28. Ivy #2
Beverly looks away, but from her story, I can see now why Gramps and Grammy’s heartbreak over my mother was multilayered and why later they never bothered to look for her.
“Of course, when they suddenly showed up and confronted both Jared and me, they quickly demanded that I enroll fulltime in college while they took care of Samuel for me,” she says, a faraway look in her eyes.
“For a time, life seemed to find a better course for us than it was before with the chaos, the fear and the uncertainty for the future. So by the time I was about to graduate college and had been accepted to the med school of my dreams, I thought life would be nothing short of amazing from then on, but…”
“I happened,” I say, cutting her off.
It’s clear this is where the story’s going after all.
I messed everything up for my mother and the beautiful life she was having.
“No, that’s not—” she starts, then trails off.
“Jared broke up with me and married some rich girl that his parents thought would help his image when he was drafted to play professional football. Who wants to see an incredible player being weighed down by a child and some random poor girl from the other side of Westbrook Blues? That kind of baggage is a career killer.”
The sudden raw bitterness in Beverly’s voice hits me square in the chest.
This woman was hurt deeply, that much is clear, and as the tears suddenly start streaming down her face, I can’t help but shiver with pity.
“I was deeply hurt by that, especially because I knew Jared was in love with me. He had done everything to raise our son, made sacrifices that were too profound if he were not fully committed to me and Samuel, so for years after he left us, I was just stuck. I couldn’t go to school.
I deferred my enrollment, then eventually rejected my offer to Johns Hopkins, which really hurt my father. ”
An unfiltered image of Gramps pops up in my head.
He was a gentle soul, so loving and passionate about his work, his patients, and all the good he contributed to humanity that I knew he wanted his lineage to continue in the medical field.
But that hope died with my mother.
As for me, I’m too stupid. I have to manipulate test results just to get in.
Beverly looks at me with a shattered expression that she can’t hide. It’s the first time I’ve seen her so undone.
“After Jared left, and my depression hit the lowest, my parents came to pick me up and I moved back home.”
“To Westbrook Blues?”
“I grew up there,” she says with a tight smile.
“Moving back wasn’t a big deal. I already had friends there that I grew up with.
I had this pretty close friend of mine that helped me out of my depression.
She visited me a lot. We went for walks together.
We went to the library together because she loved books a lot.
She was from that illusive, highly restricted area. ”
“The estates?”
“Yes! There!” she exclaims. “At the time, the estates were still so brand new, a marvel that stunned the entire state by how exclusive and impressive it was, far beyond the other beautiful mansions in the valley. One day my friend brought her friend along to visit me. That friend had a son around the same age as Samuel, so they started playing together.”
A trickle of unease starts dripping down my spine as I listen.
Could that friend be Craig Montreal? Which means the friend that came along was Christina… so who is the other lady?
“A year after I moved back, my friend became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She was so happy as she had gotten married three years before and they hadn’t had a child yet.
I was so excited for her, so together with our other friend, we took a trip to Vegas to celebrate.
Your brother was already four at the time. ”
“Oh, God no. Don’t tell me I’m the product of an illicit night with a stranger!” I stare at her, wide-eyed.
She shakes her head, then continues her story.
“I met Teddy in Vegas. He was meeting with my friend, the one that had just had a baby for some business. I had no idea what she did for a living. All I knew about her was that she seemed to hold a very important position. She had tough security everywhere she went, as did our other friend, but having grown up in Westbrook Blues where wealthy people do weird shit, I wasn’t curious. ”
It's her! Emmett’s mother!
“Teddy wasn’t a senator yet, nor did I know he was in politics. I just knew he had become part-owner of the football team Jared was in that very night.”
I stare at my mother, seeing the light in her eyes.
It’s not warmth, nor is it happiness.
It’s mirth.
“You wanted revenge.”
She quickly looks at me. “How do you know?”
“You wanted revenge on Jared for how he left you with Samuel, but at the same time you loved him, so what did you do? Did you approach Theodore Hughes with that single-minded intention to get him to fire your ex-lover?”
Beverly visibly shudders, taking a slight step back.
“To be fair, Teddy approached me first. He was flirting all night and was obviously into me. Maybe it’s because he saw how protective both my friends were of me, so he figured we were close, and I was maybe a ticket in for him.
