Page 38 of Single Mom's Undoing
I give her a cool grin. “You never left yet look at you.”
“True, but I had great parents to educate me,” she shoots back, then pops a popcorn kernel into her mouth. “And I had a great influence from you and Stephan and the guys. That counts for something. The town was never ready for personalities like yours. And you and Stephan had it hard. Stephan, in particular, having to raise you on his own after your parents died.”
“Then going into military service. That took a toll of its own,” I add.
“The people in this town tend to judge without knowing the full story. I just hope their words didn’t sting too much.”
I shake my head slowly. “Elizabeth was a troubling sight, though.”
“Yeah, nobody saw that coming, especially Damon. I was ready to bolt out of the fair with Shiloh and Matty, if push came to shove. I knew Damon wouldn’t want that skank anywhere near his daughter.”
“You would’ve had my blessing,” I reply. “It still boggles my mind that Elizabeth just up and left the way she did in the first place. Then again, I also up and left?—”
“Hey, different circumstances, completely different circumstances. You lost your brother. Elizabeth realized that she went through the pain of labor for nothing. She was never going to have Damon, not fully. He was always yours.”
I find myself stunned by Jodie’s statement, my head turning slowly so I can look at her fully. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, don’t give me that,” she scoffs. “I’ve always known about the three of them and you. How they live, how they love. And I could see the way you were around one another. The minute you turned eighteen, Clara, it became obvious. You were ready to be with them, and they were ready to be with you.”
“Jodie—”
“Relax, your secret is safe with me,” she insists, gently squeezing my shoulder. “Love can be weird, I know. The minute they realized you were gone, they were devastated. They’d just lost Stephan under such tragic circumstances, and then you…it was a hard pill to swallow.”
Tragic circumstances.
If only Jodie knew precisely how tragic those circumstances were. The nightmare that unfolded that night that I was helpless to stop. The details I chose to keep secret. Out of fear. Out of pain. Out of anger.
The girl I was then still lives inside me, riddled with shame and regret. That’s why the woman I am today carries so much uncertainty on her shoulders. I doubt my own judgment sometimes.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t feel sorry for the way I had to leave,” I tell Jodie.
“Will you ever tell the truth about what made you go?”
Deep down, I think Jodie knows that there was more to it than Stephan’s death that prompted my sudden departure. But much like Carter and the guys, she doesn’t press me on the matter.
“Someday.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Elizabeth too much either,” Jodie replies, softly changing the subject. “Damon can’t stand her anymore. Hell, I was there when they got married. It felt like a shotgun wedding without the actual shotgun.”
That makes me laugh. “Really?”
“I’m telling you, Damon was still brooding over you, much like Carter and Jace. Shiloh was his happy accident, he’d often say. But if anyone brought Elizabeth’s name up, he’d shut down almost instantly. I do know he tried to make it work. He did. The man can sleep soundly at night; his conscience is clear.”
“He doesn’t talk about her much.”
“There isn’t a lot to say,” Jodie replies with a shrug. “The minute Shiloh was born, Elizabeth was already planning trips to Europe and Asia to buy rare art objects for her New York- and Los Angeles-based clients. Then one day, Damon came up here to clean up and remodel the kitchen, and he had this look on his face…”
“What look?”
“I think it was shock but also relief,” Jodie says. “He told me that Elizabeth had left out of the blue. She mailed him a letter, mentioning that she was relinquishing her parental rights and that marriage and family weren’t for her. She said she loved Shiloh too much to ruin her.”
“I don’t buy that last part for a second. I really have a hard time believing that she loved Shiloh too much. Her intentions were purely selfish.”
“Yeah, well, she was right about Shiloh being better off without her. Damon, too. He pulled through it all rather well.”
“He had a good support network around him,” I say. I can almost picture him, Carter, and Jace taking turns to put baby Shiloh to sleep, or feed her or change her diapers. “Still, it couldn’t have been easy.”
“It wasn’t. For Elizabeth to show up like this two years later, without so much as a text beforehand, it rattled Damon. I think he’s worried about potential custody issues.”
