AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“She’s loving this, Josie.”
“I know.” Josie watched the girls duck around the corner of a near barn. “Brian’s planting or he’d be here to say hello.”
“To everything there is a season…”
“And a time for every purpose under the heaven.” Josie finished the verse from Ecclesiastes. “I’ve always loved that verse. It speaks to the common-sense side of me.”
“Me, too. When we lost Addie’s mother, it was like our world turned upside down because no one expects that to happen. It was an ‘out of season’ event.”
Josie held her breath. She wanted Jacob to talk about what happened, but digging for information felt wrong. “It’s hard to lose someone so young.”
His expression deepened. “My mom’s still not over it. They’re coming to visit soon, and I hope it helps. They miss Addie, my dad misses working, and they don’t sound happy. When Ginger died, a void opened for them.”
“Too many changes at once, maybe?”
He nodded. “And too little faith. When the lawyer said Ginger had left me custody of Addie, I couldn’t believe it. My parents had raised us, they weren’t elderly by any means, and they seemed insulted by the fact that a single guy was given custody of their only grandchild. But Ginger had left me a letter, explaining why she did it. And it made sense. I hated that my parents were hurt, but taking care of Addie was the least I could do for my sister. Addie had already survived so much…” He paused, thoughtful, watching the girls as they offered hay nuggets to the goats. “I owed it to her to do my best, and that’s what I’ve done. And honestly?” Satisfaction marked his gaze. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Josie picked her words carefully. “You said Addie survived so much…?”
He nodded. “She developed cancer as a toddler and had to have a liver transplant. Thankfully, the folks at Emory were able to find a match.”
Emory hadn’t found the match. Ginger did. Which meant she’d shaded the truth with Jacob, and that made Josie wonder what else his sister had lied about. “After the surgery she underwent follow-up treatments, none of which she really remembers, except for the farm animal murals on the walls of the children’s rooms.”
“Hence the love for cows, maybe?”
He acknowledged that possibility with a nod. “Could be. She was given up for adoption by a drug-using mother, but she’s never shown a sign of problems, so we dodged a bullet on that one.”
Drug-using mother?
Josie’s chest went tight. Her throat followed. “She was adopted?”
“Yes. My sister said she was willing to take an at-risk baby for Addie’s sake.”
“She told you this?” Keeping her voice calm took every bit of strength Josie could muster.
He folded his hands on the top rail of the fencing as he watched the girls play. “Yes. I thought she was crazy because her marriage was falling apart, and I couldn’t imagine why she wanted to bring a baby into all that drama, but in the end it worked out okay. In the short time they had together, she was a wonderful mother to Addie.”
Anger didn’t just pulse up Josie’s spine, it thrummed a high, tight beat. He’d just confirmed her suspicions, that Ginger misrepresented their marriage to adopt Addie. And then to lie about Josie and call her a drug-using mother? Why would she do that?
Josie had been honest about her misguided experimentation with drugs after she lost her dad, but she’d been clean for a long time before Addie was conceived.
Her hands curled. Her palms went moist. She had to work to keep her face placid and pretend his story wasn’t breaking her heart.
He believed his sister. Losing Ginger caused a lot of grief, but if she hadn’t lied to the agency to begin with, none of this would have happened. Maybe she wouldn’t have even been on that particular road that day… Who knew?
Ginger’s misrepresentation began a chain of events that brought them to this moment, and while Josie loved the chance to see her daughter in person, she couldn’t negate the truth. She and the agency had been intentionally duped. “Being a single parent isn’t easy, I’m sure.”
