Page 101 of The Charade
She'd only been a few years older than I was now. And I knew that it couldn't have been easy to raise Elyse and me alone. Couldn't have been easy telling her strict father that she'd gotten pregnant without a husband, and eventually being shunned because his black and white beliefs didn't make room for what he saw as a huge mistake—a huge sin—on her part.
Suddenly, she looked so alone in that chair across from us all by herself, and I couldn't bear to let her tell the rest of her story while thinking I hated her.
I reached over and tugged on her hand and made room for her to sit on the couch between Elyse and me. We wrapped our arms around her as she continued to tell us a story that must have been so hard for her to live through that it had taken her our whole lives to tell us about.
"Sorry, girls," she whispered as she was nestled between us, kissing us both on the heads. "Sorry it's taken me so long to tell you this."
I rubbed her arm and leaned my head against her shoulder, tears brimming in my own eyes. "It's okay."
And suddenly, itwasokay. Because even though not knowing who my dad was for all these years had been painful for me, at least I'd had my mom. At least she and Elyse had always been there for me.
No one had been there for my mother.
Mom let out a shaky breath. "It took me a while to get up the nerve to call Brendon and tell him everything. I was probably eight weeks along when I finally dialed his number. I was so nervous that when he first answered the phone, I just skipped through all the small talk and basically blurted out that I was pregnant and it was his, and that I didn't want to have an abortion if he was even thinking about suggesting it.
"He was quiet for a long time after that, and I was worried he may have actually hung up on me, but then he finally said okay and that we would figure this out. He then told me that he had gotten back with Brianna and they were planning to get married since they were expecting a baby as well."
My mom chewed on her bottom lip, then she solemnly said, "And then he told me that Brianna had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and it was why she'd broken up with him before, because she was freaking out about everything and not knowing how to undergo treatments while she was pregnant."
"I'd heard she was sick," I whispered, remembering what Cambrielle and Scarlett had told me about Mack's mom and how the tumor had come back.
Mom nodded. "Anyway, we didn't really make any plans for how he would be involved withmybaby since his whole life had basically just exploded on him the week before. Me being pregnant would just add even more to his already heavy plate."
"But we were still his babies," Elyse said, a hint of bitterness in her tone. "Just as much his as Mack is."
"I know." Mom patted Elyse's knee. "I know." She drew in another shaky breath as if gearing up for the next part of her story. "After our initial phone call, I didn't get back in touch with him for a couple of weeks. I wanted to give him time to breathe and get used to the idea. When I was about ten weeks along, I went to the doctor to make sure everything was fine with the pregnancy. I'd had some spotting, so they did an ultrasound. That was when we found out I wasn't having just one baby, but two."
"So now Mr. Aarden had three babies on the way. And a fiancée with a terminal illness," I said, thinking I had an idea of where this story may be going.
Mom nodded. "I waited a few days to call Brendon and tell him the exciting and terrifying news. But he didn't answer my calls. I figured he was probably just overwhelmed with the cancer treatments for Brianna and the two babies he knew about. After another week of unanswered calls, I left him a message explaining that we were expecting twins instead of the one baby, and that I hoped he'd get back to me when he could.
"When I didn't hear anything for another week, I decided to give Joel a call to see if he knew what was going on and how I could get in contact with Brendon. He told me that Brendon had been checked into the hospital for a little while because he was in a really bad place and his family was worried about him being a danger to himself. I could tell that Joel was trying not to say that me having twins was responsible for any of Brendon's troubles, but I knew that it was. And…" Mom pressed her lips together. With a shrug, she said, "It was getting pretty obvious that Brendon was in no place to help me or my babies out, so after hanging up with Joel, I decided to text Brendon that I'd had a miscarriage and that he didn't need to worry about my babies after all.
"He got out of the hospital a week later and called me after getting my message. He told me he was sorry for my loss. He said he knew it was probably really hard on me, but I could tell he was relieved to have one less fire to deal with during that time."
"So you just had us on your own and cut off all contact with your past because you couldn't let anyone find out the truth?" Elyse guessed.
"I didn't know what else to do. I'd claimed you two had died before you were born." She held her hands out at her sides in a helpless gesture. "And yeah, the first few years sucked. They were so hard. But then…" She reached her arms around our shoulders and pulled us against her. "Then things got easier. You two were more self-sufficient and…I guess I just loved you so much and thought you were both so perfect that I didn't want to take a chance of telling Brendon the truth. I didn't want to risk having him reject you all over again. I just couldn't do it."
"You think he’d have turned us away if you'd told him?" I lifted my head from her shoulder and studied her face. "We heard he was in here with you and Mr. Hastings earlier. Is he not going to accept us?"
I knew he was in the middle of another crisis right now. His wife's health was as bad or worse than it had been all those years before.
But my mom said, "No, you don't need to worry about that. I talked to him, and while he was pretty shocked on Monday when you walked into his house looking for answers, he does want to be a part of your life."
We were quiet for a little while, all lost in our own thoughts. But after a minute or two, Elyse said, "I do have one more question for you, Mom." She lifted her head from our mom's shoulder and pulled away so she could look at her better. "If you were so determined to cut off everyone from your past to protect your secret, why did you send Ava and me to school here? Didn't you know it was super likely that we'd run into someone from your past who would put two and two together?"
"I knew it was a possibility." Mom nodded slowly. "And while it scared me to death to know that my secret might come to light and there could be a lot of repercussions because of it, I knew you deserved to know the truth. I really didn't like keeping such a huge secret from you two." She looked at Elyse and then at me. "And though I knew it would probably come out sooner than later, I had no idea how everyone would take it. Obviously, I did freak out a little when Brendon called me Monday night to tell me that my two beautiful daughters had shown up at his house to ask him questions about their dad. But I knew that it was for the best and that everyone deserved to know the truth."
"So he called you and not Mr. Hastings?" I asked.
"Yes." She nodded. "He said he should have known you were his from the moment you stepped into his house because you looked so much like his sister, and the chances of me getting pregnant with twins twice was super slim. But since he'd believed my miscarriage story, he didn't put two and two together until he found out how old you were."
"Well, I guess I'm glad you were daring enough to send us here for school," I said.
My mom nodded and pulled Elyse and me against her sides again. "I'm glad I did, too."
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