Chapter 54
I haven’t thought about my mother in so long, I almost forgot what it felt like to lose her.
My entire family all chose to disown me all in one night, but I never thought I’d lose my mom.
It’s not the same thing as what Felix, Kai, and Sonnet have gone through, but it makes me wonder if like Sonnet, one day I’ll be walking down the street and hear people I don’t even know talking about my mother’s death.
I wanted to be perfect for her. I can’t believe my flaws, my music, my passion, is what caused this separation.
Zayden wasn’t sure if Sonnet would agree to this and gave her multiple chances throughout the night and morning to change her mind.
As lead alpha, it was his duty to lead his pack down healthy paths, but this was outside of his comfort zone.
He wasn’t sure how big the line that he had crossed was, and whether Sonnet would forgive him for it.
However, Sonnet was calm as she sat in the passenger seat as they drove to her grandparents’ estate.
This was a moment when Zayden’s ability to be Pack Alpha would make or break him.
“Wow,” Sonnet breathed out as they were buzzing into the driveway. “I know you said they owned a large estate, but I don’t think I was expecting this.”
Neither was Zayden. In fact, their home and property put their mansion to shame.
Their house was large and old, with a beautiful section of their property dedicated to their horse breeding facility and the other half to their training fields.
Zayden had remembered Sonnet’s grandfather mentioning they dabbled in horse racing, but it was made clear they didn’t just dabble; they owned the competition.
“Jude would love this,” Sonnet whispered as a mare and her foal were led out into a pasture.
They parked their car, and as they got out, a well-dressed older woman waited on the steps leading to the front door. Zayden recognized Adalynn right away because she and Sonnet had the same eyes.
Zayden reached for her hand and squeezed it. “It’s alright, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
Sonnet nodded her head, and up the stairs they climbed.
Adalynn showered them all with pleasant, awkward hellos before leading them through their gorgeous house and outside to the courtyard where there was a beautiful pond, a maze garden, and the beautiful willow tree Sonnet’s mother was buried under.
Adalynn sat near the tree at a well-dressed table with different light snacks and expensive glasses with lemonade. When they all sat down, it was clear. Everyone felt the heaviness of this moment.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” Adalynn said, fidgeting with a gold bracelet on her wrist. She was a woman who had aged completely with grace, and yet, she appeared tired and worn.
“I had hoped you would accept the invitation but seeing you here in front of me is so surreal. You look so much like your mother.”
Sonnet grabbed Zayden’s hand from under the table. “Thank you for the invitation. Your home is beautiful.”
“My husband and I started this place forty years ago. He did horse racing for a time, but I was always more into the care and companionship of the horses rather than their speed. We compromised and started this breeding company, mainly for horse racing. Do you ride?”
Sonnet turned to Zayden, as if asking, 'Is she serious right now?'
“No. I wasn’t given the luxury.”
Oh boy.
Adalynn’s smile became pinched and forced. She quickly moved on to pouring lemonade and serving the small appetizers. Sonnet didn’t touch her plate or her glass. Instead, she stared Adalynn down with an intensity Zayden hoped she’d never look at him with.
“I want to talk about my mother,” Sonnet said, right as Adalynn took a bite of her lemon tart. “I want to know about her, and I want to know why I never knew about you. I want to know why she’s buried in your yard, and why I never knew she had even died.”
Zayden credited Adalynn for staying composed.
She finished her bite, took a sip of her drink, and settled her eyes on Sonnet.
She kept her composure as she went into detail about Sonnet’s mother.
How they named her Noelle after she was born as a premature baby on Christmas Day, how she grew up spoiled rotten with everything she could ever want, like her own show horse she competed with frequently, and that Noelle was expected to make it big in her life until she was diagnosed with anxiety.
At the time, Adalynn and her husband brushed off the diagnosis.
They called it useless, saying all it took was better focus, and Noelle would be fine.
