17. June #3
“Hi, Mom ,” Rad said with a small, tired smile. “Sorry to just turn up like this.”
“Would you mind terribly if we stayed here tonight?” Ace asked. “I’m beat. I’ve been flying all day. And we met the most horrid person.” He gave an exaggerated shudder.
“Hey,” Rad muttered, glaring at him. “You know that’s?—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Ace cut him off, rolling his eyes. The saying softly to June. “Trust me, it was the most awful person. Even worse than Victoria used to be.”
June laughed at Ace and stepped back to let them both in, her curiosity lighting up.
“Come inside,” she told them. “Choose any of the spare rooms. They’re all made up.”
“What is that wonderful aroma?” Ace stopped in the hall and sniffed the air.
“I’m making dinner. I’ll put some more on,” June offered, suddenly feeling glad for the unexpected company.
“June, you are my hero.” Ace kissed her cheek as he passed her. “Do you mind if I go and have a quick shower while Rad tells you what we’ve been up to today?”
“Of course, Ace. Go. Take as long as you need,” June told him. She’d always wanted sons. Shaun had been the closest she’d gotten besides her grandson. Or now grandsons.
Ace stifled a yawn, hooked his bag over his shoulder, and disappeared down the hallway in the direction of the guest rooms.
June turned to Rad.
“Do you want to come through to the kitchen while I finish cooking?” June asked him.
“Sure.” Rad picked up his own bag, set it down in the hall beside the kitchen door, and followed her through.
June went back to the stove and started stretching what she’d been making for one into enough for three. Rad settled onto a stool at the kitchen counter and watched her for a moment without speaking.
“I remember the last time we were all here,” Rad finally observed.
June laughed. It was easy to laugh at that now. “Yes. My house blew up. What a charming evening that was.” She glanced at Rad.
“Willa told me you and Ace had disappeared on a secret adventure today.”
“Yeah.” Rad paused. “We didn’t want to disclose what we were doing. Just in case it didn’t pan out.”
June glanced over her shoulder at him. “Oh?”
“I recorded a conversation today that is going to make two people mad.” Rad drew in a long breath.
He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and laid it on the counter in front of him.
“June… Mom , I know you and my father are probably going to be mad at me. But I can’t say after what I found out that I’m sorry for what I did today. ”
“Alright?” June turned to look at him.
Rad fiddled with his phone for a moment. “I had to find out what really happened when you and Dad divorced.”
June went very still at the stove, watching him wearily. “What do you mean, Rad?”
“I found my mother,” Rad told her quietly. “I tracked her down. Ace flew me to her. I asked her about when you and Dad got divorced.” His jaw tightened. “I’m sorry to even have to say this. But it turns out that my biological mother was instrumental in breaking the two of you up.”
“Excuse me?” June breathed, her brow creasing in confusion.
Rad glanced at his cellphone.
“When my mother saw that Dad had gone to her father for help with his FBI application, she saw an opportunity to try to pull him away from you,” Rad told her.
“She’d always wanted him. She thought she was going to have to do it while you were in Virginia, but fate gave her a helping hand when the two of you had your big argument the night my father found out he’d been accepted to Quantico. ”
“What?” June managed. “How?”
“She was at a friend’s bachelorette party at the same hotel Dad was staying in that night,” Rad continued. “She saw him alone at the bar, and she pounced. She laughed when she told me, June. She said she rented a room at the same hotel and had all of Dad’s phone calls routed to her room.”
“She did what?” June whispered. Her heart was pounding now.
“She knew the owner of the hotel. Her family had a lot of clout there. She made sure every call that came through for my father was sent to her room.” Rad’s jaw was working. “After that, she made sure she was with him every moment she could manage. Just in case you showed up.”
“I...” June stared at Rad. Her world was tilting in a way she hadn’t been prepared for. She set down the wooden spoon she’d been holding and sat down heavily on the kitchen stool opposite him.
“Are you all right?” Rad asked, concern moving across his face. “I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have?—”
“No. It’s all right, Rad. It’s all right. It was a long time ago. I’m okay.” June drew in a steadying breath. “But why did you go looking?”
“Because I had to find out once and for all whether my father had been having an affair with my mother while you two were still married,” Rad told her honestly.
“You’ve been carrying that for thirty-eight years, Mom .
I watched you carry it in the kitchen that night three months ago.
And I didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it of my father. But I had to be sure.”
“I understand,” June replied softly.
“Her father set my father up in the house in Virginia after the divorce,” Rad continued. “The housekeeper there worked for her family. The woman was under very strict instructions about exactly what to say if a woman ever showed up at the front door looking for my father.”
June’s throat closed.
“So that night when I went to Virginia with the baby...” June whispered.
“My mother never lived there. She just visited sometimes. And on the night you went to that door, Dad wasn’t out at dinner with my mother.
Dad was at Quantico.” Rad reached across the counter and took her hand.
He squeezed it gently. “He hardly saw her at all during that first year. It was all my mother’s manipulation.
She orchestrated every single piece of it. ”
June couldn’t speak.
Rad’s jaw tightened further.
“And there’s one more thing, Mom.” Rad’s eyes darkened with anger, and the muscle at the side of his jaw ticked.
“What?” June managed, wondering what could be worse than what she’d just heard.
Rad looked her straight in the eyes. “My mother knew about Willa from when you were pregnant.”