Strange in Skin (37 page)

She tossed up her head as if mad were an understatement. “I couldn’t believe it. Well, he wouldn’t
tell me where you were. I knew he knew. I knew it had to be bad. Good thing Helene breaks a little
easier than him. I don’t think he’d ever tell me. I don’t know if I would have thought to look at the
Anderson place either.”

“Where else would you have thought?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I just knew I had to get Helene to talk.”

I sat down on the bed and waited for Carlin as she seemed to be sorting through her purse of what
she did and didn’t need. I watched her toss a few items into the trash can that was sitting along the
wall. “I was pretty upset when he left me. He just turned around and walked up the stairs. Horrified
was more like it, but I can’t say I blame him. I mean, it’s not like I’m even his
real
daughter anyway.”

She turned around to look at me, surprise written all over her face.
“Oh, come on. Like you didn’t know.”
She returned to what she had been doing. “No, of course I knew. I just didn’t know you knew.”

“Yeah. I found out in kind of a strange way. Emry’s adopted mother actually was the one to tell
me.”

She stopped again and turned to look at me again. “Really? What else did she tell you?”
“Not much else. I went home and questioned Helene. She started crying and everything.”
Carlin rolled her eyes. “Of course she did. So did you ask her who your real mother was?”
“Yeah.”
“What’d she say?”
“Well, basically that my mother abandoned me and someone found me and took me to some

adoption agency.”
“What?”
I gave her a hard look. “That’s not how it happened?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Helene lied to me?”
“Unbelievable. I can’t believe she told you that.”

I took a deep breath. The force of the hard expansion against the bandage caused me to wince
slightly and bend over in pain. The pain pills hadn’t kicked in yet. I probably was in need of
something stronger. “Tell me what you know, Carlin. Please,” I begged her.

She sighed and then zipped up her purse and tossed it on the nightstand. She came over and sat
down beside me on the bed. “Annie,” she began.
“I hate it when you call me that.”

“I know.” She pressed her lips together. “I have something to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“You already said your day was overwhelming enough.”
“Just tell me. You can’t just say something like that and leave me hanging.”
“All right.”

She swallowed hard as my mind raced with what she was about to tell me. Maybe she knew who
my real parents were.

“I’m your mother.”
I felt my throat grow instantly dry. “What did you say?”
“I’m your real mother.”

I tried to stand up and get away from her. Now she was lying to me, too? How could she say such a
thing? We were nothing alike.

“Just sit back down before you hurt yourself,” she instructed me. “I came back here for you. It’s
time you knew the truth. You’re miserable here with
them
. I just know you are. It’s written all over
your face. Then, when I found out you were missing, I went absolutely crazy.”

“Wait.” I held up my hand to stop her. “You’re my real mother?”

She nodded, giving me a moment to absorb it. It seemed utterly impossible to wrap my mind
around. “
You
gave birth to
me
?”
“Yes.”

“Why would mother lie about that?”
“Because she’s a coward.”
I sat down as my head began to spin again. I needed to eat something.

“I know it’s pretty hard for you to believe given that you can’t even stand the sight of me and all,
but we’re more alike than you think. This little rebellious thing you have going on here right now,
that’s all me.”

“Now isn’t the best time for jokes.”
“Okay, okay, sorry. I’ve never been so good with the serious stuff.”
“Well, try.”

She took a deep breath. “All right. Here’s the cold hard truth. Helene told you about Russell,
right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“We were in love. I mean, I can’t even begin to tell you how inseparable we were, but he was a
little older, and when you’re a teenager, a few years makes a big difference.”

 

“But she said that he was in love with her, too,” I interrupted, wanting to get all of the details
exactly right this time.

“Well, not exactly. I always suspected he had a thing for her, too. I know she liked him and was
jealous that he was with me. I always thought they hung out together because he felt sorry for her
because he knew she liked him. The whole triangle thing was kind of complicated, but anyway, a long
story short, I got pregnant.”

“So this Russell is my real father?”
“Right. Russell Flaherty.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, if you let me get to it.”

“Sorry.” I tried to remain quiet so I could listen, but I couldn’t guarantee that I wasn’t going to
interrupt again.

