got to California. Or even further away. Further from this. From my mother.
It wasn’t her lies that scared me. I told Beulah it was, but it wasn’t. It was her secrets that I was afraid to face. She hadn’t been furious. She hadn’t acted as if us holding hands was distasteful. She’d been . . . different.
I didn’t let go of Beulah’s hand as we drove home. I needed to feel her and to now she was there. That I hadn’t lost her. This wasn’t over. It hadn’t had a chance to really begin. We hadn’t spent a holiday together. We hadn’t danced. We hadn’t been on a date.
I wanted to take her to Paris, Italy, and Spain. Show her my favorite places. Experience life with her. Maybe we should drive to the airport now and fly away. Leave. Protect what we had. What we had found. Nothing my mother could tell me would change my love for Beulah. My need for her.
“I love you,” she said softly.
“I love you,” I repeated.
“This will be okay,” she told me.
I wanted to think that too. But deep down the dread was there. I’d never been happy. She had been my first real glimpse at happiness, and I’d been stupid to think I’d keep that. I wasn’t meant to have that in my life.
After I pulled into the drive, I parked the car and looked straight ahead. This was it. I had to trust what we would find out. Trust that Beulah loved me enough. That whatever horror my mother unveiled inside, we could withstand it.
“Let’s go,” I said, looking at her.
She nodded.
We walked into the house. Our hands no longer joined. The heaviness and ache of loss was already there. I couldn’t fit the darkness that was already washing over me. It was going to be something that my mother had done. Something I was afraid Beulah couldn’t forgive. A reason for her to run from here.
I stopped and grabbed her hand. “Don’t hate me because of her. Whatever she’s done, please love me. We will go far away from her. We don’t ever have to see her again. Just . . . don’t let her sins be mine.”
Beulah smiled at me. Not her bright happy smile. A smile that was reassuring and she placed her hand on my face. “She can’t make me stop loving you.”
God, I hoped so.
We walked inside and found Portia in the great room. She had a shoebox on the table and a glass with at least two shots of bourbon in it.
She turned to us and took a drink. “You both need to sit. A drink could also help.”
We didn’t take a drink or sit.
“Just tell us. Get this shit over with,” I said, my anxiety still clawing at me.
She raised her eyebrows as if she didn’t appreciate my speaking to her that way, then reached down into the box and took out a folded piece of paper. I watched her as she walked over to me and handed it to me. I stared at it as she held it out for me to take.
“Look at it. Then I’ll explain.”
Reluctantly, I took the paper and unfolded a birth certificate.
Reading, my first question was why did my mother have Heidi’s birth certificate? But the sickness that grabbed me after I read Portia Edwards name as the mother almost knocked me to my knees.
I shook my head and moved away from her. “No. This, this isn’t real.” My world was spinning. So many questions I didn’t want answers to. This was worse. Worse than my fears earlier.
“I was young and engaged to your father. I’d lived in a small two-bedroom home that didn’t even have central heating and air. My parents were strict, religious people, and I hated the world I’d grown up in. Luckily, I had beauty. I used my beauty to get away from it all. I was about to have my fairy tale. The life I wanted. When a man that I considered an uncle, a deacon in the church, someone that everyone admired, raped me. I had been sent to take him a meal from my mother. She said he’d been feeling sick and she wanted to do the Christian thing, and send over a meal. I wanted my sister to take it but she was sick as well. She had been throwing up that week. No one knew why. Not yet.
“I took the meal, he wasn’t sick. He was drunk and a big man. He was over sixty years old, but he was tall and kept in shape. He said things to me. Tried to get me to have sex with him willingly. I tried to fight him, to leave, but in the end, he won. I told no one.”
“Two days later, my sister found out that her sickness was morning sickness. She was pregnant by the best-looking guy in town. He rode a motorcycle, lived for the moment, but he was going nowhere in life. My sister had fallen in love with him. He left town the moment she told him. My parents were going to send her away to have the baby then force her to give it up for adoption. Two days later, my sister was gone, leaving only a note apologizing. It was a scandal. One I hated her for.” Portia stopped for a moment, thinking.
“Our family was now the talk of the town and I was sure I’d lose my fairy tale. I didn’t though. He still wanted me. He didn’t care about my sister or my religious, insane parents. We were engaged, and it wasn’t until I was gaining weight I shouldn’t have been that I realized I was pregnant. I thought it was ours. We’d been having sex for a while. We rushed the wedding and didn’t tell anyone about the pregnancy. We went to Paris instead. I finished my pregnancy there. Away from his friends and our world. We’d return home after some time had passed, and take our baby with us. But she . . . wasn’t okay. She had Trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome.”
“No!” Beulah’s loud outcry sliced through me. She was backing away shaking her head. “That’s . . . No!” she pointed at the birth certificate in my hand. “That is not Heidi. No. That is not Heidi’s.”