Page 14 of Anchored to the Storm

He started pacing, as if he was glad he finally had someone to share his ‘research’ with. “Well, in Disney’s version, it’s all mushy and gushy with the nonsense of this ‘happily ever after’.” He pretended to gag. “However, oh, Hans understood life. Sometimes you make sacrifices for those you love. And there’s no happy ending. Only hopes that you made the right decision.”

My stomach turned, and my arms dropped to my sides. “What sacrifice did the prince make?”

He leaned back. “How do you know about there being a prince in The Little Mermaid?”

“I—” Uh. I thought about it. “I have no fucking clue.” Just then, I had a memory of Noma crying, sitting next to me on a couch, watching the Disney movie.

He grabbed his chest. “Ya don’t say.”

I nodded. “Yeah.” I shook it off. “Just a coincidence. Not that she knew anything about—” I stopped when Styx stared at a corner in the ceiling, scratching the back of his head in a guiltily. “There is no way she knew!”

Grandpa’s eyes found another corner to stare at while wincing through complicated shame.

I marched around the bed, past him, and headed to the bathroom. “Of course, there are more lies to uncover.”

Styx followed me. “During your challenging birth⁠—”

I stopped. To hear any detail Noma never shared was an answered prayer.

“—your mother told Noma what she knew about Lennox—she broke a promise to warn Noma. She knew she was dying, but understandably, Noma assumed it was only words of delirium.”

Slowly, I faced him. “Noma told me Dad found them both at the end. What does that mean?”

His eyes started to water. “It means your dad got to be there—we got to be there for the most beautiful and saddest moment of his life. Just in time, he got to see his son be brought into this world.” He swallowed, a long and hard struggle. “And got to say goodbye to the only woman he would ever love.”

Feeling a little woozy, I stumbled back toward the sink and rested my hands on it behind me. Shoulders caved and head hanging, I tried to breathe. “Why did Noma keep them apart? Could Dad have saved Mom?”

He was quick to correct me for offering a different outcome of the past. “No. He was as confused as you and I are now. Listen,” Styx said, “Noma had her reasons, and they were good ones. She’d lived an out-of-the-ordinary lifestyle. She’d buried a biker—her first husband. What intelligent woman wouldn’t try to stop her daughter from the same fate? She raised that young woman from a harsh and deadly world.”

I thought of Harmony’s words. “Is there anything that is wrong when it comes from love?”

I guess I can understand that—Wait. “First husband?”

“What was that?” Styx tilted his head as if realizing his fuck-up and was preparing to lie.

I shut that shit down. “Nope. Stop. Truth only.”

He ran his fingers through his hair aggressively while starting to pace again. “Sooo, once your Noma got sick, umm, she—we—damnit. The planner in her took charge, and she asked me to marry her so that, legally, I could be responsible for the real Maddox Gentry. Make sure that after her death, if her false identity caught up to her—and you, legally, I would own what was once hers and give it to you. The real you.” He tossed his hands in the air. “She was a brilliant woman who took no chances with her baby boy. Life insurance policies, homes she owned… please don’t be mad, Mad G. She has left you quite the nest egg. You’re a big fish in a small pond.” When my jaw ticked, he chuckled, “Yes, another very bad example with the fish reference.”

Honestly, how could I be angry at any of this? People who loved me were all doing their best to give me a fighting chance. “Were you there to hear my mother tell Noma about what I am?”

“No, but Noma told me later.”

“So, she knew all along what I am?”

“No… She was a hell of an ER nurse, but her brain couldn’t wrap around…” He stopped, but his expression spoke of such sorrow for all involved. “If I told her the words were true, and she thought I had lost my wits, would she have ever let your dad and me near you?” He shook his head as if to free himself from being lost in the memory all over again. “With your mother gone, I knew Noma would never hand you over. I knew that fierce woman would fight anyone to keep you in her arms.” He exhaled. “Lennox knew that as fact also.”

Carrying the weight of past lies on my tired shoulders, I turned toward the cabinet to stare at my reflection, wondering what I truly was. “If Noma had an inkling, why was she shocked when I told her about seeing stars in the water?”

“On the contrary, you changed everything by admitting that to her. She didn’t even chase me off right away when I caught up to you both at the house.”

Huh? “How did you know about Grandpa’s house?”

He only stared at me through the reflection in the mirror until I figured it out.

It was like finding more lost puzzle pieces, and every time a piece fit into place, I was stabbed with a dull knife. Face deadpan, I said, “You are the grandpa who bought that house for her.”

There was no shame when he groaned, “I have treasured that woman since before you were born, silly rabbit.”