Page 92 of Licks

Harsh words from her sister shouldn’t have triggered her to disappear. Not when I’d been clueless to her identity. And why hadn’t it been safe to raise me herself? Why would Mom—Mary—have agreed to this?

A million questions swarmed my mind, along with a hint of relief…and a sting of guilt. Mary Hamilton hadn’t been my mother. The diary had belonged to Sarah, who had loved to dance and perform and cliff jump. Not Mary, who’d cheated me out of basic affection. The fact made me happy, which made me feel incredibly awful.

Mary had put her life on hold to raise me. She’d never wanted kids, as she’d once admitted. A burden like that could harden someone, embitter them. Keep them from dancing and laughing and living fully. I had in fact ruined her life.

No. Not me, I reminded myself. Her sister had.

August held me close. I burrowed closer, wanting to disappear, but I wanted answers more. I wiped my snotty nose before it dripped on his bare chest, then I kissed the center of his breastbone, nosed the dark curls dusting his skin. “I’m ready to read more.”

I gathered the pages and joined him at my headboard, cuddling into the crook of his arm as we read the rest together.

I didn’t think I wanted kids, but the second I knew you existed, everything changed. I couldn’t wait to share the news with your father. Ted Mercer was nothing but sweet with me, gentle and kind. You were created by two people very much in love. Unfortunately, I didn’t know him as well as I thought.

When I went to tell him we were going to have a baby, I found him in an alley by my dance center. He and another man were harassing a third person, who was begging for his life, something about money owed. There was a gunshot. The begging man died. It wasn’t your father who did the killing, but the man with him turned the gun on me.

Ted stalled the gunman while I got away. We met later, and he told me I would have to leave town, that the people he worked for were bad. I was a witness and I wasn’t safe. He didn’t have to tell me twice. Not with you growing inside me. I also never told him about you. I couldn’t risk the information falling into the wrong hands.

I would have run as far as possible, but I didn’t have money. I went to my parents for help, but they called me a sinner and turned me away. With nothing but the clothes on my back, I sought refuge with a dance teacher. Aside from the teacher and my unsupportive parents, Mary was the only other person who knew about my pregnancy. She also intercepted a threat directed toward me, a promise to end my life if I ever turned up.

You don’t know what it’s like, living like you could die at any moment. I dropped out of school and wouldn’t leave the house, wouldn’t even open the curtains. You were born there, in the basement, and I have never loved anyone as much as you. I have also never been so terrified.

I’m in no shape to skip town with a newborn. I can’t stay in San Francisco. But Mary showed up, days after your birth, with a suitcase stuffed with her own clothes because our parents had donated mine. She told me to leave town and plant roots somewhere safe. That you needed to be raised away from here. She said she would care for you until I got on my feet.

I cried for a week straight, then prepared to do as Mary asked. She put money in my wallet along with a bus ticket. She instructed me to send her suitcase back to her when I found a job and a home, explained that I should write my address at the back of my hidden journal. Somewhere discreet, in case it was intercepted. Then she would deliver you to me.

She organized everything, while I existed in a daze. She took charge, the way Mary always did. The good daughter. The strong daughter.

Today is the day I will be leaving you, Gwen, and the daze has cleared. I am not fit to raise a human being as perfect as you. I brought dangerous people into your life, before you were even born. I have no skills, no parents of my own to show me what to do.

Mary has an apartment. A job. A network of friends. I have nothing.

You deserve better than me.

I will not be sending that suitcase back. I will not be seeing you again. You will be better for it. You will lead a happy life, with my sister.

I’m sitting under a tree on Tank Hill now, about to bury this secret and my heart forever, but I don’t see another way.

Please know that I love you, Gwen. So incredibly much.

Sarah

Sarah. My mother. I no longer understood what those words meant. My life had become a novel. The twisty, crime kind with mafia and wise guys and bodies dumped into rivers, but under it all was a desperate teenager, drowning in despair. “She seemed so sad and alone.”

August’s expanding chest pressed against my body, making us both rise. He blew out a slow breath. “I can’t imagine what she went through.”

“And to leave me with her sister? Never come back for me? No wonder my mom or Mary, or whatever I’m supposed to call her, resented me.”

“She did come back, though, in a way. That’s why the luggage went missing. Eleven years late, but she sent for you.”

Eleven years. That number again. I picked apart my limited knowledge of my aunt-turned-mother. One fact rang clearer than the rest: she’d sent me birthday cards, one a year for eleven years, then they’d stopped. After a fight with her sister, because of me. There had never been a return address. I’d checked when the cards had stopped, thinking I’d reach out to her. My mother had likely been in the dark about her sister’s whereabouts. Had no way to deliver me to her.

If Sarah had called her to check on me, while refusing to reveal her location, it could have provoked Mary to lash out at her, tell her not to call again.

I filled August in on those details, my words tumbling out faster as I spoke. “Sarah must have sent the suitcase the next year, after that call, before my twelfth birthday. Assumed I got it and chose not to contact her. Do you think that’s why she cut our ties? Because I never reached out?”

His callused fingers grazed my arm, up and down as he stroked me. “This has to be an intensely sensitive issue for her. There’s major insecurity with that. She must have assumed you didn’t want contact. I’d choose to suffer over barging in on your life after that.”

“But why not call? So many years later, why send the case?”