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Chapter Twenty-Five
Watchingthe door close behind the women, Jonas turned back to Buzz. “Back to you and Judith. What were you doing there?”
“I, um, went to work for Judith to see if she was my mother. Judith Rowley was her name,” Buzz stated seriously.
Laughing, he touched her cold chin. “Aren’t you happy that wasn’t the case?”
Buzz just looked him in the eyes. “I was correct. She is my birth mother. Mine and my four sisters, and now your two sisters.”
“Judith is your mother? How the hell does that happen?” His hand dropped. She had to be joking.
“She left us when I was four. We never saw her again until last week, when I ran into her at the paper after I got fired.” She shrugged and took a step back from him.
“There is no way she is your mother,” Jonas stated, because he had known the woman for twenty years, and she had never said anything about more than two kids. In fact, she barely tolerated those two.
“There’s no way she’s not, Jonas.” She shivered, from the cold or from the fact that Judith was her mother, he didn’t know.
“How long did you know? The entire time?” His mind went back to the many times he had kissed her in that house, touched her. Had she known then?
“Yes. Well, I thought so the entire time. Harper confirmed it when she met her.” She looked at the house.
“Did Judith know it was you? Her kid? Or one of her kids because she had what, seven? Nine?” he gritted his teeth at the knowledge. That somehow, this woman was the daughter of his evil stepmother. How was that even possible?
“Just five more besides Louisa and Frankie. I don’t think she realized who I was until she saw Harper. Harper looks a lot like Judith—and Louisa for that matter,” Buzz informed him, and he started to see the resemblance.
“Why wouldn’t she be excited to see you? I mean, it’s been years.” He knew asking her wouldn’t give him the answers he needed since Buzz didn’t know Judith at all.
“I don’t think she ever told your dad about her other family. I’m almost certain she didn’t.”
“That woman just walked away from five kids and moved on to my dad? Leaving you and your sisters to be raised by your dad? Where did Frankie come from?” he asked. He had never heard anything about her father, just that he wasn’t involved in her life.
“I don’t know. Only Judith knows that.”
“She abandoned you. Dad never even knew. Dad wouldn’t have abandoned you if he’d known.” Jonas hoped that was true, hoped it more than anything else he had ever hoped for. Because if not, his dad wasn’t the person he had always thought he was.
“It turned out okay, Jonas. We got a great stepmom who treats us like her own. In fact, after meeting Judith, I’m happy she wasn’t around.”
“And you weren’t there for me at all. You were there to find your mom. Why didn’t you just tell me that? I asked you directly if you were there for a story, and said you were.”
“Because when you asked me, Louisa was there, and I didn’t want her to find out like that. Though it might have been better than my sisters blurting it out. But the group does make a lot of things easier.”
“I should go in there and be with her during this. She’s had a few bad months, and this is just the icing on the cake,” he said and turned to do just that. If his sisters needed him, he should be there for them.
“Frankie is with her, so I think they’re okay. If she had wanted to be with you, she would have called you. Instead, she called me, and then she called Frankie,” Buzz said.
Ever since they were small, Frankie and Louisa had been polar opposites and usually didn’t get along very well. A lot of it had to do with Judith’s not hidden preference for the younger sister. Though George had tried over the years to correct that, he had no control over his wife and her treatment of them. It wasn’t that they would fight, because that was not Louisa, but they would argue and go to their rooms.
Once Frankie had started to get in trouble at school, George and Judith had sent her to private schools in order for her to learn discipline, something that put a bigger wedge between the sisters. That only made Louisa their favorite even more in Frankie’s eyes, making her lash out even more.
That she had called her sister meant that she wasn’t planning on going home to George’s house. It meant that she was mad at everyone, not just her mother.
“I think you’re right. The sisters need to be together in this. If Louisa turned to Frankie, that’s a good thing. They should turn to each other during hard times.”
“They will always be your sisters, Jonas. Just give them time. This will blow over, and you guys will be a family again. Not the same as before, but still a family.”
“A family that now includes you since you’re my sister’s sister? What does that make us? Buzz, we slept together, and you suspected we were related.” He took a step back and glared at her. If she had just told him in the beginning, none of this would have happened.
“I tried and tried to stay away from you. You were the one that pushed,” she reminded him.
