“My mother’s sister was the good daughter. My mom used to say she was the black sheep of the family.”
He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back. “Meaning your mother was the bad daughter?”
“I guess. Aunt Justine had a skiing accident and is in a wheelchair these days, I think.” She pushed her plate away, leaving her croissant only half-eaten. “Are you looking for someone to take me? Are you going to ask about my dad next? Because he says my mother got pregnant on purpose, to trap him, and he doesn’t care what happens to us.”
“How do you know that? You heard him say it?”
“My mom told me.” She sighed. “Steve’s the only one who ever wanted me. I would’ve stayed there, but my mom said he must be a perv like Walter to want to keep a young girl in the house.”
Apprehension bit deeply as he asked, “Perv as in pervert?”
She nodded.
“Who’s Walter?”
Her face went dark. “The guy we lived with in Colorado.”
“What was he like?”
“Never mind. I don’t want to talk about him,” she said and the way she clamped her lips into a thin, straight line told Julian she was done talking.
He didn’t press her. He wanted her to feel safe, to trust him. But he made a mental note of the name of Sabrina’s Colorado boyfriend, and when Lilly went to the bathroom, he texted Charlotte.Is there a Walter in Sabrina’s phone?
He didn’t get an answer, so he figured he’d have to talk to her about it later. Lilly’s whole demeanor had changed when she mentioned that name. Something had happened with “Walter,” and it wasn’t hard to guess that it’d made a significant impact.
chapter 19
Once they plugged it into the charger, Sabrina’s phone revealed more than Charlotte had ever wanted to learn about her birth mother. She’d been hoping to gain some sense of who Sabrina was, where the woman had come from emotionally and geographically—and whether she’d missed out in some sense by being given away. But what she and Sloane read in Sabrina’s texts and dating-app messages revealed a part of her birth mother that should’ve remained private.
“Ugh,” Charlotte said with a grimace. “She said whatever she could to keep these guys on the hook.”
“Why do you think that’s the case?” Sloane asked with a grimace. “It was like she had to have someone in reserve at all times. Why was she never satisfied with who she was with?”
“Hard to say. Insecurity, maybe? She must’ve fed off the compliments and the chase, which is why she pivoted to sexting so fast. She was always trying to get them stirred up and wanting her.”
“Could be vanity.”
“Human beings are complicated. It’s probably a mixture of things. But wouldn’t a stable, loving relationship be more fulfilling than the fleeting attention of so many men?” Charlotte asked, still trying to figure out how this side of her birth mother made her feel.
“Someone who’s more mature might realize that,” Sloane said, her voice flat with irony. “Sadly, Sabrina seemed pretty shallow.”
“I hate that I agree,” Charlotte said. Everything she’d seen and heard pointed to the same thing. “Steve’s number’s in here,” she added. “Should I call him?”
“What for?”
“He might be able to put all of this into some context, and context is the only way we can ever truly understand what she was like.”
Sloane nibbled at her lip. “If you want to,” she said at last. “At least then we can learn more about Lilly, too. That could help a lot.”
Charlotte was also curious about Steve himself. What had drawn him to Sabrina? He seemed to be a much more admirable person...
With the time change, it’d be six o’clock in the morning in Iowa, far too early to call most people. But Steve was a farmer. She couldn’t imagine he wouldn’t be up.
Taking a cleansing breath, she hit the number on his contact record.
She was rewarded when he answered almost immediately, and after a heartbeat of silence—during which she thought she could detect surprise—he sounded fully alert. “Sabrina?”
She froze. Did she really have any business bothering a total stranger with her family drama? He was probably relieved to have Sabrina out of his life.