“So I was only fourteen, a freshman in high school. I wasn’t ready for you yet. I had no means of
taking care of you. But I couldn’t just get rid of you. I never abandoned you like she claimed. You
meant too much to me. You were Russell and I’s love child.” She paused a moment so as to let that all
sink in. “Helene was furious, but we came to an understanding. She and Russell were supposed to get
married and take care of you. It was perfect. She was my sister and so we figured you’d look similar
to her, that it’d all work out, all fall into place. That way at least you would have your real father with
you.”

“So they were really engaged?”

“Right, but not for long. He only stuck around for a short period of time after you were born. He got
cold feet. He didn’t want to marry Helene. He wasn’t sure he could handle a child at that age either,
so he left her there all alone with you. I helped her as much as I could, but I was so very young and
incapable of such things. I hit the road the first chance I got when I turned eighteen to get out of
Seneca. But it broke my heart, especially the older I got. I never stopped loving Russell, wondering
where he went. I couldn’t stand that Helene was raising you, but what could I do? I couldn’t tear you
away from the only home you’d ever known. It just didn’t seem fair to do that to you, so I stayed away
as much as possible. It was easier that way.”

“So what happened to Russell?”

 

She folded her hands in front of her and clasped them together. “I don’t know. Never heard from
him again.”

 

“So Matthew?” I asked.

 

“They really did adopt Matthew a few years after you from an adoption agency, but not you. You
were mine.”

 

I stared at her for a moment. Maybe I was more like her than I thought. Maybe that’s why we never
got along because of our similarities. “This day is insane.”

“Enough drama to fill up the life of a teenage girl.” She winked at me.
I rolled my eyes.
“I didn’t really expect this from you. I thought you’d be mad.”

“Huh,” I said thinking about that for a moment. “I would’ve thought so, too, but for some odd reason
I’m not. A strange twist of fate for sure though. I wasn’t expecting that one coming.”

“You see, Helene loves you so much. You were the child she always wished she could’ve had with
Russell but never could. She lives in a fantasy world, Helene does. I’m so sorry that you found out
that way and thought that you’d been abandoned like that. I’m just plain old sorry.”

“That story makes more sense though,” I admitted. “Being fourteen and Russell’s leaving.”

“So you see we are all family. You have a real family. You were loved by everyone in different
ways. You don’t have to call me mom or anything. I mean, I’m not expecting anything to change. You
can still hate me if you want to.”

I stared into her eyes, the reality and shock of it all hitting me. Carlin was my real mother. Wow. “I
don’t hate you.”
“Anyways,” she said, motioning toward the clock. “We’d better get going. Don’t want to be late.”

“Can we go through a drive through or something on the way? I’m starving.”
“Sure. Whatever you want.”

I put the crutches under my arms as I stood and practiced on them by heading toward the door. They
were a little awkward as I struggled to get a steady pace going with them.

 

Carlin grabbed the keys to the room and shoved them in her pocket. “By the way, the reason I call
you Annie in that way?”

 

“Yeah?” I looked back at her as we left the motel room.

“It’s because the deal I had made with Helene was that she could name you. I didn’t want you to be
named Anna. That’s why I just say Annie. It was always hard for me to swallow that I didn’t get to
name my own kid.”
“So what would you have named me?”

She thought for a moment as she opened up the passenger side door of her car and helped me in.
“Juliet.”

“Really?”
“I always liked that name.”

For the first time in a long time I had a sense of belonging, even if it meant Carlin was my mother. It
was as if one of the many voids from within me had been filled. I did have a family, and I was loved.

“I came back to help you find your love. I don’t know how it’s all going to pan out, but I don’t want
you to lose him like I lost Russell. If you love someone, you have to fight for them. I admired your
courage of standing up to Helene and John when I was staying there,” she told me as we started to
drive down the road.

“You said love didn’t exist.”

“It doesn’t matter what I said. That was just part of the act. I do believe in love. I do. I don’t know
who this Emry Logan is, but if you like him, there has to be something good in him. Plus, he’s hot.”
She flashed me a big smile.

“You’ve seen him?”
She nodded. “I’ve been attending the trial.”
“You have to catch me up on that. I need to know everything.”

