Chapter Sixty-Nine Her

Chapter Sixty-Nine Her

Present Day

My mom and I didn’t say a word to each other on the drive home from the hospital. The showdown would come in the house. My

final goodbye.

I toyed with waiting a few more days for her to fully recuperate, but she didn’t look frail or in pain. Her expression remained

guarded as she watched me drive the car up to the house and stop at the security gate. I punched in the code and the gate

swung open.

She turned to face me. Her intense stare dared me to fight her.

“Are you going to mope all day?” she asked.

I put the car in park and let the engine idle. This argument demanded my full attention and my hands free. “You’re kidding,

right?”

“I shot Kathryn for you. To rescue you.” Mom returned to looking out the front window. Her frown resembled that of a petulant

child who heard she couldn’t have ice cream for dinner. “You should be grateful.”

The unexpected comment knocked the words right out of me.

“I saved you.” She emphasized each word.

If I assumed the role of aggressor she could, once again, slither away from any responsibility. The weight of her deceit and sick games would be lifted from her shoulders and piled onto mine. I would—in her mind and in every story she told about me going forward—be the one to blame for the demise of our relationship. Not her manipulation. Not the twisted plan to marry me off to my uncle. A fact that still made me heave. She would be absolved.

Fuck that.

I turned off the engine because this could take some time. “You lied to me my whole life.”

She sighed. “Are we doing this again?”

We were in it now and I refused to back down. “You did the unthinkable when you put me in Richmond’s firing line. He wanted

me dead and all you cared about was killing the guy who stole your golden ticket all those years ago.”

“You don’t understand what I’ve done for you.”

“I know what you did to me.”

“Yes, of course. Poor little Addison.” Mom shook her head and continued to look out the front window, avoiding eye contact.

“You’re not a child anymore, my darling. It’s time for you to step up and take responsibility. You’ve had it too easy.”

“How do you say stuff like that without laughing?” She acted like I was wasting her time by talking to her.

“I protected you from the truth because you were always so sensitive. I carried the burden alone.” Her voice grew louder and

firmer the longer she sat there.

“What truth are we talking about? Your version of the truth tends to be a moving target.”

She faced me. Her expression spoke to her disapproval and absence of affection. “Kathryn was a whiny bitch in high school.

Stuck-up. Thought she was better than everyone.”

Finally, a tiny bit of conversation movement. “I get it. You hated her.”

“We lived in the same town though we were miles apart in more than distance. She considered me garbage.” Mom channeled her

anger and frustration into the words, hitting the last one with force. “You should have seen her with Richmond. She’d hang

on him and flirt with his friends to make him jealous.”

That didn’t make sense. “You said she never came into the country club. Where would you have seen this?”

“I studied her. I studied him.”

“Wait, do you mean Cooper or Richmond?” My confusion kept building. Cooper should be the center of this conversation, not

her teenaged jealousy over Kathryn, or whatever the hell this was.

“Richmond.” Mom waved her hand in the air as if she could brush away her memories of him. “This is all your fault, you know.

This... what you’re doing right now. I tried to save you from this moment but you had to push and threaten. You opened

this door.”

My fault. Of course. Always, except this time I had no idea what I was being blamed for. She was talking in riddles and my

patience expired. “What are you saying exactly?”

“Be very certain you want to know this before I give you the particulars.”

More drivel. She was exhausting.

“Just say it, Mom.” Whatever this juicy piece of information was it couldn’t be worse than anything else that I’d heard over

the last few months.

“Fine. I didn’t get the evidence about the shooting and the school from Cooper. I barely knew Cooper.” Her small smile came

and went.

“Who... wait. How is that possible?” My mental and emotional connection to Cooper never passed the superficial level because all these years—right up until her admission in the diner—I viewed him as a minor player in this drama.

“I didn’t have many options back then. I had the drive and determination. I had the will. I had certain assets.” She never

doubted the power of those. “I tried flirting with Cooper. He was pretty shy. He’d joke with friends and act all tough but

then blush if I went near him.”

I could imagine a younger version of her making a move. She’d wanted out of her house and into a different life. Nothing wrong

with that... except for the deceptive method she used to get there.

“What’s your point, Mom?”

“Cooper wasn’t interested and there was no way he’d be able to handle confronting his parents with a pregnant girlfriend.

He was too weak.” Her words came out fast but clear. “But Richmond liked to fool around. He laughed about how squeamish Kathryn

got when she touched him. She played hard to get. I didn’t.”

An invasive darkness washed over me, filling every pore. Dread seeped into my thoughts and my movements. It crushed down like

a weight against my chest.

Was she saying... no, she couldn’t be saying this. Even she wouldn’t...

My thoughts stumbled over each other until they piled up in my mind. “Cooper was my father. You told me that bit of news recently.

Remember me barfing in the diner?”

“I wasn’t entirely truthful there either.” Her expression lacked any emotion. “Richmond was your father.”