Chapter 17

ANNA

“Rebecca,” he breathes out, stepping aside to let her in.

“Anna.” Her glare is icy.

“What the hell are you doing here?” James fires at her.

“I came to see if you were okay,” she says, her voice dripping with false concern.

~Yeah, right.~ “I told you I never wanted to see you again,” I say, my voice steady.

Something’s off. I can feel it.

“Where is Olivia?” she asks, suspicion lacing her words.

“With her grandparents,” I answer truthfully.

“Sure…,” she says, rolling her eyes. As if I would ever leave Olivia somewhere unsafe.

“Hey, Anna is a good mom. She didn’t leave Olivia out on the streets somewhere—she isn’t you,” James retorts.

~Glad I’m not the only one who thought that was what she meant.~

~

“I didn’t mean—”

“Enough with the drama, Rebecca,” Mr. Williams cuts her off.

“Listen, Becca. Anna’s little girl Olivia is sick. And I’ve just found out that, apparently, Anna is my daughter? They just need a medical history so they can get her the right treatment.

“Why are you fighting this? I know you’re not here to support Anna, so why are you here? To gloat about how her life is falling apart?” he asks, mirroring her earlier dramatic tone.

Becca stands rooted to the spot.

“Right. Thought so,” Mr. Williams says.

“So, my side of your family, like you said,” he begins, making me chuckle.

I actually look a lot like him. We share the same hair color—I knew my brown hair had to come from somewhere, right? Becca’s hair is red like my mom’s.

His eyes are brown, and they hold the same expression that mine often do. I always thought I got my brown eyes from my dad, Peter. I guess I did get them from my dad, just not Peter.

“We have some lung diseases in the family,” Mr. Williams reveals.

And just like that, my world shatters. Explosions, earthquakes…all of it.

I feel like I’m drowning. Lung diseases… I should’ve known. I knew there was something wrong with her lungs. I just hoped it wouldn’t be confirmed.

Even after the doctors told me the kinds of diseases they were considering, a part of me still held out hope.

Every lung disease I can think of floods my mind. Asthma, CF, Alpha-1, TBC…

God, I can’t deal with this now. But I knew it was coming. I knew there was a chance. I feel myself getting dizzy. Damn it, why am I panicking?

“A. Stay with me. We need to listen to this,” James says. He wipes my tears away and rubs my back.

“Sorry. Go on,” I say, my voice shaking.

“My father had CF—cystic fibrosis. My mom had lung cancer, and my sister died last year from CF. Alpha-1 has also been detected in my mother’s side of the family.”

“God, no,” I gasp.

“That’s almost every lung disease I’ve ever heard of,” I whisper.

“Jack, you can’t be serious. Tell her the truth,” Becca pleads.

“Why would I lie about that? Of course I’m serious. They had a hard time diagnosing it with my sister. That’s why she died. She was too low on the transplant list the second time.”

“Transplant?” I ask.

He nods, and I look at James while I start to pace the room.

“I can’t afford a transplant,” I begin, pacing back and forth.

“But I will,” I tell myself with determination. I’m already forming a game plan in my head.

“I’ll work doubles again. Quit college. Yes, that’s the plan… Let’s go,” I tell James, still pacing and mumbling.

A hand pulls me back and pushes me down on a table. I am almost thrown over the table from the force with which he pushes me. I throw my arms back to stop myself from falling off.

“Will you stop!” James shouts at me, which shocks me. My eyes widen at his tone, he has never spoken to me like this.

“Sorry,” he says immediately. He sighs, trying to collect himself.

I get up and hug him. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, taking in my scent. He needed that hug.

He’s her dad. How could I not think of him? He needed me and what did I do?

~No way~ I thought to myself.

~

I pull back and sit back down on top of the table.

“You are not alone in this,” he pleads, making my eyes tear up again.

“Olivia is my daughter too. How many times do I have to tell you that I’m here? That you’re not alone anymore?”

I look away, feeling ashamed. I had fallen back into my old habits.

I can’t really blame myself—I’m still adjusting to having his help.

“And stop rambling, for crying out loud. Jesus, you’re going from statue-you to rambling-you. I love you, A. I always have. But I haven’t seen you like this, since…since freaking Stanford,” he says.

“Stanford?” Becca asks.

“Yes. Anna got a full ride to Stanford before everything,” James explains, throwing his arms out.

“Wow, smart girl,” Mr. Williams—Jack—says proudly with a smile.

“Always was. She’s wasting away at that local college, but at least she’ll have her degree. And I know that’s what is most important to her.”

“Hey! I made it work, didn’t I?” I say in a happy, almost hyper, tone.

