“Why are you here?”
Jessa’s tough-girl posture wavered. “Mom wants to see you. Just one time.” Her shoulders slumped. “She’s sick. Real sick. And, sure, she hasn’t been a great mom, but she’s dying.” Her voice cracked.
A tear rolled down her cheek before she wiped it away fast. My gut clenched. This kid was about to lose the only parent she’d ever known. And a piss-poor parent at that, if I had to guess.
“I don’t know you. You don’t owe her anything. You don’t owe me anything. But it’s her last wish. Just come see her, and I promise you’ll never hear from me again.”
I released a heavy sigh. “Let’s go for a walk,” I suggested, nodding toward the back trail that wound behind the clubhouse. “There’s a path behind that goes to a little stream. It’s quiet.”
She looked at me with doubt in her eyes. “Are you going to off me or something?”
That pulled an unexpected laugh from my chest. “Girl, I might be an outlaw, but I don’t hurt innocent kids.”
She huffed. “I’m not a kid. I’m fifteen.”
“Jesus.” I rubbed a hand on the back of my neck. Fucking fifteen. She was younger than I’d realized because she was so tall for her age.
“Come on,” I said, my voice softening. “I need a minute to process the fact that I have a sister. Let’s talk.”
Nearly nineteen years. That’s how much older I was than Jessa. Old enough to be her father.
She narrowed her eyes at me in suspicion but then nodded as she walked by my side.
“How’d you get here?”
She looked at me like I’d asked her the color of the sky. “Ever heard of Uber?”
I snorted. “Yeah, I’m aware of Uber.”
She shrugged. “Wasn’t sure if old people knew what that was.”
I ignored the age comment. “So, how much do you know about me?”
“Not much. I knew Mom had a kid before me. Likewaybefore me. And she gave you up.”
That was a generous interpretation of what happened, but I controlled my expression.
“She didn’t start to really talk about you until the past fewmonths. She has end-stage liver disease. She’s got maybe three months.” Jessa glanced away to wipe another tear. “She’s been making amends. You know, before she’s too dead to make them.”
I nodded, not sure what to say. She was way too young to be carrying the burden of her mother’s last dying wish.
“That’s why she wants to see you. She wants to explain.”
I bristled. “I’m not interested in her excuses. She can take them to her grave.”
Jessa winced, and I immediately felt like an asshole. I rubbed my eyes, trying to figure out how to explain. “Listen, kid, I had a shit childhood because of her.”
Jessa held up a hand. “Again, I’m not a kid. Stop calling me that or I’m going to cut out your tongue. She wasn’t exactly winning Mother of the Year awards raising me.”
I smirked. Jessa was more like me than she realized. “How bad was it?”
She shrugged. “She’s a shitty parent. But it could’ve been worse.”
“And you still want to help her? Tracking down a stranger to fulfill her last wishes? Even though she sucked at parenting?”
“She’s still my mom,” Jessa said quietly, her voice cracking. “I can love her while recognizing that I deserved better. I can go above and beyond to make this happen while hating her a little for not even doing the bare minimum for me.”
This kid. Fucking mature beyond her years.
