AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dirk went to get more coffee and Adele paces, talking on the phone to Alice who has the kids back at her place. My father and Roger are also here, both looking lost in their own thoughts.
Dad leans over and puts a hand on Roger’s shoulder. Their eyes meet. Roger dissolves into tears and my father hugs him.
Jada seems to know to let me pace. Her eyes on me are sad.
“Girls, I’m so sorry,” Roger chokes out. “All of you. I’ve sent doctors over, but Sienna wouldn’t speak to them. Her mother was worried about her, said she was becoming more and more despondent at the thought of the upcoming court date, and we didn’t know she would… would have a psychotic break I guess.” He shrugs. “I’m so sorry. If I’d known this was a possibility…”
“You didn’t know,” Dad says. “She’s gonna get the help she needs now, Rog. Did you get ahold of Suz?”
Roger nods. “Not yet, but the travel agent is trying.”
I close my eyes and blow out a breath. What mother goes on a vacation when her daughter is in a state like that?
Suzette Greer is a lot like my mother.
I push that thought away, wanting to avoid negative thoughts about Audra while she’s fighting for her life.
“Don’t,” Jada warns softly. “This isn’t on you.”
“It’s not, Austin. My daughter made choices. Bad ones.”
I say nothing. I wasn’t taking the blame for this because I was charging Sienna with assault. Not remotely. It’s not on me at all.
Aiden pipes up. “I want her cell phone checked, her computer run through with Jude for forensics, I wanna know if she’s done anything to try to make our lives difficult going forward.”
“I really don’t think she-” Roger starts.
“You didn’t think she’d stab my mother today, did you? I need to know!” Aiden snaps. “Auz needs to know. We both need to know our women are safe. That she won’t go after Adele or after Audra again, if Audra even survives this.”
“Everyone stop, please,” Adele pleads, tears streaming.
Dirk is back. He puts the tray of drinks down and pulls her close. “Let’s just hope Mom survives and then the book can be fucking thrown at Sienna,” Adele mumbles into her husband’s shoulder.
“She might be the mother of your niece or nephew,” Roger reminds her.
And I stop and lean forward, hands bracing on my thighs, feeling like I’m about to puke my guts up.
Jada comes to me. I pull her close. Breathe her in. But I’m shaking. With rage.
An evil, psychotic bitch might be having my baby. An evil bitch who might have killed that baby’s grandmother and who wanted to stab my girlfriend and my brother’s wife.
Jada rubs my back. I stare into her eyes.
“It’ll be okay,” she whispers. “Somehow.”
I nod and bury my face into her hair.
But I’m not sure it will.
***
My mother survives her surgery. She’s going to have a gnarly scar on her belly. She’ll deal, though. Audra has the best plastic surgeon in San Diego on speed dial.
Sienna was sedated and I immediately got my lawyers working on demanding a paternity test.
They get a judge to agree because she’s probably not going to be deemed fit to stand trial for attempted murder and if she is pregnant with my child, I’ll be within my rights to be consulted on antipsychotic drugs and their effect on a fetus.
The idea of all this has me sick to my stomach.
Jada is unwavering in being here for me. Psychic in knowing when I need her close and when I need space.
She’s no stranger to dealing with someone with mental illness so the only thing that gets to me in the few days following my mother’s stabbing is when she starts talking with sympathy for Sienna. She knows it’s a sore spot so thankfully she doesn’t push that argument with me.
I have a hard time feeling sorry for that girl, have a hard time believing this isn’t just her not liking that she’s not getting her way after a lifetime of having every whim answered by her parents, everything she wants from men because of her looks. The world either falls to her feet or succumbs when she pushes her money and her status around. And not getting her way this time turned her into a holy terror.
I won’t feel sorry for that bitch who went at the woman I love with a knife and wound up stabbing my mother. Not at all. And I’m just sick inside at the notion she might be the mother of a kid that’s biologically mine.
Adele has tried asking again if I’d raise the kid or not.
I haven’t given any answers. I have none.
Audra, though? This whole thing seems to have humbled her a little. Sad, but true.
In the hospital a couple days after her surgery, she told me to do what was right for me and that she’d be behind me.
