“Is he helping you care for Kyrie?” she pushes, and I look at Charles.
“Are we on some kind of a time limit here?” I ask, standing, ready to end this meeting if she’s not going to give me what I came for. And she’s clearly not interested.
“No. This is an attorney-client meeting. Take as much time as you need.”
Great. I was hoping for a different answer.
My mother looks at me, her greedy eyes staring at my stomach as I sit back down.
“You’re pregnant.”
It’s not a question, and I refuse to engage.
“Finn is helping me take care of Kyrie. So is Jameson. I live with them. That is all that should matter to you. Now can we please talk about this deal you’re willing to take?”
“Not until you answer me,” she hisses, and I regret ever agreeing to come see her.
“Yes, mother. I’m pregnant. Now can we please?—”
“With Finn Murphy’s baby?”
“I just told you—” I fist my hands, my nails digging into my palms.
“With Jameson Murphy’s baby. . .” The way she says it makes my skin crawl.
“We’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you and this plea and signing away your rights to Kyrie. I want to adopt her, Mom. I want to give her a better life. Charles told me with you being a repeat offender, you’re not getting out of here for at least ten years unless you take the plea. And even then, you might only get it down to eight years. I know you don’t care about anyone but yourself, but if you ever cared about me or her, let me adopt her. Let me give her a mom and dad who love her?—”
“You never even had a father who loved you. You had a man who thought he was your father. Yours and Evan’s. And when he eventually found out he wasn’t, he pulled away. All those years meant nothing to him. That’s what you had. So what makes youthink some man who isn’t her biological father will treat her any differently than your dad treated you and your brother?” She shrieks but it fades as all the noise, all the oxygen, all the gravity in the room falls away and my world gets upended. . . Again.
JAMIE
Don’t be thesorry to hear that, that sucksguy.
Be thewhere are you, I’ll come get you, I’ve got you, you’re safeman.
There’s a difference, and you’ll thank me one day for making sure you know it.
—Advice from Aiden Murphy to Jamie and Finn
“Slow down, Ace.”
“Thanks,”Ryker laughs.“Love you, Ash, but you’re talking so fast, it’s hard to read your lips, and your signing kinda sucks.”
“Right. Sorry.”She silences her ringing phone, then shakes her hands like she’s shaking off nerves. She’s been like this since she got back from the prison. Oscillating between vibrating with anger, heartbreak, and relief, and I’ve got no fucking clue how to help with any of it.“After all that, she took the deal. The plea deal. She’ll serve ten years with a chance of parole after eight, according to her attorney.”
“And she took that deal?”I push, not buying that has piece of shit mother would make anything that easy.
“She did,”Ashton smiles easing my concern.
“So what does that mean for Kyrie?”Finn asks and hands her a glass of ginger ale and a sleeve of Saltines, and my woman smiles and pops half a cracker in her mouth, humming like it’s the best thing she’s ever tasted.
Guess I’m adding Saltines to the grocery list.
She locks those gold-flecked eyes on mine.“She’s signing away her rights. Permanently. She refuses to disclose who the father is, so I can hopefully adopt Kyrie uncontested. I’m not actually sure if that’s what Mom wanted, but I honestly didn’t feel like I knew the woman sitting across from me today at all. Not anymore. I always thought it was Evan’s death that broke us, but if anything she said was true, we were broken so much earlier than that.”This incredible woman rolls her shoulders back and faces the three of us like she’s facing the firing squad. “But I refuse to harp on that. It doesn’t do any of us any good, when I don’t even know if any of what she said was true, even if I’m not sure what she would have gained from lying about it.”
“She wanted to hurt you, Ash,”Finn says gently, and my girl sips her ginger ale and looks away.“Your mom’s always been good at that. She wasn’t going to miss one last chance.”
“I think you’re right. And if that was her goal, she got what she wanted,”she agrees, her voice breaking as she signs.
