“Me too. I read a bit about it.”
“Me too.”
She sat up then, and rubbed her eyes like a small child. She wore a short tartan skirt and white T-shirt that had the Howler’s logo on it.
“We’ll work it out, Hope.”
She nodded. “It’s just I never planned for this, you know. My life has always been set in a direction, just like my mom wanted it to be.”
“What about what you want?” He touched her chin, and it was warm from sleep.
Her sigh was small. “My mom was an activist. She was into everything, and also a good lawyer. Not many people know this, but Ryan and I do, because we read about her and saw pictures.”
“Actually, I can see that,” Newman said. “Just not how she ended up the way she did.”
“Bitter and bristly?”
He nodded.
“She was a good mom, but I think she loved my father, but he realized he couldn’t live here, and she realized she couldn’t leave, so it ended. I think most of the bitterness came then, being left with two children to raise alone.”
It wasn’t the ideal place to have this conversation, anyone could walk in, but Newman wasn’t about to stop her talking when it was usually so hard to get any personal information out of her.
“Me and Ryan think he broke her heart, because no one is born that way, right? I mean, she was a good mom, but she’s pretty hard and unemotional.”
“And you have constantly been trying to get her approval and not let her see you fail?” Sounded familiar to Newman.
“Maybe. Yes, I guess. Although I probably didn’t realize it until now.”
“You even dress like her. How could you not realize it?” Newman took any sting out of his words by smiling. She gave him a small one back.
“What about you? Now you got me at a weak moment, and I bared my soul, it only seems fair you reciprocate.”
“I’m adopted, and no one knows.” He wasn’t sure why he told her of all people the secret he’d carried deep inside him for so long. But he had, and could not take it back now.
“Wow. I can’t believe no one knows.” The shock on her face was real.
Newman got to his feet and pulled a chair close. When he sat, his knees touched Hope’s.
“My dad is someone who likes to be in control. He couldn’t control the fact that he and Mom couldn’t have children, but he could control the fact that no one knew. So he moved him and Mom away for two years, and when they came back to Howling, it was with me.”
“And he controlled you from the beginning?”
Newman nodded at these insightful words.
“And he never let me forget that I should be grateful. Always threatened me with chucking me out of the house if I wasn’t helpful and grateful.”
The breath hissed from Hope’s mouth.
“Bastard! How dare he do that to you! You must have been terrified as a child.”
He enjoyed her anger on his behalf. It soothed something inside him, and he felt it again, that warm feeling in his chest as he looked at her.
“Not terrified, more on edge.” He took the hand she waved in front of her at his words. “It’s really okay, Hope. My mom loved me.”
“I was scared of failing my mom.”
“So we both have parent issues. At least we have something in common,” Newman joked.
