The Wide Receiver's Baby (28 page)

Chapter Thirty Nine

Chase

It was finally time to go back to Dallas.  It had only been a few weeks, but it felt like another three years had passed since I’d held Kayla in my arms.  She didn’t move back into the house.  The wounds that had been opened by Mary would take time to heal.

They jumped for joy as they saw me.  I couldn’t believe that my little family was waiting for me.  My family had consisted of just Dad and I for so long.  Now, I had my own little girl.  She had been out of my life for the first two years, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let her out of my sight again.

We’d talked on the phone about my staying at Yale and going to law school.  But I just felt that it was more important for Kayla and Sydney to be near family.  Especially now.  Especially with the trial coming up.  The crazy part was that Kayla and Mary couldn’t even stay with family in Ohio.  They were advised to have as little contact with them as possible until after the trial, just so that nothing influenced the outcome.

Kayla hated the idea of not being able to speak to her grandma and tell her the reasons for her actions, but hey, if it meant getting on with our lives and Kayla not having to spend her life in fear, then I was happy to play along.

“My favorite girls!” I screamed as I ran up to them.  I grabbed both of them in my arms and swung them around.  They were so precious to me, and I couldn’t believe that it had only been less than three weeks since I last saw them.

Kayla had put on so much weight. 

“Kayla, what have you been eating?” I smiled as I kissed her on the lips. 

She released me and said, “What haven’t I been eating? That should be the real question.”  My love, who I had found wasting away a few weeks ago, had color in her cheeks.  She seemed real and alive.  Way better than she used to look in high school.  But I wasn’t going to tell her that. 

Dad had kindly given Kayla a credit card and told her to spoil herself.  After all, she had no choice.  She still had some clothes in Dallas, but I doubted any of them could have been worn due to her drastic weight loss.  Dad was a hopeless romantic and believed that no matter how bad a woman felt, “shopping always makes them feel better”.

His words didn’t reassure me, because he was talking about women that were going through a bad day, or had one particular issue.  As a child, Kayla had been abused by her dad, then she’d spent years of her life thinking she had helped kill her dad. I didn't think that buying some clothes, no matter how cute and expensive they were, could make her feel better.

Kayla had been beaten by how many women in the ring? She had refused to talk about it, until she was ready, and I respected her decision.  Besides, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear the exact details of her story. 

As I held my little daughter, who looked beautiful in her pink dress, I suspected that Kayla had spent more on Sydney than she had on herself.  Sydney had little pink bows in her hair and matching shoes, whereas Kayla was in a black shirt and pants.  She looked beautiful, but then she always did, even after she’d taken a beating that most men couldn’t handle.

“I have something to tell you,” she whispered as we got into the car. 

For some crazy reason I thought that she was going to tell me that she was pregnant.  But as she started to head off to an apartment that she had rented with the help of Dad, I realized that her news was even better.

***

“You know I’m super nervous about the trial?”

I nodded, because as much as we tried to not talk about it, there was no escaping it. We were being prepped morning, noon and night about the trial.  Mary and I were also being prepped. The prosecutor had a strong case against her dad.  He was charged not only with kidnapping, but with doing jobs with dirty cops.

“Anyway, there’s something that has always bugged me.  Silly, I know, because we have a lot more things to worry about right now.”  She glanced in the rearview mirror to check on Sydney.  I turned around to see that Sydney was playing with one of her dolls, and that meant she was in her own little world.  She did it sometimes when we did video chat.  She would spot one of her dolls and then that was it.  It was all about the dolls, and I became a distant memory.

“And?” We stopped at a stoplight, and I wanted to know what this big news was.  What else could be bugging her?

“Hannah.” She turned to look at me. She didn’t need to say anything more.  So, it must have been something else.  Something.  I just wasn’t expecting.

“I saw an article in the New York Times about her.  Her body was found.” She took a deep breath as she took a corner.  I sighed in relief.  I know it was bad and I didn’t know the woman, but the idea that she was dead and could in no way harm Kayla again brought about relief.

“Anyway, her living relative, who identified the body, was William Turner.”

I asked, “Your coach?”

She nodded. “All the time he was her dad, and I never knew.”

I wondered what difference it would have made if she’d known.  He hadn’t stopped Hannah from using Kayla, and my daughter had been in an environment that most men wouldn’t want their dogs, let alone their daughters, brought up in.

I wanted to say something reassuring to make Kayla feel better, but I hated William - Willy.   Whatever she wanted to call him.  He had let his daughter use my girlfriend.  Kayla seemed to think of Willy as some kind of hero, whereas I thought that he was nothing more than the devil.  For all we knew, he could have pretended that it was all Hannah.  Pretended that she was the evil one.  As far as I was concerned, they were both evil.  The death of Hannah was a blessing.  That was all I could think as she talked about there not being any witnesses, and no cause for Hannah’s death, that the police could find.

Well, they were pretty useless if they couldn’t find out that one piece of information.  There were so many probable causes of Hannah’s death.  As Kayla parked, I wanted to say how I really felt about Willy.  But I didn’t want to kill the mood, so I said, “Well, at least that is one piece of good news.”

She nodded. “I suppose so.  I just hope that Willy is alright,” she said as she unbuckled the car seat and got Sydney out. 

