Page 3 of Coming Home for Fall 6
“By the way, I’m not mad at you anymore,” she clarified. “I got over it pretty quickly. It’s funny how losing someone can really put things in perspective.” She laughed softly. “Anyway, I think you’d be proud of how I’ve been since you passed away. Initially, I thought about pounding on David’s door and demanding money from him...” Sasha sighed and kicked a small rock. “But I won’t. I’d rather wait until I’m back on my feet and don’t need anything from him. And I won’t go out of my way to ruin his life either. I don’t see how that would make me feel any better. Plus, I know you wouldn’t approve.”
In the distance, she heard the faint rumble of a lawn mower. It was Tuesday—the groundkeepers usually mowed the lawn at 9 AM on that day. Her bus left at 9:20 and the stop was a few blocks away. Squaring her shoulders, Sasha bent down to place a single flower in front of the gravestone.
“I’ll come and visit you as soon as I can,” she promised. “I should have a day off in a week or two, but it takes three buses to get back to Ferndale from the motel, so I’m not sure when I’ll have that kind of time.” She kissed her hand and then pressed it against the cold stone where her mother’s name was engraved. “Don’t miss me too much. Let me do the missing for the both of us, since I’m going to anyway.”
Her eyes watered again, but she smiled and said one last goodbye. “Love you, Mom. Always will.” Sasha glanced at thegravestone again and then blew a kiss to her grandmother before she turned and walked away.
Chapter 2
Present Day
“Things didn’t exactly go as planned with my motel job,” Sasha admitted to the entire Ward family, “which is how I ended up here with basically nothing…”
However, Mallory’s piercing eyes were trained skeptically on Sasha. Without a doubt, she knew that this woman was either making up the whole story or Sasha’s mother had lied to her about who her dad was. Perhaps Maggie knew Mallory’s father, maybe they had worked together, and his name came to mind when she was sick and confused.
Either way, Mallory refused to believe Sasha was David’s daughter. Her father would never cheat.
“I worked there until about a month before Dot was born,” Sasha went on, “but then I started having some issues, and the doctor told me I had to stay on bedrest for the last trimester. My boss gave me two weeks of rest, but then he said I had to go. I lost my job and my place to live, so I couch surfed. I found a few people on the internet who let me crash at their place for very little money.”
Ariel’s face was etched with concern and Callie’s hands were clenched so tightly together that her knuckles were white. Mallory kept her arms crossed, seemingly unfazed—she wasn’t going to give Sasha too big of a reaction just yet.
“After Dot was born, we were bounced around to a few different homeless shelters, and we were on the streets more than once, and then… We came here.” She shrugged meekly. “I realized I had no other options and that I had to show up with just the clothes on my back. But how could I knock on your door and say, ‘hi, I’m your daughter, this is your granddaughter, and I need a place to stay before winter comes and we die on the streets?’” She let out a bitter laugh. “You would’ve called the cops! Or at least… I thought you might. That was before I really got to know the two of you.” She offered Callie a grateful smile.
“I wouldn’t have called the cops,” Callie confirmed. “Never. It wouldn’t have even occurred to me.”
“Yeah, well… Like I said, I didn’t know you guys at the time, so I expected the worst. I couldn’t take any chances,” Sasha explained. “I had a baby who needed a home, so I did the only thing I could think of. I asked one of my friends, who was also on the streets at the time, to make a call. From my research, I’d found out that you and David used to give money to a women’s shelter outside Ferndale. I had my friend pretend to be a social worker from there, offering you the opportunity to sponsor someone from the shelter. And… you said yes.”
Leaning back into her chair, Sasha nervously rubbed her hands together. She took a few deep breaths and let them out slowly, seemingly having come to the end of her story.
Done lying yet?
Mallory looked around at her family members, wondering if any of them were going to break the tense silence or if she would have to.
Nobody said anything.
Mallory opened her mouth, and a shocked, skeptical laugh escaped her lips. This was all absurd and she resented feeling like she was the only person in the room who wasn’t blind.
“I’m sorry,” she said, mostly apologizing to her parents, who she felt were the real victims in all this. “I’m just not sure how to react. Because this is crazy. Dad, c’mon. Put a stop to this. Tell her you never cheated on mom. That youneverwould! That you’d rather—I don’t know—jump off a bridge than betray mom like that. It’s ridiculous.”
Mallory gawked at her dad, waiting for him to clear things up so they could expose Sasha’s evident lies. However, David wasn’t looking back at his daughter. Instead, his gaze was fixed on his wife. Callie stared back at him for a beat, glanced down at her lap, and sighed. Taylor shifted uncomfortably and Erica took his hand. Ariel’s face was still transfixed with shock. Mallory wanted to tell her siblings not to worry, because it was obvious that Sasha wasn’t related to them.
Right?
“Callie—” David said in a whisper.
“I know, I know.” Callie sighed and nodded. “We have to tell them.”
Mallory frowned. “Tell us what?” Her stomach muscles knotted but she did her best to keep calm. “What’s going on?”
“There’s something we need to talk to you all about,” Callie began, pointedly avoiding Mallory’s gaze, “something we’ve been keeping a secret for over twenty years.”
“Dad—” Taylor glared at David. “How could you? You had an affair?”
“No, no, it’s not that,” David quickly corrected his son. “I never cheated.”
“It’s true,” Callie confirmed. “Neither of us ever cheated.”
“So, then what?” Mallory threw her hands up in the air. “What is it you have to tell us?”
