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I let my arms fall loosely to my sides and did what I’d tried to do but hadn’t been able to. “I’m sorry. I am so incredibly sorry for hurting y’all. I didn’t think past my own selfish needs when I lied about where I’m from and my background for the surrogacy application. I should’ve known better and I should’ve been a better person. I deserve your anger. I earned it with every lie I told. I hope you know that my feelings, our time together, that was all real.
“You probably don’t trust a single thing I say and I understand that, but I felt everything. It was me, through and through. I talked to Knox about you constantly, so much that he probably knows everything about all of you. Each of you mean so much to me and I’m just so sorry I didn’t tell you the whole truth before all of this.”
They didn’t look up at me. I knew they heard me because they’d frozen in place, but they wouldn’t even look at me.
“Please, give me a chance to explain everything. Give me a chance to make it right. I’ll prove to you that I’m the woman you spent so much time with. I don’t want it to end. I don’t want to lose y’all. I…I love you. I love each of you and it’s killing me that I hurt you.” I’d started crying at some point and the tears poured out of me. They still didn’t look up at me. “Did you hear me? I love you! I love each of you so damn much in a way that I never thought I would feel. Just…look at me! Please!”
Nothing changed. They didn’t budge.
“I don’t need the money. Let me prove to you that it’s not about the money, or anything else. I just want the three of you in my life. I’ll sign something right now that says I’ll forfeit the money. I’ll move out and find a job. I can support myself and show you that it’s not about any of that. Just give me a chance. I’m begging you.”
The silence was deafening again. I felt fingers wrap around my hand and looked back to see Bea, her face etched in pain. She gently pulled me out of the room and down the hallway that would leave me on the outside again.
“I’m so sorry, Memphis. Let me walk you back to the house and we can just cry together tonight. Okay?” She wiped tears from my cheeks and clenched my hand hard. “I think it’s time we talked about something I should’ve told you from the start.”
60.
***Wells***
Ishovedbackfromthe table and drained the last of my scotch. I would’ve needed two more bottles to numb the constant ache in my chest. Since I didn’t drink to feel better anymore I skipped the scotch. “Well, fuck me very much, I’m going upstairs to try and burn that out of my memory.”
Boone’s hand shook as he finished his own scotch and got up to pour himself another. “I…I’m going to go get drunk. I don’t want to think about this anymore.”
Remy stayed at the table, his hand still clutching his fork, knuckles white. “Bring a second bottle.”
I left them to it and went upstairs. I’d been trapped in a vicious cycle of needing to paint but only being able to paint Memphis. I was surrounded in my room by Memphis in different states and poses. The ones of late had all been dark and featured her weakly clinging to the wall while tears streaked down her cheeks. It wasn’t helping anything.
I stopped outside my door and took a deep breath. It was hard to step inside and face Memphis’s broken eyes. They looked so real. Her emotions had felt so genuine. She was a liar, though. She’d used us. There was a reason I never opened myself up to a relationship before her and she’d proven how right I was. No one escaped a relationship unscathed. You couldn’t trust anyone, even sweet women with big eyes and southern accents. Even the woman who’d raised you and promised she’d never go anywhere.
I glanced past my room at the dark end of the hallway and found myself moving towards our mom’s old room. We’d just shut the door and left everything the way it was after Memphis’s brother had trashed it. It was too painful to look at, but after hearing Memphis’s confession and sobs, it seemed easier to face my mother’s broken things than to look at a dozen images of Memphis hurting.
I opened the door and the scent of her perfume still hung in the air as I stepped inside. Her room had been a snapshot in time of the day she’d died. Before Jackson touched everything, I could look inside the room and still remember that day like it was happening in a movie right in front of me. Her nightgown and robe had been across the bed, with her slippers on the floor close by. Her vanity had been messy from her rushing to get ready.
Moving farther in, I saw the framed photo of her wedding to Don. That picture had been replaced after her death. When Don found the three of us on the floor in that very room, crying our hearts out, he’d lost it. He’d grabbed that picture frame and shoved it in our faces before throwing it across the room, where it shattered and sprayed us with glass.
I could still hear him screaming about our mom being a liar and a whore. Remy had defended her and taken a backhand to the mouth for it. Don told us how he knew she’d been cheating on him and she was planning on leaving the family to run away with the other man. He forced us to say things that I still couldn’t face, things about our mother that had been cruel and unusual.
We’d gone into the room that night heartbroken, and we’d come out as fucked up little boys who couldn’t understand why their mother had hurt them so badly. We’d gone from loved and well-adjusted kids to angry boys who felt like no one had ever loved them and like no one ever would. If your own mother didn’t love you, who would?
I could still hear Don’s screaming as I stopped at her vanity and straightened her jewelry box. High or not, I still wanted to kick Jackson’s ass for touching her things. He had no right. I started putting pieces of her jewelry back and frowned when it felt like my finger almost went through the bottom of the box. When I turned it over, the bottom looked fine, though. It was still solid. Turning it over again in my hands, I saw it. A false bottom.
My heart stopped as I lifted the lining and saw that inside the secret compartment there was a small notebook. I pulled it out as carefully as I could and held the brittle paper in shaking hands. What could it be? I tried to stamp down the excitement. Most likely, it would be a book of her numbers or something. Opening the top cover blew that theory out of the water. My mom’s handwriting, small and curvy, lined page after page of the notebook.
Sinking to the floor, I devoured every line. I read our mom’s most personal thoughts and then read them again before I stood up on shaking legs and rushed downstairs to find Boone and Remy. Still holding the notebook like it held the secrets of the universe, I found them in the living room, throwing back shots.
They each jerked upright when they saw me and I wondered what they saw on my face that startled them so much. Remy even stood up and moved towards me. “Wells? Are you okay?”
I felt my face and realized why they were freaked out. I was crying. With my heart in my throat, I held up the notebook. “I just meant to pick up her jewelry. This was inside a secret compartment in her jewelry box. It’s…it’s her diary.”
Remy paled and sat down heavily. “What’s it say?”
“Don lied. He fucking lied.” I sat down next to Boone and opened to the final page. “This is the last entry before…you know. She’s not talking about leaving us and running away. She went on a page-long rant about Don being an asshole to her about her plans to go out with a woman named Bridgette. She talked about Bridgette moving into her cottage, as she called it. She talked about finding the space to build on to the cottage so her boys could have enough space to be happy.”
“Who’s Bridgette? I don’t remember anyone named Bridgette.” Boone leaned closer as I flipped to another page.
“Bridgette was Mom’s friend from school.” I hesitated. “Shewascheating on Don. With Bridgette.”
Remy stared at me, dumbfounded. “What?”
