“Damn right I needed you.” That anger bubbled like a geyser ready to blow.
She flinched. “I didn’t know what to do. How to get rid of him.” She paused for an extra second. “Except to kill him.” She stared at him clear eyed. It was the first hint of anger he’d seen from her. “And I did think about doing just that. More than once.”
“You didn’t think I could protect you.”
“I knew you wanted to. And I knew you’d get hurt trying. Your father was a big man. Bigger than you are now, even.”
“And yet you abandoned me to him.” God, why did it still hurt?
She shook her head. “They didn’t have much in the area for battered women. Or children. But they did have foster care. If I wasn’t there, I thought you’d have a better chance of being placed with another family.”
“So you left me to face him, hoping I’d get placed in a foster home after he beat the crap out of me, near killed me?” Chance could feel his heart banging hard against his chest, like it was pounding on the bars of a cage, demanding to be freed.
Tears streamed down Deidre’s face. Chance tried not to care. Instead, he let the anger he’d carried for so long fill him, hoping it would protect him.
“I called Child Services as soon as I left. Told him he was beating you. I hoped they’d get there before he got home. Find you abandoned. Save you from him. I learned later that they hadn’t gotten there fast enough.” A sob wheezed out. “I hated him so much. But I didn’t know no other way to save you. I was told the Larsons were decent people.”
Chance took a deep breath. Whatever his mother thought she had done, it wasn’t enough. “Not that you cared enough to let me know you were even alive.”
“I was afraid to. Afraid he’d find me through you. Once I learned he was dead, I tried. You never called me back.”
“I would never have left a child of mine to that bastard of a man, knowing what he would have done to me.” Chance choked on the last word, his mouth dry as a desert floor.
“No. I don’t suppose you would have. You’re strong. Not just physically, but in all ways.”
“No thanks to you.”
She sniffled. Chance could feel the pull of her tears. He resisted.
“No, no thanks to me. I’m not strong. Never have been.”
That was it. She’d been weak. And they both had paid the price. She more than him, it appeared. For all he’d had to overcome, he’d done it. She looked like life had gotten the better of her.
“If that’s what you’ve come to tell me, you’ve told me. You can leave now,” he said before he started feeling sympathy. Anger had been his companion a long time. A few words weren’t enough to give it up.
She nodded, wiping a tear away. She moved toward him, staring at him with the gray eyes they held in common. “Not that it will matter to you, but I want you to know I’m proud of you. Proud of the man you’ve become despite everything. I know more than anyone what you’ve had to overcome. You’ve made something of yourself. Something good. Without me.” She stopped a few steps before him. With misted eyes, she stared at him an extra heartbeat. He could hear each pulse of blood coursing through his veins, bringing feelings he didn’t want to have.
“Maybe that’s why you were able to make something of yourself,” she said. “You didn’t have me around your neck. Or your father to contend with.”
Chance watched her move toward the door. Her gait was arthritic, her shoulders slumped in resignation. Life had clearly been hard for her.
Something like empathy gnawed at the edges of his anger.
“You need anything?” He waited for the real reason she’d come. Money, for sure. She apparently knew all about him, so she would know he’d hit the million-dollar mark.
But she surprised him by shaking her head. “I’m doing okay. Been sober ten years now. I waitress. I clean the houses of Portland’s finest, too.” Her weathered face cracked a smile. With that smile, Chance caught a glimpse of the lovely young mother she’d once been. Before the alcohol, before the fighting. “Thank you for asking though.”
He nodded, feeling a lump fill his throat.
With her hand on the doorknob, she turned toward him. “Don’t be hard on Libby. She thought seeing me might help you realize there are many sides to a story. Seems she’s got some ‘sides’ she’s hoping you’ll see. I don’t know what went on with you two, but I’m not too old to know love when I see it. She loves you. Doing this took real courage.”
Libby. Chance still had to deal with Libby. She was probably expecting a happy ending. Well, life didn’t work quite the way it did in books.