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“Mom asked Howard to be checked to see if we would be a match—if he could give me the kidney I needed. He said no. For nine years, he said no. She asked Rafferty, and he said yes and got tested that day. Within a week, I got the transplant. He saved my life, and I never even thanked him for doing it.” She cried in his arms.
“Why was Rafferty able to give you his kidney?” Anderson wasn’t following her logic.
“Howard was my dad, too. Rafferty is my half-brother,” she whispered.
At her words, so many conversations and actions of Rafferty fell into place. Why he would never be interested in Ruth but knew so much about her. His reaction when she almost passed out at the bar. She had been sick most of her life, and something could happen again. He had actually said they were related at the café that morning so many months ago. Anderson had forgotten that.
“Don’t be mad that I never told you. I have never told anyone, ever. Mom didn’t tell me until I was in the hospital, dying.”
“How?” he asked in confusion. Ruth and Rafferty were in the same grade in school. Wasn’t Howard married when they were born?
“They had a fifteen-year affair, and it ended when she decided she wanted better and married Chester. She has bad taste in men. I happened within the first few years, but he never acknowledged me, ever. I was thirteen when they broke it off. Rafferty got the dad I always wanted, but I don’t think he got a good dad. I was so angry with Howard for rejecting me that I punished Rafferty for it. I am a bad person. For all these years, I have been a bad person.” She buried her head in his suit jacket and cried.
“Ruth.” He just held her in his arms. Let her cry tears for the man who would never be her dad.
As her tears dried up, she sat up. “I need to go see my mom and tell her. I don’t want her to find out from gossip.”
“Do you want me to go, or do you just want to use my pickup?” he asked, not wanting to push her into meeting her mom and stepdad. At this point, he wanted to meet them, but was she also feeling they were ready to meet each other’s parents already?
She surprised him with her answer. “Can you come?”
Ruth changed out of her business attire and washed her face to get ready to see her mother. When she was done, she was wearing gray slacks and a blue sweater, and she had left her hair loose. He could tell the tears were near the surface, but she had them under control at that moment.
Winter was still in full swing, and the snow covered everything with inches to feet of the white fluffy stuff. Ruth directed him to her mother’s place. It seemed to take longer than Anderson had expected, but soon they were pulling in front of a small ranch house nestled among gray outbuildings. In the cover of winter, it was quaint and picturesque.
Ruth barely waited for the pickup to stop before she jumped out and headed for the door. Anderson was unable to catch up to her before she made it there. By the time Anderson made it into the house, Ruth was in the kitchen. The house was small, and Anderson made it into the room as Ruth’s mom turned from the sink and leaned against the counter with her hands on her chest.
Her mother was not what he had ever expected. From what Mia had said, she was barely a day over fifty, but her life had been harder than her daughter’s, and it showed in her face. Despite that, she was just an older version of Ruth. Same hair, same height, but Sara’s eyes were brown, not Ruth’s ice-blue.
“Angel, what are you doing here?” the older woman asked her daughter.
“Mom, I have something to tell you. Can you sit?” Ruth pulled out a chair for the woman.
“Who is this?” Sara Kennedy pointed at Anderson.
“Mom, can you sit? This is Anderson Miles,” Ruth said with a wave in his direction.
“Your boss? What is he doing here?” Sara’s back stiffened.
“He drove me here,” Ruth tried to explain and tapped the chair again.
“I could have come and got you,” Sara protested, looking at Anderson from head to toe. Her face said that she didn’t like what she saw.
“I wanted to come out here and talk to you.” Ruth finally gave up on the chair.
She pointed at Anderson again. “About him?”
“No, something else.” Ruth walked to the stove. It was turned off, so Ruth just leaned on it, wrapping her fingers around the handle behind her.
“Should he be here, then?” Sara still had her eyes on Anderson. It didn’t seem like she was going to get used to him being there.
“Yes, he knows what I am going to tell you. Can you sit down?” Ruth gestured to the chair.
“I can stand.” She protested her daughter’s request again.
“Please, Mom.”
“No, I can stand.”
