I decided to take the seat she’d offered earlier, throwing myself onto the cushions. The leather creaked with my weight as I leaned back. “My file from the agency had some information. Once I had your surname, I did some digging of my own,” I explained whilst rudely placing my feet on her perfectly polished coffee table.
“I don’t understand. What file?”
“The file that contained details of my sordid background, my paperwork, ID, shit like that. The agency handed my file to my foster mother. She, in turn, gave it to me.”
She looked down her nose at my boots, but didn’t say anything as she retook the seat opposite. “Are they allowed to do that?”
“GDPR. If it’s my data, it belongs to me.”
“But why would there be details of my marriage and my son in there?” she asked, clearly upset.
Shrugging, I replied. “I have no idea and couldn’t give a shit really.” I wasn’t going to give her my sources, let her stew.
Closing her eyes, my mother took a deep breath. When she opened them, I saw a hint of vulnerability. It still didn’t make me feel like a dick.
“You were about to tell me why youabandonedme?” I prompted, folding my arms.
She dashed a shaky hand down her face and then looked at me. “As I said, I was at the lowest point in my life, Phoenix. I’d already messed up the first few years of your life by moving around so much; I was in hiding. I couldn’t hold down a job, and I had no family or friends.”
“What do you mean? Hiding from whom?” I noted that she didn’t answer that question.
After a brief pause, she carried on as if I hadn’t interrupted. “When they took you away from me, it killed me, but I knew you would be better off. It was always my intention to get back on my feet and then come back for you.”
“So why didn’t you?”
“I did for a couple of months, but then I found work and missed some of our sessions. I was trying to get my own place, somewhere safe and clean. Social services used my non-attendance as a black mark against me and started the foster process without my consent. They got a court order that removed you from my care permanently. As soon as I had gotten back on my feet and raised the money, I had every intention of fighting it.
But when I saw who you were fostered by and how settled you were, I knew I needed to walk away. I still had nothing to offer you, at least nothing like Mr. and Mrs. Fox had.” Her voice trailed off towards the end, and her face had become pink; the first bit of real color to occupy the space around us. I was surprised she remembered the names of my first foster parents.
I slid my feet off the table and leaned forward, propping my hands on my bent knees. “How about the man who fathered me? Couldn’thehave helped you? I assume I didn’t come with the stork.”
And that did it; cast a proper cat among the pigeons. My mother’s face was apprehensive. What the hell? Luna cleared her throat. “No. There was no way I could have gone to him for help, not then.”
Should I have held my tongue and not been so aggressive with her? What if my old man had been abusive?
The color had left her cheeks. So, the guy who knocked her up was apparently a sore spot. I felt a twinge of regret. Maybe I was overplaying the victim, especially if my mother was one herself. I was being a bastard without giving her the chance to explain.
But then what type of mother leaves a child, even in an abusive scenario?
A bad one.
THIRTEEN
PHOENIX
I decided to stick with my initial strategy but toned it downslightly. I kept the focus of the discussion on my father. “So, youdoremember who he was then?”
“Ofcourse,I remember. What type of woman do you think I am?” she shot out, her color returning as she defended herself against my suggestion that she’d slept around. I grunted my response to that one. Didn’t all women do that in those days,free loveand all that shit? And then it hit me:those days? I didn’t even know her age.
“That’s the problem. I don’t know you at all.”
“You don’t,” she agreed in a flat, emotionless voice. It pissed me off even more.
“And whose fault is that?”
Some of her anger subsided, and I asked her outright if the man who fathered me had been abusive. “Did he hit you? Is that why you really ran? If he did, tell me where he is, and I’ll beat the shit out of him.”
A hint of surprise twitched her features. “You’d do that for me? The woman whoabandonedyou?” I ignored her piss-poor attempt to throw my own words back at me.
