Love In Between(55)

“Lillian?” Luke smiled as he asked.

“I was named after my grandmother. Be warned that you are never to call me that!” I said sternly as I held up a finger to him.

The waitress walked over with our food and sat our plates down in front of us as I got ready to spit fire back at my mother.

“Brynn misses you; she’s torn up over everything that has happened,” she said calmly.

I finished the last of my wine, grabbed the bottle, and poured more into my glass. “She’s broken up? What about me? Don’t you even care how this has affected me? Why is everything about you and Brynn? What about my feelings and what happened to me? Jesus Christ, Mother, sometimes I think we aren’t even cut from the same cloth.”

She looked at me, and a single tear fell from her eye as she quietly spoke, “We aren’t.”

In that instant, every part of me froze. My pulse starting racing, and I felt my throat constricting.

“What the hell, Mary!” Luke said as he looked at her.

As I glanced at Luke, I got up from my seat. “I need to get out of here,” I said as I grabbed my purse and ran out of the restaurant.

I had only made it to the parking lot when I needed to stop to try and catch my breath. My legs felt like lead, and they didn’t want to move anymore. My stomach was tied in knots, and I wanted to vomit. Luke came up behind me, placing his arms around me, but I broke away from him.

“Don’t, because if you do, I’ll lose it, Luke, and I can’t lose it!” I started raising my voice.

Suddenly, I heard my mother’s voice in the distance. “She was only seventeen years old and a baby herself.”

As I started to take a few steps forward, I stopped and turned around. With sarcasm I responded, “Let me guess...you swooped in and saved the day!”—raising my voice—“Or better yet, her life!

“The two of you aren’t going to do this in the middle of the parking lot,” Luke snapped. “Get in the Jeep, and we’ll go back to the apartment where you two can talk about this.”

As much as I hated her at this moment, I needed to hear everything she had to say. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life wondering about the truth Mary had kept hidden all these years. As hard and painful as it was going to be, I needed some answers.

“Luke’s right. Let’s go back to my apartment; I want to hear about what a lie my life has been.”

The three of us climbed into the Jeep, and Luke drove us back to my apartment.





29

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We walked into my apartment, and I immediately took out a bottle of wine. As I was taking a glass from the cupboard, my mother looked at me and said, “You seem to drink a lot. Do you have a drinking problem?”

I gasped as I set the glass on the counter. “Considering everything I’ve been through in my life, I should have one.”

She shook her head and sat down at the table. Luke sat down across from her, and I stayed at the kitchen counter.

“So, go ahead and tell me how my whole life’s been a lie,” I said.

She cleared her throat as she began to speak. “I had some problems, and the doctors told me that I would never be able to conceive a child. You have no idea how much that devastated me, because the only thing I wanted was a child with Johnny. I started drinking a lot, I stayed in bed all day, and I isolated myself from the world. One night, Johnny came home with this seventeen-year-old girl, Allison. He told me she was pregnant with his child, and that she’d agreed to give us the baby. Her mother was a prostitute and a drug addict, and her father had run off after she was born. She could barely take care of herself, let alone a child. So, Johnny paid for her medical care and after you were born, he gave her money to start a new life.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she continued. “I know you’re probably to going ask me why I stayed after that. It was because of you, Lily. I may not have given birth to you, but you were my baby, my daughter, and you were a part of Johnny, which made you even more special.”

I gulped before throwing back my glass of wine. I closed my eyes and Luke got up from the table and walked over to me.

“Lily, are you alright?” he asked as he put his hand on top of mine.

“I raised you, Lily. You’re my daughter, and you cannot say otherwise! I loved you and nurtured you. I took care of you when you were sick, and I was there for you when you cried, while your father was out playing his shows and having sex with any woman that looked his way.”

Luke tightened the grip on my hand. “Mary, I think Lily’s heard enough.”

As I removed my hand from his, I looked at him. “It’s ok, Luke. Let’s go sit down.”

I walked over to the table and sat across from my mother as I actually had a moment where I felt incredibly sorry for her. “Mom, please just tell me why you were going to let me marry Hunter if you knew about him and Brynn. All I want is an honest answer.”

Mary looked at me with pursed lips as she tilted her head. I could see the pain in her eyes as she spoke to me. “You seemed happy with Hunter, and I couldn’t ruin that for you. All I wanted was for you to be happy. I know I was wrong, and I should have told you when I first found out,” she said as she shook her head.

“When did you find out?” I asked.