“I miss us,” Penny suddenly burst out. “I want us to be the way we were. I’m so sorry for what I did to you. I was drinking, but that’s no excuse. I knew better. Oh, God, Mary Ann. I’m so sorry.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You have to believe me.”
Mary Ann waited for the sense of betrayal to surface, but it never did. For all she knew, Tucker could have used his power of illusion on her friend, making her more susceptible to him. Besides, she hated seeing Penny like this, so torn up, so beaten down.
“I believe you,” she said. “I don’t think we can go back to the way we were, not yet, but I do believe you.”
Penny regarded her for a moment, then whimpered and rushed forward, throwing herself against Mary Ann. Mary Ann gasped in surprise. But as Penny cried, she couldn’t help but hold her, tracing her free hand along her friend’s spine and uttering soothing coos.
As Riley had said, everyone made mistakes. This was Penny’s, and if Mary Ann wanted the girl in her life—and she was beginning to think that she did, for she, too, missed their friendship—she had to forgive.
“I’m so sorry. I swear I am. I’ll never do anything like that again. You can trust me. I learned my lesson. I swear to God I did.”
“Shh, shh. It’s okay. I’m not mad at you anymore.”
Penny pulled back, though she kept her arms tight around Mary Ann’s middle. “You’re not?”
“You’re an important part of my life. I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to trust you again, but it no longer seems impossible.”
“I don’t deserve you.” Penny swiped at her face with the back of her wrist. “I know I don’t, and I know I should walk away from you and leave you in peace, but I just can’t. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. You understand me in ways no one else ever has, and I’ve hated myself since this thing with Tucker. I wanted to tell you, I did, but I was so afraid of losing you.”
“You’re not going to lose me. I need you, too.” She saw that now. The tension that had settled on her shoulders since seeing all those creatures in town had just kind of melted away with Penny’s appearance. Was this how Mary Ann made Aden—and Tucker—feel? “Besides, you did me a favor. I’d needed to kick Tucker out of my life. You gave me the push to actually do it.”
That earned her a watery smile. “He is a jerk, isn’t he?”
“Beyond a doubt. Does he plan to help you—”
Penny was shaking her head before Mary Ann could finish the sentence. “He let me know he wants nothing to do with me or the kid.” Her chin trembled and the moisture in her eyes once again spilled over. “I’m on my own.”
“Well, you’ve got Aunt Mary Ann. I’ve never been around kids, but I’m willing to learn.”
She was awarded another smile, this one reminiscent of the old Penny. “I have to get back. I’m grounded for being a slut, as my mom says, but I want to get together with you soon. I want to talk.”
“Absolutely. I want to hear all about the baby.”
Penny rubbed the slight bump in her belly, one Mary Ann hadn’t noticed before. “I love you, girl.” She kissed her cheek and walked away, her step much lighter than when she’d first approached.
Mary Ann watched her until she disappeared inside her house. What a day.
She opened the package eagerly, wishing Aden, Riley and Victoria were with her so they could share this moment together. But she still hadn’t heard from the latter two, and didn’t want to contact the first without news of their friends.
When she read over Aden’s birth certificate, she made note of the hospital where he’d been born—St. Mary’s—the names of his parents—Joe and Paula Stone—as well as his birthday—December twelfth. Funny. Her birthday was December twelfth, as well.
She read over her own certificate next. Shook her head. Stared. The words never changed. She stumbled backward, reeling. This wasn’t right. Couldn’t be right. She’d never thought to ask her dad where she’d been born, but she, too, had entered the world at St. Mary’s. Worse, the woman she’d called Mom her entire life was not her mother after all.
Everything suddenly made sense. How she could look like the woman who had raised her, but not be that woman’s biological child. How her dad had had two wives.
The warm fuzzies that had filled her while talking to Penny faded completely, leaving a deep chasm filled only with rage. Mary Ann was having trouble catching her breath as she stormed inside her dad’s office, each of her limbs trembling. There was a ringing in her ears as the blood rushed, crashing against her skull.
He glanced up, saw her and immediately dropped the journal he held, concern deepening the lines around his eyes. “What’s wrong, honey?”
Waiting to talk with her dad until he couldn’t escape her or order her away was no longer an option. She had to have the truth. Now. “Explain this,” she shouted, slamming the certificate onto his desk.