“You did, and I’m proud of you. But enough with the talk about double shifts and quitting school. You’re already juggling two jobs. If you’d let me, I’d prefer you only had one.”

I roll my eyes. I’ve always managed things this way, and I’m not about to change because of him. I have bills—lots of them. And I’m not about to ask him to foot those. No way.

“It’s not that much.”

“You were nodding off in class because you hadn’t slept for a whole day due to a night shift and an early shift. You’re overdoing it.

“You’ve had to hustle for the past few years, but now you have me,” he says, his tone leaving no room for arguments.

“Fine.” I concede.

“Stubborn,” he says, letting out a relieved sigh. He turns to Becca and Jack.

“Yeah, sorry. I am too,” Jack says.

“Olivia is the same,” I say, laughing.

“Oh, God.”

“Yup. But she’s also incredibly smart. It’s amazing how much she keeps me on my toes.”

“That’s going to make for some interesting discussions when she’s older,” he says.

I laugh along with them.

“Oh, God help me now,” James jokes.

“Can I see a picture?” Jack asks.

James nods and pulls out his phone to show him the picture of the three of us from last week at the park. Olivia is grinning from ear to ear. Her green eyes are sparkling and her brown hair is blowing in the wind.

“Wow, she’s beautiful.”

“Thanks, she’s my world,” I tell him.

“You’ve done an amazing job. I can tell you’re a good mom. And I know you don’t know me, but I’m proud of you. I can see you’ve been through a lot, and if I had known, I would’ve taken care of you four years ago.

“I would’ve been honored to take care of you from the start. You seem to be a very smart and beautiful girl. I just didn’t know. I’m still shocked, to be honest.”

“Thanks, that means a lot. It’s been a long day for me too. I confronted my so-called family—the people who raised me—for answers, only to find out that I’m adopted.

“Then my birth mother didn’t want to give me the answers I need. I can’t wait to leave this place and go home. Home with my little family.”

“You do have family here, Anna,” Becca says, trying to reason with me.

I shake my head.

“Family doesn’t turn on each other or kick someone out at seventeen. They help each other. James is my family. He never doubted whether Olivia was his. He knew she was, just by looking at her.

“That’s what family does. My so-called family said I was carrying Satan’s child. They called me a whore. A whore. Can you believe that? Just because I got pregnant. I was seventeen.

“Seventeen, for God’s sake! I had only—I ~have~ only—ever been with one person. From what I understand, that doesn’t make me a whore. I fell in love, that’s all.

“So, shame on me, I guess!” I finish my speech dramatically.

“Did you know that what you did, and what my ‘parents’ did, was illegal?” I ask Becca. She shakes her head as I move closer to her.

I’m furious. “If I went to the police, you could all end up in jail. But I’m not one to hold grudges,” I tell her, stepping back.

“The worst part for me now is knowing that you went through the same thing, but you still kicked me out when I was six months pregnant. I had nowhere to go, Becca! Nowhere!

“You’re biologically programmed to love me, but you don’t. I’ll never mean anything to you. All I had was the money I had earned at the diner.

“You’re not my family, Becca. Just leave me the hell alone.”

Jack grins at me. “You are definitely my daughter,” he says.

I laugh. “Sorry,” I tell him with a shrug.

“Don’t be, it’s nice to see that someone else can put her in her place.”

Becca rolls her eyes at him.

“Just don’t,” he says to her.

“I’m far from done with you. For twenty-two years—~twenty-two years~—you had the chance to tell me about Anna. Twenty-two years. You just disappeared one day, no explanation. Then you just show up again?

“I deserved to know, Becca.”

“What could I have said, Jack? ‘Hi, I know we dated for a couple of months but I just had your baby and put her up for adoption because I wasn’t ready to become a mom’?” she argues.

She still doesn’t get that what she did was wrong.

“You should’ve done exactly that. I would’ve understood. I was eighteen. I could at least have known that Anna, whose teacher I ended up being, by the way, was actually my own daughter.

“I could’ve gotten to know her. I could have been there for her when she needed me. You took that away from me, Becca. And why?” Jack shouts angrily at her.

I know why. I’m about to give her a taste of her own medicine and no God would punish me for it. I’m sure that if there is a God, he’ll be laughing along with me.

“Because she hoped you would still want her after the whole baby thing,” I answer for her, earning a well-deserved glare.

“How would you know that?” he asks me.

“Because I know Becca. Dramatic, cunning, evil—she always gets what she wants. A baby would have been in her way. I don’t think she ever considered keeping me, I was just a problem she needed to solve.

“In the end, it all came down to what you might have meant to her future,” I tell him.