Chapter 10
Sterling studied the features of his cousin and then slowly nodded. “You do look incredibly familiar,” he noted.
“Yeah, I’m also the spitting image of my mother,” she grumbled, with a sigh.
“And that’s not a good thing?” he asked.
“No, not really. I feel as if people tend to assume that I’m just like her, and I’m not. I’m not like her at all.”
Her tone was flat, not snarly, definitely not warm. “And you’re not close to her?” Sterling asked.
“No, not at all,” she declared, “though at one point in time we were. Then, when she put my granddad in the home, I started to realize that this woman I loved, despite her obvious faults, was not at all the same woman everybody else knew. And I was just getting old enough to really understand how things worked and to form my own opinions, instead of just accepting hers. I realize now that I had done that all my life, just as a way to keep some peace in my world.”
“Why did she put him in a home?”
“She would say it was because he required more care than she could provide.”
“And did he?”
“No, not at all. She just didn’t want him at home, and, as she would put it, she wanted a life without responsibility.”
He stared at her and asked, “And what about you?”
“I got the same treatment but not quite so bad, at least not at that time,” she clarified.
“At that point, I was still working hard on the farm, thinking that was my future, that we were building a business together,” she noted, with an odd tone.
Then she snorted. “Yet it’s not even our place, so how the hell would it ever be my future? ” she asked, shaking her head.
Sterling nodded. “That’s part of the problem. Your mother seems to think that she should own it.”
“She certainly acts as if she does,” Chelsea stated. “And I never even questioned it, not once. It never crossed my mind to ask if it was our place or not.”
“What about Granddad?”
“I think that he did say a few things to her about it, though I wasn’t there at the time.
I suspect that’s when she put him into a home, and she’s been trying to get him declared unfit and gain control over everything.
He did something that completely pissed her off, and I don’t know what it was.
I don’t know anything about it, honestly,” she admitted.
“I just know that she’s been on this really ugly rampage ever since. ”
“She’s probably on a rampage right now because I had my lawyer contact her.”
“Yeah, I did hear something about legal troubles that, according to her, should never have happened.” But she stared at him and asked, “It really is your place, isn’t it?”
“What did she ever tell you about it?” he asked, sidestepping the question.
“Just that she inherited it when her sister died.”
“And you never questioned it?”
“Of course not. Why would I? Honestly, I seriously thought that the two of us were in business together and that I would take it over at some point and would eventually inherit both the property and the business when she was gone.”
“And what happened to change all that? With the business I mean?”
“Her boyfriend, her boyfriend happened. He’s a drunk and a no-good loser, and he thought he could live off the proceeds.
And, of course, the money we did make didn’t go very far when you have somebody drinking it away,” she declared.
“And, with no money to put back into the business, it went south pretty quickly. I got quite angry and upset, and we had words. She told me flat-out that I wouldn’t ever get it, something about it not being hers to pass on.
I assumed she meant because Granddad was still alive, but she’d been drinking at the time and didn’t clearly say what it is was all about, but I understand it better now.
” She stared at Sterling for a moment. “She stole it from you, didn’t she? ”
“And put me in foster care,” he added.
She stared at him and shook her head. “I didn’t know anything about that. I am so sorry.”
“Not your fault, but she knew though. And she must have wondered if this day would ever come.”
“She’s got this attitude that the world owes her somehow,” Chelsea noted, as she stared off in the distance. “I mean, she’s my mother, and I guess I love her,” she began, “but I don’t love who she is, and I especially don’t love who she is when she’s got this boyfriend around.”
“And is he always around?”
“Yes, I would say so. He seems to be quite a permanent fixture in her life now. She says they’ll get married, but I don’t see him doing that at all.”
He looked at her. “And he doesn’t work?”
“No, never. He doesn’t work at all, but she’s never been married, and I think she sees that as something lacking in her life that she wants to fix. I don’t know, maybe not. It just always seemed to be one of those issues that she could never quite make peace with.”
He kept still, just letting her talk.