He was nowhere near the level of wealth as my two friends, but for whatever reason, after that night, he kept courting me. ”
“Courting? Is this Pride and Prejudice ?” I scoff, but what she says next stuns me into silence.
“Oh, baby girl, I really hope one day you experience what it’s like to be courted with sincerity, a single-minded focus only on you and a deep, intense desire just for you that lasts several lifetimes,” she says gently.
“And judging by what we all witnessed a few nights ago, that might be the case…”
I stare at her, not knowing what to say.
“Anyway, fast-forward. Teddy and I married after three months of meeting. Then… I met Jared again at a dinner.”
From Beverly’s shifty eyes to the way her voice suddenly dips and stutters, I immediately know everything.
“You slept with your married ex that night?!” I screech.
“Yes, all right! I did it! I slept with the man! He was fine as hell!” she exclaims in a whisper-shout.
If this wasn’t insane, I would laugh, but this… this is something else.
“I slept with Jared again while we were both married and at the time, Teddy was traveling a lot, for months on end, so when I found out I was pregnant with you, I was already five months along. Just three days after I found out, I got news that completely destroyed me…”
Her voice trails off so suddenly, like she just lost her voice.
“What news?” I ask softly.
“Jared had been involved in an accident and died on the spot.”
A heavy silence falls between us as Beverly silently sobs, her shoulders shaking violently, but I can’t even move to comfort her. I’m still in a paralysis of shock.
“Teddy had just left for Asia for half a year, so?—”
“So, you easily and quietly had me, dumped me on the front door of your parents’ house in the dead of winter, where you had already abandoned Samuel.”
Growing up, I was told that my mother abandoned me, about that they never lied, but they did cook up other parts like the one where Grammy said Beverly left both Samuel and me at the door, but that’s not true.
Samuel had already been with Grammy and Gramps. I was the only one left in the middle of the night.
“Does Samuel know? About Jared?” I ask groggily, starting to feel faint all of a sudden.
“Yes,” Beverly says in a whisper. “Teddy also knew before we married that I had a son.”
Samuel has always known who our father was… and kept it from me.
“Ah, so it’s just me that you lied about,” I murmur. “It’s me that was the flaw in your grand plans.”
As I say those words, I expect myself to burst into tears. Demand why she’d do that. Curse at her. Throw a tantrum, but for some unknown reason, I feel… nothing.
“Ivy… I’m so, so, sorry, sweetheart.”
I can tell she’s being sincere and the pain in her eyes is raw and real, but all I can do is stare past her, unable to look her in the eye.
“I made a mistake,” she goes on, but to me I hear…
I was a mistake.
“I shouldn’t have…”
I shouldn’t exist.
“When I found out, it was a bit…”
Too late to get rid of me.
“But I wanted you.”
Because I was a tie to your one and only love.
I was right… there really isn’t any reason or explanation that is good enough to patch up the shattered pieces of a child’s pain.
Trauma is trauma.
“Sweetheart, I had no choice but to stay married to Teddy. If I had stayed in touch with my parents, you and Samuel would’ve been in danger, especially after finding out that Jared’s accident was no accident at all. And then again with my father.”
Oh God.
“I lied that you were Melissa’s twin. There was no way to hide the stark similarity you two girls have and you were small for your age, so manipulating your birth certificate was not an issue.”
I stare at her, trying my hardest to shake off this absurd feeling that’s creeping up on me.
My whole life has been an intricate web of lies and omissions.
“You curated my entire life to match your daughter so I can be a shield for her and for you?”
A humorless chuckle escapes my lips.
A feeling of insanity starts brewing in me, like a storm that I’m sure will take me out too. And for the first time in a very long time, I want the storm to take me.
I want to crash out.
“Then what about me?” I croak hoarsely, lifting my chin up slowly so I can look at her. “Did you ever think about me and the extremely deep breach of identity you imparted on me?”
Beverly clamps a hand over her mouth and starts sobbing, and I just stand there, staring at her, seeing… nothing.
“Did you hate me so much?” I mutter.
Something as basic and fundamental as age was denied to me, all because she wanted to cover her tracks from a man she knows she should’ve never married but decided to stay with anyway.
If that’s not a clear choice, then I don’t know what is.