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One of the many.
Paige’s eyes grew round as saucers. “What? You’ve known this and never told us?”
“No. I just found out.”
“Go on!” roared Tanya, not interested in how I’d pieced it together. “Tell her everything.”
Despite the blazing cold, I felt my face flame with shame as Paige’s gaze stayed on me. My mouth dry, I found my voice. “I abandoned her shortly after she was born. Left her on the steps of a church.”
Tanya spat her gum at me. “Billie, that was the biggest mistake of your life. You ruined my life! Do you know what it’s like to be in the system? Foster care? To go from one shitty family to the next? And then be sent to the loony bin because people think you’re crazy when you’re only angry? Pissed off by people abusing you? Neglecting you? Not giving a damn?”
The truth was, I did. I had lived my entire childhood physically and mentally abused. Memories of my childhood painfully flashed in my head like a film on high speed. I wasn’t sure, however, how much Tanya knew about my past other than the little I’d told her that day she’d helped with the FAFAK gala.
“I—I’m sorry. You’re right. I did make a mistake. I was a teenager…not even sixteen…a single mother with not a penny to my name. And suffering from postpartum depression. I wasn’t in my right mind.”
Pausing, I flashed back to that life-changing day. From the moment she was born, she’d not stopped crying. In my mind’s eye, I could so clearly see her scrunched-up crimson face, her tiny balled-up fists, her matted black hair. All the darkness that veiled her. She had inherited the genes of the ogre who had raped me.
No, I didn’t make a mistake.
Maybe I did.
I sucked in a ragged breath and returned to the moment. “Tanya—”
She cut me off again. “My name is Bree. B-R-E-E. It means ‘strength’ or ‘exalted one.’ Get used to it.”
Bree, I said to myself.
“Bree, how did you figure out I was your mother?”
“I lived with different foster families in and around the desert. Randomly, strangers would come up to me and tell me I looked a lot like this girl who had disappeared. Snatched by some wacko. So did some of my stupid-ass teachers. Her name was Billie Rae Perkins. I did some research, put two and two together, and figured out that Billie had abandoned me as a baby at the church.”
There was still one major unanswered question. “How did you figure out Billie Rae and I were one and the same?”
“Luck. You hosted a benefit for the Mental Health Organization. Pictures of you—in that teal-blue Dior gown—were all over the newspaper as well as plastered on the walls of the loony bin I was stuck in. I read you were from these parts. I had some photos of Billie Rae. The poor, emaciated girl kinda looked like me with her sad, gaunt face and mousy-brown hair, but I wasn’t sure until I saw that smiling, now-a-blonde photo of you and that gap between your front teeth…that’s exactly like mine. It all clicked.”
The gap inherited from my mother before she had a tooth knocked out. The gap Matt loved, so I never fixed it.
“I was positive you were my mother. We even have the same exact shape toes, but you were too busy on your phone to notice when we had mani-pedis. Just to be one hundred percent sure, I did a DNA test. I found your hairbrush and then sent this company—Genex Diagnostics—hair samples from you and me. The results came back positive. A ninety-nine-point-eight percent possibility that you were my mother. Oh, and by the way, I used your credit card.”
The charge from Genex Diagnostics flashed into my head. At the time, I thought it was from the lab that had done blood work after Dr. Lefferman’s physical.
“Natalie, you screwed up. All I’ve ever wanted was to have a real family. A mother and father who took care of me. And loved me.”
I shared her anguish. I understood what she’d been through, but I had to placate her. I had to keep her from harming Paige.
“Tanya…I mean Bree. I want to make it up to you. I love you like a daughter. I promise I’ll give you the perfect life. Everything you want. Your own convertible. A trip to Hawaii. Anything! You can even live with us.”
She cackled. “Seriously, Natalie, do you think money can buy your way out of everything? You sick rich bitch. It’s too late. You can never give me the perfect life. The perfect family. It’s too bad you had to mess it up with Matt. Do you really think I want to live under your roof while the two of you are going through an ugly divorce and will hate each other forever?”
Paige’s shocked eyes met mine. My heart splintered. I hated that she had to find out this way.
“By the way, I know Matt’s dirty little secret. I caught him cheating on you one time when I went to his office but didn’t say anything. A cheating father would have been a hell of a lot better than any of those foster ones, who liked to touch me in places. At least Matt’s had the decency not to do that, though I bet by the way he’s always looked at me he’s been tempted.”
It pained me deeply to hear she’d been sexually abused. But at the same time, I was relieved that Matt had never assaulted her. For a split second, I thought about him lying on an operating table, facing life or death. I hoped he’d pull through. But that thought was fleeting. Right now, there was only one person in the world whose life mattered. Who was everything to me.
Paige.
“Bree, put the gun down. If you shoot Paige, you’ll be tried for cold-blooded murder. Spend the rest of your life in prison. Maybe get the death penalty. I can get you help.”