“I don’t mean this in a bad way toward you, and I know it probably won’t make a whole lot of sense, but I feel as if my entire life has just been exposed as a lie because of you.
” She shook her head. “Not because of you, but because you’re sitting here in front of me, and yet I didn’t even know you existed. ”
“Granddad knew I existed,” Sterling said.
“That man was incredibly important to my world. The fact that he didn’t do anything to help me is something I’ve struggled with and was why I believed it when I heard he had died.
That was the only way it made sense. But now to find out he’s been alive all these years?
I’m having a hard time coming to terms with that. ”
She frowned at him. “You know he’s not that strong physically, right?
” He stared at her, and she nodded. “He’s in a wheelchair part of the time.
Sometimes he can walk okay, but he doesn’t have the greatest physical mobility.
I wonder if, from his perspective, he might not have been physically capable of handling you.
” She took a deep breath and went on. “And, if you were particularly angry or needed help, which Mom said that you were …” She winced.
“I guess I shouldn’t even tell you this, but, according to her, you were a devil spawn child, and her sister had her hands full just looking after you even before her death. ”
“That’s funny, since I never knew your mother back then. She wasn’t around here as far as I know.”
“Jesus.” She continued to stare at him and then asked, “Where is your father?”
“I don’t know. I never had one in my life.”
She nodded at that. “Me too. I don’t even know who my father is,” she said, as she stared off in the distance. “Not that she’s speaking to me now, but my mother has never had much good to say about your mother.”
“Even though Aunt Penny supposedly inherited the property from Pamela?” Lindsey asked, with a headshake.
“Yeah, I’m really confused over that,” Chelsea noted.
Sterling sighed. “I want to see Granddad, sooner rather than later. Where can I find him?”
“I’ll take you to him,” Chelsea offered suddenly. “And we’ll see if he recognizes you.”
“Yet you said that he’s not necessarily in great mental shape.”
“But now I’m not sure how much of that is just my mother lying,” Chelsea said, with a sad sigh. “Right about now, it’s painfully clear that I can’t believe anything she’s ever told me, and that’s definitely a disconcerting thought.”
“Of course it is,” Sterling agreed. “Believe me that I’ve been rethinking a lot of things in my life.”
“But at the age you are, you’re not young anymore,” she pointed out. “Why didn’t you—”
“I wasn’t aware that the property was still there, in my mother’s name, until I ended up getting a notice about taxes, and I wasn’t even sure what I was supposed to do with it,” he explained.
“I was overseas in the military at the time, and I just forgot about it. Then I got hurt and was back stateside while recovering. And it seemed pretty evident that something was going on, but I didn’t know what.
I was still rehabbing when I accepted that my military career really was over and that I would have to build a new life.
I would need a home of my own in order to survive, so I decided to look into this as a potential solution.
That’s the practical side, but then the emotional side wasn’t so sure I wanted to deal with any of it. ”
“She’s lived there free of charge the entire time?” Chelsea asked, staring at him.
“Yeah, I know. Has she at least kept up the taxes?”
“Grandpa was paying them.”
“That’s interesting. Did he say why?”
“I don’t know. I only found out about it a little while ago, again when she was drunk.
She let loose on some things, and it was enough to make me pretty upset when I realized at least some of what was going on.
I don’t even really understand it, but he apparently had been paying a bunch of bills over time, and then he stopped paying, and they had quite the row over it.
Anyway, she somehow got him into a home against his wishes, kicking and screaming the whole way,” she added.
“I didn’t have any money to help him fight it, and I certainly didn’t understand what was going on,” Chelsea shared.
“I was eighteen or so then and still trying to believe in my mother. I kept making excuses for her. What an idiot I was,” she muttered.
She shook her head several times. “I still can’t believe it.
” And then she gave a snort and added, “But I do believe it because a devious, hateful woman is who I see lately, and that just makes it all feel so much worse.” She took a sip of her coffee.
Lindsey could see the start of tears in her eyes. “Listen, Chelsea. This is a lot, I know, on top of what was already trouble. I’m not trying to pry, but maybe you should tell us more about what really came between you and your mother.”