Page 131 of Never After Us
“I needed a baby,” she continues softly.“Your father wanted a family.I thought ...I thought this solved everything.”
“It didn’t,” I whisper.“He never loved me.”
“He did,” she insists.“Until you got sick and he found out you weren’t his.”Her breath stutters.“He thought I cheated.I couldn’t tell him the truth.And after he left ...Lina married Mario so we could pay for your treatments.The only condition was that she left everything behind.Her old life.The memories of him and, of course, you.It wasn’t convenient.”
“That’s bullshit,” I snap, voice shaking.“You let her give away her own child.”
“Mara,” she sobs.“She would’ve done anything for you.Anything.You were her little girl even when I forbade her to ever tell you the truth.”
I sink onto the couch, the room tilting around me like it can’t hold all these revelations at once.
On the other side of the line, my mother cries.
Next to me, Alec’s hand finds mine again—not to pull me up, not to hold me together, not to fix anything.
Just to be there.
And somehow, through all the wreckage, that might be the only thing keeping me from breaking entirely.
ChapterFifty-Two
Alec
Around six o’clock, Mara falls asleep.
Her face is pale, the exhaustion pulling at her features in a way that makes her look breakable.I sit with her longer than I need to—watching her chest rise and fall, watching her hold on even in sleep like the truth might rip her awake again.
Once I’m sure she’s out, I leave her bedroom, and of course that’s when the phone rings—and it’s her mom.I offer to buy her a plane ticket for next week.It’s the right thing to do.The responsible thing.She’ll wait until she’s here to talk to Mara.I’m giving them time to settle their feelings while Laura is preparing for her trip.
So this whole thing about leaving before I forget how to breathe without her is not gonna happen, like ever, and I’m committed to wait until it’s my turn.My feelings can be in the background while she heals.I’m a patient man and I’m definitely not going anywhere.Not today and maybe not ever.
All this probably happened the moment she let herself fall apart in my arms.The change was irreversible.I need her as much as I want her to need me.For now, it’ll be best if I’m proactive and have everything that she might need even if she doesn’t ask for it.
“Too fucking early,” Eddie mutters when he picks up.
“Yes, but Mara found out that my neighbor was her birth mother.”I sigh, not sure if this is something I’d be discussing with him, but also knowing that I need him to do me a favor.
“Yeah.I remember.”
“You knew?”I glance at the phone and then set it back to my ear.
“I told you I was going to run a background check on her aunt.”He yawns like we’re discussing car maintenance.“Then told you there was a lot but since there’s the fucking will and the boxes?—”
“You also knew about that?”
He groans.“I’m thorough, Alec.You asked, and I delivered, of course.”
“I see, but ...you never told me that she was her biological mother and not her aunt,” I remind him.“You could’ve warned me.”
He scoffs.“You didn’t want to be warned, Alec.You wanted to be gone.I wasn’t going to give you yet another reason to leave.”
I drag a hand down my face.“Fine.Do you have anything on her birth father?Thomas Walls?”
“He was a POW, they found him after ten years,” he states.“He runs an animal shelter in Vermont now.”
Well, that’s good and fucked up because things might’ve been different if he had appeared.At least for him and Lina ...probably.“So, he has a wife, kids, grandkids?”
“Nope.Alone.No known family.Doesn’t talk to many people.Spends his time with rescues.”