He looked at it and froze, even stopped breathing, his chest no longer moving. Several long, agonizing beats of silence ensued. “Where did you get that?” he asked softly.
“Doesn’t matter. Why don’t you tell me why Aunt Anne is my mother, yet you had her sister raise me as her own?” He’d never told her, never even hinted that her aunt, the one she’d never met, the one who had supposedly died before her birth, was actually her biological mother.
Her dad’s head fell into his upraised hands. He stayed like that, hunched over, for a long while. Silent, dejected. Finally, he said, “I didn’t want you to know. I still don’t.”
“But you’re going to tell me. Right. Now!” It was a demand, not a question. Fury and hurt seethed so violently inside her that she couldn’t stay still. She paced the room from one side to the other, feet digging into the carpet, pounding against the wood. It was as though the entire expanse of the sky was under her skin right now, making her more than human, making her infinite, while she looked down at everyone, seeing everything clearly for the first time in her life.
“Please, sit down. Let’s talk about this like rational human beings.”
She was anything but rational just then. “I’ll stand. You talk.”
He uttered a shuddering sigh. “Does this really matter, Mary Ann? Carolyn was your mother in every way but biologically. She loved you, raised you, held you when you were sick.”
“And I loved her for it; I still do. But I deserve to know the truth. I deserve to know about my real mother.”
With another of those sighs, he fell back against his chair. He propped his elbow on the arm and rested his temple on one hand. He was pale, the blue veins beneath his skin visible. “I planned to tell you, I did. But I wanted to do so when you were older. Ready. What if you don’t like what you hear? What if, once you know, you wish I’d never told you?”
How dare he! “Stop trying to manipulate me. I may not have a degree, but I’ve read the psychology books you gave me. I am not some patient you can convince to believe as you do, then send on her way. I’m your daughter and I deserve to have what you’ve always promised me. Honesty.”
Once he absorbed her words, he nodded somberly. “All right, Mary Ann. I’ll tell you. Honestly. I just hope you’re ready.”
He paused, clearly waiting for her to tell him she wasn’t. When she didn’t, he briefly closed his eyes as if praying for guidance.
“I dated your mother—Carolyn, the woman who raised you,” he said, “while in high school. I was seventeen. I thought I loved her. Until I went home with her and met her younger sister, Anne. She was sixteen, the age you are now, and it was love at first sight. For both of us. I stopped dating Carolyn immediately. Anne and I weren’t going to see each other—that would have hurt Carolyn, and we both loved her in our ways. But we couldn’t stay away from each other and all too soon we were dating in secret.”
Mary Ann plopped into the seat in front of the desk. Though she was still a mess of turbulent emotions, her legs would no longer hold her up. This was too much to take in.
“Shall I continue?”
She nodded. Too much to take in, but she needed to hear the rest. Why had she never suspected? She didn’t even have a picture of Anne in her room. Had barely given the woman, her own mother, a passing thought over the years.
“The more time I spent with Anne, the more I realized she was a bit…unusual. She would disappear for hours and claim—”
Mary Ann’s gasp stopped him. “She would claim that she had traveled into a younger version of herself.”
His eyes widened; he nodded. “How did you—Aden,” he said through clenched teeth. “He’s been feeding you his lies, I see.”
No. Aden was the only one who’d given her the truth. “This isn’t about him. This is about you and the lies you’ve fed me for years. And I think we both know, deep down, that Aden wasn’t lying.”
“I thought I’d made it clear that I don’t want you hanging out with that boy, Mary Ann. He’s dangerous. He was dangerous as a child, beating up the other patients, the guards, and he’s dangerous as a teenager. Need proof of that? I did some digging. Found out he’s living at the D and M. Everyone knows those kids are bad news. Stay away from him.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do right now!” She slammed her fist against her chair. “I know him, better than you ever did, and he wouldn’t hurt me. Right now I think I know him better than I know you.”
He blanched. “People can turn on you. He—”
“He knew that I would meet him one day. He even told you that. But you, in your stubbornness, didn’t believe him. After your experiences with Anne, you’re the one person, the one doctor, who should have given Aden a chance to prove he’d told the truth. Yet you’re trying to discredit him even now, when the evidence supports him.”
