“Then, who?”
“I gave the child to her father,” her father simply said.
Her father?
Tyler was her baby’s father. That would mean that her father gave her baby to Tyler. That would mean that…
The room began to spin. Her hand reached out to grab the handle of the armchair to keep her steady, but it came in contact with the air. As there was nothing to hold her back, she welcomed the darkness that enveloped her.
She came to a few minutes later, clearly disoriented but very weak. Her eyes roamed around the room as she wondered what was going on. Then it all came back to her, crashing into her brain like an avalanche. Her father had given her baby away for adoption to the baby’s own father.
Fury at the man who she called a father washed through her. All those years of pain, regret, anguish, sorrow had been a waste of time because her child was alive and well.
“How could you do this to her, Father? This was the same way you manipulated Finn and me! Is there no end to this?” Kalilah, who was seated beside her on the couch and holding her hand, shouted at their father. Kaiya slowly pushed herself to a sitting position.
“I did what I thought was best for her.”
“Tell her the rest,” Katherine silently ordered her husband.
Sighing, the man finished recounting past events. He ended the story by telling them he gave Tyler a 2-million-dollar check so he could care for the baby. He asked Tyler to stay away from Kaiya. He didn’t have the guts to send his only grandchild to a family he didn’t know, and so he lied to Tyler and told him Kaiya wasn’t interested in raising the child and wanted to pursue her dance career more than motherhood.
Kaiya thought that she had recovered, but when the room began spinning again, she slowly laid down on the couch. Her mind went through all her father just said, and she understood Tyler’s initial animosity toward her. He believed that she had chosen her career over motherhood, over being a family with him and their daughter. Now she understood why he had been shocked that first day at the studio and asked why she didn’t follow her dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer. He had been fed with lies, horrid lies by a man that she would hate till her dying day.
Her eyes fell on her mother who was seated huddled on a chair and looking forlorn, but Kaiya felt no pity for her. She had been part of the whole charade, and so she didn’t deserve any.
“And you, Mom, you stood by and watched Dad perpetrate such an evil act against me?” She threw at the woman with a savage bite as she again pushed herself into a sitting position.
The woman paled – her eyes glazed with tears.
“I didn’t know anything about it. Your father kept it from me. I found out soon after Kalilah and Finn’s accident, hence the animosity and separation between us. Why do you think I took off to Europe? When I saw Tyler, I knew that your father’s lies would be brought to light.”
Her niece and nephew were born eight months after her sister’s car accident and would soon be five years old, which means that… “You knew for almost five years, and you didn’t tell me? Mother, you knew how much I suffered after the loss of my child.”
“Please, Kaiya. I didn’t know how to tell you. When I found out, I was in shock myself, and I wanted to tell you, but you had just started putting your life back together. I didn’t want to stop your progress.”
“Finding out that my child was alive would have done nothing to stop my progress! If anything, my grief would go away. But you should have told me! You should have confessed what he did before now!” Kaiya yelled at her. “He had no right to give away my child! You were aware of how depressed I felt about losing my child and the man I loved. For years you watched me grieve without saying a word. If Tyler hadn’t returned and asked for his son’s death certificate, you would have allowed me to stay in the dark forever. Kalilah was right about you two. You are monsters!”
Her mother jerked on the chair, grief-stricken.
“Kaiya, I won’t accept your insolence toward your mother!”
Kaiya turned at the sharp reprimand of her name to her father who was standing by the window and giving her a stern look.
“Fuck what you accept! You took my child from me!” She had never spoken to her father with such disrespect and it felt freeing. She was always on eggshells when he was near.
“Watch how you talk to me! Whatever was done was for your own good. You had your life ahead of you. With a baby and a gold-digging bastard in tow, you would never have amounted to this much in life.”
Kaiya’s jaw dropped. She couldn’t believe her ears. Her father was trying to justify destroying her life.
“It was my decision to make, not yours. And do you call this a life?” Living in sorrow, living in misery over the supposed death of her baby, and thinking the boy she loved betrayed and left her for another woman and their child?
How’s that supposed to be the life? Little wonder she hadn’t found closure. She mourned for a child – a son that never existed in the first place.
“I hate you!” She turned to glare at her silently weeping mother. “I hate you both! You might as well forget that you have me as a daughter!”
“Forget you have any children,” she heard Kalilah say as she jerked up from the chair she sat on and quickly stormed out of the room. Not bothering with her jacket, she left the house through the backdoor. Her hands were clasped around her midriff as the autumn breeze blew around her. How Tyler must have hated her all these years thinking she gave up on him and their baby. No wonder he said that night at the gala that she hadn’t trusted him enough. All the pain and anguish they had both felt over the years washed through her. All the animosity they had felt for each other was all for nothing.
She desperately needed to see him. She had to ask for his forgiveness on behalf of herself and her wicked father. She had hated him all these years for nothing.