“We never saw how badly our daughter was struggling until it was too late for us to help,” Adalynn whispered, as if her admission itself was enough to kill her and cast her into hell.
“She quickly began failing school, isolating herself from her friends, and even began to neglect her mare. Our workers had to take responsibility for keeping her horse well cared for and in shape. Her anxiety had quickly turned into depression, but we simply called it self-destruction. I always said we just didn’t know better.
But that was my baby, and I should have known better. ”
A lump was forming in Zayden’s throat as he thought of his parents and the pressure they had placed on him and his brothers. Where his siblings succeeded, Zayden drowned under the weight of perfection and was labeled as the black sheep of the family for it.
“I woke up in the middle of the night. There was no reason for me to. It was a perfect summer night, the last day before Noelle’s senior year of high school, but I had woken up and just had this dreadful feeling.
I went to check on her, and her bed was perfectly made with a note resting on her pillow.
I still have it as a reminder to myself that my baby ran away because of us.
I tried to track her down. We paid for private detectives and tried to involve the law.
We had even begun to check the hospitals for Jane Does and the newspapers for anyone deceased. ”
“Why?” Sonnet asked, her tone heavy and cracked. “Do you know why she ran away? What was the breaking point?”
“It was me.” Adalynn handed Sonnet the very letter Noelle wrote to her all those decades ago.
“She couldn’t bear seeing the disappointment in her father’s expression, but above all else, she couldn’t continue living knowing she was putting me in pain.
She was a lost child in the maze of her own depression and anxiety, and she felt no hope in getting out of it, so she left so as not to make me feel responsible for it. ”
Sonnet took a moment to read the letter, and when she was done, tear stains were left on the old paper. “She sounds so sad. She was so sad when she was with me, too.”
“That can’t be true. For her, you were the sun she needed to guide her.”
“How do you know?”
“I never thought I was going to see my daughter again. I thought she was dead or cities away. I had no idea she had been here this entire time until she showed up at our door three years ago.” Adalynn cleared her throat as she attempted to keep her emotions at bay.
It was the first time she began to talk about Noelle that her persona crumbled.
“Your mother wanted a clean slate. She told me that five years before coming to us, she had slowly begun to change things for the better. She worked as an office assistant, had her own apartment, and was ready to clean herself up so she could come and find you. But when she went to her doctor, she was diagnosed with AIDs. She had contracted the disease years ago, and without knowing or being properly treated, the disease went to the point of no return. She came to us to ride out the rest of her time before she inevitably passed.”
“But why didn’t she come find me? Why didn’t she spend her time with me?”
“She was ashamed. She didn’t want you to have any worse memories than what she had already given to you.”
“That’s not fair. I deserved a goodbye. I deserved to say goodbye to her.” Sonnet shook her head and bunched her fists tightly in her lap. “If she told you I existed, why didn’t you try to find me to tell me about my mother?”
“All Noelle had told me was that she had given up a baby for adoption, but she gave me no name, no information. I had no idea of the true nature of it all. It wasn’t until Zayden had reached out that I learned the truth. You really do look so much like your mother.”
Adalynn smiled sadly at Sonnet before waving her hand towards a nearby worker, who brought over a box. Tears rolled down Sonnet’s cheeks as she peered into it. There had to be more than a hundred letters inside it, each lovingly addressed to her by her mother.
“Thank you,” Sonnet choked. “For giving these to me.”
“Think of it as an olive branch. An unlimited invitation to come visit whenever you’d like. I could teach you to ride if you wanted.”
Sonnet nodded her head. “I would like that.”
Zayden helped Sonnet carry the box into the car and waited respectfully as Sonnet and her grandmother exchanged a positive goodbye.
When they began driving back home, Zayden felt confident that Sonnet would grow a close bond with Adalynn, and that now that her mother was nearby, she’d be able to grow through her grief.
No matter what, Zayden and the rest of his pack would always be there for Sonnet and support whatever decision she made.