Chapter 19

I stuffed a huge bite of hamburger in my mouth and leaned my head back against the leather headrest
in Carlin’s car. The window was down halfway as a warm breeze tumbled in, tossing my hair about
playfully. I tried not to think for a moment. I just sat there, letting the sunlight burn into my skin and
enjoyed the warmth of it, enjoyed the feeling of the taste of a greasy hamburger in my mouth. I tried to
relax myself entirely, knowing that my fate would soon be determined with what the jury decided, that
Emry’s verdict was also my own.

“So, you ready to know what’s been going on in there?” Carlin asked, gulping down a sip of her
sweet tea and then putting it back in the cup holder beside her.

 

I sighed and then looked over at the courthouse in front of us. The sight of it worried me. I guess
quiet meditation time was over. “Yeah, let’s hear it.”

“They had this witness come forward. I think Helig was her name?”
“Stacy Helig.”
“Right. Do you know about her?”

I nodded. “I know what Emry told me about her, that she wasn’t even there and that somehow they
had probably paid her off to get her to say that she was there knowing it was her word against his.”
“Oh.” Carlin picked up her sweet tea again and held it in her hand. “Well, she did a good job at
pretending she was there then.”

“Thanks, Carlin. I mean it.”
She gave me a look of uncertainty. “For what now?”
“For being on my side.”
“I’ve always been on your side, kid.” She gave me a quick wink.
I laughed and finished off the rest of the hamburger.

“She gave all these details about Wes and how he had been pushed by Emry and even knew the
details of where he had fallen on the ground.”

 

I sighed irritated. “Of course she did because
they
knew that and coached her.”
She shrugged. “Right. So this Helig woman was pretty convincing. I was sure it was all downhill
from there for poor Emry.”

“Great.”
“No, but listen. Emry has this top notch lawyer.”
“Really? How’d he afford that?”

Carlin made a loud slurping sound as she sucked down the rest of her tea with a straw. “No idea.
But he’s really good. I mean,
really
good. He made that Helig woman look like a fool, even made her
stumble a few times. You should’ve seen the look on Mrs. Anderson’s face when he did that. It took
all I had not to laugh out loud.”

I saw a few people walk up the steps of the courthouse and go inside. I still didn’t feel ready to see
Mrs. Anderson, Lauren, my father, Buck, nor did I feel ready to see him, Emry. It had been so long.
What if he didn’t even notice me there?

“So then they questioned Emry,” Carlin continued. “He was very straight forward and kind of quiet
in his manner. He never got upset or lost his temper.”

“Not violent enough to be a criminal, huh?” I smiled.
“If his only crime is breaking hearts.”
I glared at her.
“Sorry.”
“So how did he do against their lawyer? Did they trip him up?”

“Not at all actually. He said that Stacy Helig wasn’t even there, that he thought there was some sort
of underlying conspiracy going on behind his back, that he wasn’t sure why, and then his lawyer
jumped in and connected all the dots with the conspiracy, that no one had any real proof on him, that
Wes and him were best friends. Wes’s mother even was called as a witness to say how wonderful of
a person Emry is, how Wes and him would’ve never fought, that it had to have been a huge
misunderstanding. I mean, if Wes’s own mother can assume it an accident, how can the jury not? The
victim’s own mother doesn’t believe Emry could’ve killed her son.”

I thought about it all for a moment. “So was anything brought up about black magic, anything said
along those lines?”

 

“Actually, yes. What do you know about that?” Carlin asked me.

Another gust of wind came in through the open window and I inhaled deeply, my lungs welcoming
it. “Well, that’s what they’re accusing him of. There was some sort of incident between Emry and
Buck, and Buck ran off and told Mrs. Anderson and they deemed him a worshipper of the devil.”

Carlin let out a loud chuckle. “Too funny. That’s exactly what Emry’s lawyer made it out to be, too,
a huge joke. He made Buck look like a total fool.”

“Buck was questioned?”
“Yeah. Buck isn’t very smart is he?”
“Not at all.”

Carlin smiled as she must’ve been remembering Buck’s face as Emry’s lawyer interrogated him.
“The lawyer was like, look at Emry Logan looking all satanic with his piercings and gothic
mannerisms. Everything about him just screams the dark side.”