Chapter 35 #2
“She basically put me up in an apartment in Nashville that she’d borrowed from someone, enrolled me in school, and took off.
Her career was picking up, and she had gigs all over the place.
She’d call occasionally, but more often than not, I didn’t know when I’d see her next.
Sometimes people she knew would stop by to check on me to make sure I had food and stuff, but other than that, I was on my own.
I went to school, took up with the wrong kind of friends again, and this time I had even less of a reason to keep up pretenses. I don’t know how I wasn’t expelled.”
“It’s difficult to picture that now,” Frankie said, looking around at the cozy room.
“Oh, I was feral.” Amber stretched out one leg and ran a hand down the fabric of her jeans as if smoothing a crease.
“And then one weekend, I was getting ready to go out when one of Stella’s associates came to do his check in.
I’d already had a couple of beers, so I offered him one too, thinking that would make him less likely to tell on me.
He checked the fridge and ran down to the corner store to pick up some stuff I was out of.
We talked about school, how well Stella was doing…
” She swallowed. “And then he raped me.”
“Oh.” The word burst from Frankie’s lips as she stared at Amber, one hand flying up to cover her mouth. “No…” she whispered.
Amber’s gaze was elsewhere, but she pressed on as if needing to get the words out and have it over with.
“I got pregnant with you and sent to St. George’s.
At first, I lived with one of the nurses who worked at the clinic that was part of the school, and then after you were born, I was enrolled as a student.
It was very hush-hush. Stella came back once six months after, but not for me. ” She focused on Frankie again.
“Only for me,” Frankie filled in, horror clogging her every cell.
Estelle had cast out her only child in the most vulnerable of times and left her behind.
She had stolen Frankie after all, but not the way Frankie had feared.
No, this was worse. She’d orchestrated a lifelong ruse, and she’d almost gotten away with it.
“I was told it would be better for everyone if I forgot about the whole thing and focused on my education.” A streak of bitterness coated Amber’s voice.
“But I was fifteen. I felt ruined, and I suddenly had nothing and no one. I left the school on my eighteenth birthday and didn’t look back.
The path of self-destruction I’d turned to at eleven lured me further along, and for a long while, I lost myself completely.
I’m not proud of that. Homelessness, drugs, petty crime… ”
“Did Estelle know?”
“I don’t think so. I was doing my best to pretend my past didn’t exist, so even if she tried, I doubt she was able to find me. I was a ghost.”
“I wonder if that’s why she started sending money to the school,” Frankie said. “Maybe once we were settled in Aspen Creek, guilt caught up with her, and when she failed to track you down, the school was second best.”
Amber let out a bitter huff. “I don’t know that she was capable of the feeling.
I think she was a sociopath or whatever you call someone who doesn’t care about the way her actions impact others.
Stella was always number one in Stella’s world.
Not Dad, not me, not you. Just Stella and her ambitions. ”
Frankie pondered that. A few months ago, she would have protested the statement with vehemence, but now she wasn’t so sure.
Estelle had always managed to get her way, but her gift was never to be overt about it.
Everyone loved her because it felt like she was on their team.
The question was if she’d played them all.
More and more, the signs pointed that way.
“So how did you get away from that life?” Frankie asked.
“Luck,” Amber said. “I broke my leg—walked into traffic when I was drunk and high and got hit by a car.”
“Doesn’t sound lucky to me.”
Amber smiled. “I went through withdrawal in the hospital, and one of the nurses there took pity on me. She’d lost a son years earlier to drugs, and now she was about to retire, so she offered me a chance.
She was moving back to Wales where she was from.
I went with her. Celebrated my thirtieth birthday pruning lavender and rose bushes in her garden, six months clean.
A couple of years after that, I met John.
She passed in 2020, but Evie is named after her. She was my guardian angel.”
“That should have been Estelle,” Frankie said, her anger seeping through. “That’s a mom’s job. I’ll never forgive her for this.”
Amber clutched the pillow in her lap tighter. “What about me? Will you forgive me?”
Frankie startled at the question. “For what?”
“You said it yourself—it’s a mom’s job to protect her children. And here we are—strangers to each other.”
Frankie struggled to untangle the mess of emotions that churned inside her. No doubt her life would have been different if she’d known the truth. She’d already be part of this other family for one. Yet no anger emerged.
“You were a child yourself,” she said.
“Not fifteen years ago, or ten, or five.” Amber’s gaze was watchful, as if preparing for the lashes she thought she’d earned.
“I did write Stella about a decade ago. In a moment of weakness, I thought she might want to know that I was alive. I was in the throes of early motherhood and imagined na?vely that that might connect us. I asked about you—if you knew about me. She said that it would wreak havoc on your life. That it would be selfish of me after all this time.” She lifted her shoulder in a small shrug that didn’t manage to hide the writhing emotion underneath it.
“I could have insisted,” she said, casting her eyes down.
“But I was scared that she might be right, scared I’d hurt you and lose myself again. I couldn’t risk it for the twins.”
Frankie nodded. “I understand.”
“I hoped one day…” Tears swelled in Amber’s eyes again. “Oh my God, Frankie, I’m so sorry.” She covered her face as her shoulders started shaking. “I’m so sorry.”
Frankie scooted across the couch and wrapped her mother in her arms. “It’s okay,” she said in soothing tones. “I’m okay.”
Amber pulled back, her hand cupping Frankie’s cheek. “Are you?”
Frankie leaned into the tender touch. “I promise.”
“Okay.” Amber sniffed, her thumb caressing a stray tear from beneath Frankie’s eye. Then she reached for a tissue from a box on the side table behind her and blew her nose. “Phew,” she said. “I’m too old for this.” She rubbed at her eyes and inhaled deeply. “So now you know.”
Frankie leaned back against the cushions and let everything sink in. A few of the cracks that had formed as Estelle’s house of cards had come tumbling down were filling in, but others remained open gashes. Amber wouldn’t have all the answers, but there was one that she still hadn’t touched upon.
“What about the man who raped you?” Frankie said at the ceiling. “Did you tell Estelle? Did she know?” She pleaded with the fates that the answer would be no, fearful she’d only learned half of Estelle’s betrayal so far.
Amber was quiet for a few seconds. “I tried to tell her, but it was his word against mine. All he had to do was point to a few of the guys I was running with and there was enough plausible doubt for her to latch on to. For the record, I wasn’t sleeping around.
There was only ever one possible father. But he had her ear, and I didn’t.”
“Who was he? Do you have a name?”
“I think he was her manager at the time. Which was probably another reason why she didn’t question him. It would have ruined her career before it even got started.”
Cold sweat broke out down Frankie’s back. “Her manager?”
“Raymond Clark.” Amber spit out the name. “May his soul rot in hell.”