Dark Sexy Knight (A Modern Fairytale)(82)
She was still battling some pretty awful morning sickness, but thankfully it wasn’t all-day sickness anymore. The pregnancy test she’d taken a week ago had confirmed her suspicions with a double line of pink that immediately made her wonder if she was having a girl. Reading the directions, she learned that the color of the lines didn’t predict the gender, but the image of a baby girl with Colton’s gray eyes and her light blonde hair had already developed quickly in her mind. Oh, she would love a little boy just as hard, but there was something about having a daughter whom she wanted so desperately, when she hadn’t been wanted, that would feel like reversing or somehow correcting her own history.
Verity hadn’t figured out how and when to tell Colton about the baby—it really depended on their reunion today. If he was hostile and unwelcoming, she would leave quietly, and who knows? Maybe she’d never tell him. She wouldn’t want her baby to ever feel like one of her parents didn’t want her.
She inhaled sharply, forcing herself to be more positive. For all she knew, he could be here any minute, and she didn’t want to fall apart with anxiety the moment he arrived. Eyeing the bins of mail by the front door, and itching for something to do—the house was as neat as a pin, and she’d mowed the lawn yesterday—she hefted the bins onto the dining room table and started sorting.
There were a few “30 Days Overdue” bills that Colton would need to sort through, a few magazines, and several envelopes with Bonnie’s Place as the return address. There was a large envelope from The Legend of Camelot. She knew what it held—the termination papers for Colton’s job and information about COBRA. She’d received an identical one from Lynette the day she was fired. There was tons of junk mail, a legion of catalogs, and several old newspapers, and there, on the bottom of the fourth bin, was an envelope hand-addressed to her.
She reached for it, pulling it out of the bin and staring at it for a moment in confusion—Who knows I live here?—before noticing that the postmark was from Milledgeville, GA. Milledgeville, where Central State Hospital was located.
“Oh my God,” she murmured, looking frantically at the postmark date, relieved to find it was six days ago and not six weeks ago. She wouldn’t have wanted for him to think she was ignoring him.
He must have sent it knowing it would reach me just before he came home, she thought, fingering it carefully. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, turning the envelope over and over nervously. What did it say? And why did he feel the need to write it when he’d be home so soon?
Leaving the mail neatly stacked on the dining room table, she took the letter and walked through the kitchen, down the back hallway, and into his room. She crawled onto the bed, sat up against the headboard, and pulled the covers up to her waist. There were tears in her eyes as she stared down at the letter in her hands.
This is my fate, she thought, gulping with worry. This letter holds my fate.
What if he’d meant his words in the courtroom? What if the letter said, Hope you’re out of my house. If not, you better be out by the time I get home.
One hand still held the letter, but the other moved, of its own accord, to her stomach, rubbing it gently before taking a deep breath, carefully ripping open the envelope, and pulling out two lined sheets of yellow notebook paper folded into thirds.
Dear Verity,
I’ve written and rewritten this letter about a hundred times while I’ve been here, and “Dear Verity” always bothers me because if I was looking at you, I’d reach for your face and say “Hey, baby” or “Morning, sunshine,” but I doubt you’d be able to hear the words anyway because if I was holding your face in my hands, I’d be looking into your blue eyes, and the lump in my throat would be so big, I don’t know if I could get any words out. Plus, I’d be trying to figure out if there’s anything I could say or do to let you know how sorry—how awful, terrible sorry—I am for what I said to you in the courtroom before coming here. The problem is, I can’t think of any words that are good enough or strong enough to reverse the damage I did. As it is, I’m just about positive you’ll never read this.
But if I ever got a chance to look you in the eyes again, I’d tell you I was sorry for everything I said that day—for telling you to get out of my house and that I never wanted to see your face again. Yours is the only face I want to see for the rest of my life, baby—but I guess I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
I never told you much about my folks. But my father had a problem. I never saw him hit my mother, but he hit me often enough, kicked our dog, got into scraps with the neighbors that ended with fists. Always fists. Never talking things out or listening to reason.
By the time I was nine, I was doing the same—getting into fights at school, breaking things around the house when I got mad. My mother took me to a doctor, who told her that I had an anger disorder called IED, intermittent explosive disorder. He suggested therapy and medication, but my father beat me to a pulp and told me to shape up. I guess my mother was really worried about what would happen next because she sent me to Georgia to live with my Aunt Jane, Uncle Herman, and Mel. I never saw my folks again. As you know, they were in a car accident not long after—my daddy was driving—and they died.
Over the years, I’ve broken countless noses and jaws. Had my own broken many times as well. Always fists first, especially if someone I cared about was bothered or threatened. You saw it at the motel and again with Artie. Want to know something I learned about myself when I got here? I probably couldn’t have stopped myself even if I’d wanted to, because something inside me wasn’t built right. It’s broken, and it can only be fixed with therapy and medicine, as my mother was advised all those years ago.