The coffee burned against my upper lip and I blew off the steam, pensively watching my mother across the table.
She smiled and touched her hoop earring. “I remember when you made that cup. You were so proud of it and I thought it was the most hideous thing ever created.”
I snorted and admired my mug. It was a regular coffee cup, but we’d painted them ourselves. In kindergarten, my obsession with dragons began. While Maizy adores fairy tales and happy endings, I used to want to slay dragons. So, my half-assed attempt at painting a dragon on the mug ended up being the family joke for years. It curved around the mug and looked like a green anaconda with spider legs, throwing up mustard. I’d never seen a dragon, so in my defense, I wasn’t sure how many legs they had.
Apparently, seventeen was too many.
“Mom, I have something serious to ask you and I want the truth. I’m not even sure where to begin.”
“You know you can ask me anything,” she said in the way all moms do when they have no idea you’re about to drop the mother lode of bombs on them.
Maizy giggled in the other room and I scratched my neck nervously. “Am I adopted?”
“Now why would you ask a silly thing like that?” she said, rising from the table and turning on the faucet. She rinsed out her mug, then wiped it dry with a paper towel. “Would you like some pie with your coffee? I think I’m more in the mood for iced tea—it’s too hot today for coffee.”
“Mom, turn off the water and sit down. I don’t want pie or anything else.”
That’s when I knew Austin had told me the truth. Maybe not about being a Shifter, but now it was clear my life had been manufactured from a lie.
“I’m not going to get mad about it. I just want to know who I am and where I came from. You’ll always be my family, Mom. Please, don’t lie to me. Not now, not after everything we’ve been through.”
When she turned around, tears stained her cheeks. “I never wanted you to know. You were our baby and
I covered my eyes before she made me cry. I needed to keep my head straight. “Mom, please sit down.”
She quietly sniffed and took a seat, avoiding eye contact. I reached across the table and held her hand. “You’re my mom. You’ll always be my mom and nothing will change that. I promise. I just… I can’t believe this is true. How did I not know? I always thought I kind of looked like Dad, but…”
“Lexi, we never wanted you to grow up feeling separate from us—different. I was afraid that’s how kids felt in your situation, so we decided not to tell you.”
“What exactly was my situation? It’s not like you couldn’t have your own children. Why was I adopted?”
She pulled her hand away and laced her fingers together. “You weren’t.”
Just then, Maizy came bounding into the room. “Mommy! Can I please have some cookies?” She lifted her shoulder and tilted her head to the side in that innocent way kids do to turn on the charm. Few could say no to her adorable dimples.
“Just one, sweetheart. It’s almost dinner.”
Mazie skipped over to the bright yellow jar by the sink and pulled out a small chocolate-chip cookie. Seconds later, she went flying into the living room wearing her pink skirt and white shirt with all the sparkles. She was in princess mode.
I warmed my hands around my mug. “What do you mean, not adopted?”
Her voice lowered. “I don’t know where you came from. Your dad brought you home one night. He used to stay out late sometimes, and I convinced myself he was having an affair. But occasionally, he came home with— with blood on his clothes.” She pulled her hands in her lap and shook her head. “Not a lot, but spatters around the sleeves. I was afraid to ask what he was up to because he was a serious man—you know that. I don’t know what he was involved in, but we argued for weeks. All I could think about was your poor mother, worried to death about where you were. He assured me you had no mother, and that frightened me.”
“Why?”
She pulled the salt and pepper shakers to the middle of the table, lining them up neatly and never once lifting her eyes.
“I’m an adult now, and there’s no need to lie anymore. Whatever you’ve been carrying around for years, we can talk it out. Maybe it’ll help. But I can’t go on not knowing the truth. Everything.”
My heart galloped and I placed my hands on my lap to hide the fact they were shaking. Had Austin never come back into town, I would have gone on thinking my life was normal.
“The night he brought you home, there was blood on his clothes. Only this time, I found them in the trash instead of the wash, and they were just
“You didn’t know what he was involved in?”
To my knowledge, my dad had worked for a shipping warehouse. He was a bossy guy, but otherwise, family life seemed as normal as it could be. He took Wes fishing in the summer and we had a barbecue every Sunday. I didn’t have a close relationship with my dad, and he was strict when it came to punishment, but this revelation came as an unexpected shock. I felt disenchanted with my life, knowing that nothing was as it seemed.
She shrugged and pulled my cup away. “Do you want something else, hon? Chocolate milk?”
God, my weakness. “Sure, Mom. That’d be great.”
The table sat in a room connected to the kitchen, but a partition wall with an opening in the center separated the two rooms. My mom put her favorite fern on it to add a sense of privacy. Light blue paint colored the top of the walls and wood panels covered the bottom. Outside the window on my left, the hummingbird feeder swung like a pendulum in the breeze. I’d never seen any hummingbirds, but Mom always kept it filled with bright red liquid.
I watched her through the divider as she stirred the chocolate into a tall glass. As calm as we were, I had a feeling I’d be in tears later on once everything sank in.
She set the glass down on the table and I took a sip, hoping the coffee wouldn’t complain. Mom eased into her chair and peered around the corner, listening for Maizy.
“When I first met your father, he was involved with some dangerous people. He used to work as a middleman, and I don’t know what exactly he did, only that it was illegal. He quit that life when he proposed, and I thought we were going to have a new start. I wouldn’t have to worry about something happening to him, or the police showing up. That’s not the kind of home I came from. He changed, or at least I thought he did. It started up again a year after Wes was born, when we were struggling financially. Suddenly, your dad paid off the bills and things were okay. How could I complain? Everything went back to normal until the night he brought you home. He was panicked that night and then for weeks, he barely slept.”
Tears threatened to slide down her lashes and she averted her blue eyes. “Only he knows the truth about where you came from, but I fell in love with you, Lexi. I had to buy you little gowns and booties since you were only wearing a onesie with Talulah stitched on the front. I always wanted a little girl. You were such a sweet little thing, didn’t cry much at all even though you must have known we were strangers.”
“Did you keep my clothes?”
Her voice fell to a whisper. “There was blood. I had to throw it out. Your dad somehow got a fake birth certificate; I just didn’t ask questions.”
I buried my face in my hands. “Did Wes know?”
“At first,” she said. “But he was a toddler and after a while, he forgot where you came from. We told him the stork brought you and in time, I guess he just didn’t remember. Your grandparents never knew because they were living in Seattle. We told them we had been keeping it a secret because the doctor warned us the pregnancy might not go to full term and then we said you were born premature. They didn’t come down to visit until you were five anyhow, and two years later, they moved down to San Antonio.”
I circled my finger on the smooth table. My mom had lost her parents when she was ten, and my dad’s parents never came around much—especially after he split. “Are Wes and Maizy yours, or—”
“Yes, they’re ours. Maizy is the spitting image of your great-grandma from the childhood pictures I’ve seen, and Wes looked just like Grandpa Knight. Oh, God,” she whispered, covering her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”
“Mommy?”
Maizy wandered into the room and worry filled her blue eyes. Mom discreetly wiped a tear away from her smooth cheek and smiled. “Mommy has allergies. Do you need something, sweetie pie?”