I mumbled, “I hope not.”

Chapter Forty

Kayla

Two Years Later…

It was like a dream come true.  All those nightmares and fears could be put under lock and key.

But there was just one problem: It didn’t get rid of the memories.  Nothing in the world could get rid of those, especially after the trial began.  I hated sleeping in a hotel with Mom so close.  Chase said I should make more of an effort, but it was so damn hard.

There was a knock on the door.

“Sadie, are you awake?”

I hated the fact that she still insisted on calling me by my real name. It was a past that I wanted buried, but she kept using that name.

“I wish you would stop calling me by my real name!” I blurted out. I didn’t like the fact that I was in the same hotel as Mom. 

How do you trust someone who has lied to you for the last five years of your life? 

“Sorry,” she whispered as she entered the room.  I’d spent the last two years in and out of Ohio, just so that Dad could go away for a long time.

“It’s what
we
named you.
”

Was she delusional?  To me that was even more reason not to want to hear that name. 

I put on the light.  I couldn’t sleep, and a part of me felt the need to talk to someone.  Anyone but Chase.  Mom felt like the right person to talk to.  She had seen what Dad had done to me, and what a monster he was deep down.  Maybe the one person I couldn’t trust and  didn’t want to be around was the best person to talk to right now.

I sat up, “Mom, I don’t know how I feel about you right now.  But, you’re the only one who knows what really went on in that house.”

She smiled as if I had said the one thing that would give her comfort.  To make her feel that I was opening up to her.

I wasn’t.

I was just being selfish.

Taking something I needed, to make myself feel better for once.

She shut the door and hurriedly sat next to me on the edge of the bed.

“You know what Dad was really like.  I talk sometimes to Chase about it.”

I paused as I wiped a tear that had escaped from my eye.  Sometimes, I could see the anger in Chase’s face as I told him the truth about my dad.  That made me stop.  Prevented me from opening up and telling him everything. It was buried inside of me and right now, and it felt the need to come out.

“But he can never understand.”

She nodded, “I feel the same about Stephen.  Most of the time I stop myself, because I feel ashamed.”

She could relate, and she edged closer towards me.

“That is the problem. I would tell Chase a particular story, or about a time with Dad. And he would just get angry. Then I would feel guilty, and that would stop me talking. I end up feeling worse then I did before.”

“I know how you feel Kayla.  I know.” She took deep breaths as she added, “No matter what happens, I’m your mother and I only did what I feel was right for you.  I know I made a mistake.  You’re a mother now. You will know it is not easy.”

I laughed, “You don’t have to tell me twice.  I know.  It’s tough. Damn hard.”

We talked as we needed to do.  Not because we had to, but because, for the first time since this whole thing came out, Mom felt like my mom once again. The person who I felt could and would protect me forever.  She did love me. She had made some bad decisions but I could relate to making bad decisions.

I had made some pretty crap ones up ‘til now.

***

I felt at times like I was the one on trial, especially when I was interviewed by the prosecutors, who were supposed to be on my side.  I was the one in the wrong. I was grilled about my disappearance.  I was even accused of helping Dad at one point. They thought that my disappearance meant that I was helping him under cover.

Why the fuck would I want to do that?

It didn’t make sense to me.  But, it was slowly but surely coming to light that Dad wasn’t alone.  Not only did he have assistance from the force, but people from the prosecutor’s office were involved too.  Everyone was so damn nervous, wondering who they could trust. 

Today, I was going on the stand.  I was going to tell my whole nightmare of a life to complete strangers. Sure, I had been prepped for it.  Chase had made a point of saying that I needed counseling sessions to deal not only with the trial, but with all the other crap that I had been through.

I could write a fucking book!

I did think about it at first.  But the whole idea of reliving my nightmare didn’t give me the comfort that I needed.  The comfort that I had to have in order to get closure and to sleep at night.

“Sadie, are you ready?” James, my lawyer, asked as I sat on a chair, holding Chase’s hand as if I could take it with me on the stand. 

I looked at Chase as he nodded. “Yes, she’s ready.”

I wasn’t.

I fucking wasn’t.

I just wanted to go home.  Run twenty marathons.  Anything. Everything but do this. 

I didn’t want to face him again.

That was the painful part.  It wasn’t telling strangers what I had been through in my life, it was him sitting there.  That was the part that I was running away from. The one part that I wanted to avoid.

Tears were streaming out of my eyes. “Chase?”

I didn’t know what I expected him to do. I mean, it all made perfect sense. I would testify.  We would get on with our lives. Dad would be sent away for a very long time with anyone that he was involved with and we’d be happy ever after.

Setting up hotlines for children that had been through the same thing I had and working towards getting more sponsorship for women who had been beaten by their partners. gave me the inspiration to continue with this fight.

I was reminded of that as Chase said, “This is not only about us.  It is about them too.”

He quickly showed me the messages on our Facebook page.  Women talking about me being so brave.  Women who were inspired by my story to do better for themselves and their children.

Children who had left home for the same reasons.  They had been abused by both parents and they’d learned to fight.

I pressed my lips against his, and he squeezed me tight. I whispered to James, “He’s right. I’m ready.”

Because I was.

I had to be.

Whether I liked it or not.