Page 66 of Electric Blue Love
“You asked about my parents.” I cleared my throat and asked myself for the trillionth time why I was here? Why was I telling her this? The answers were all the same.
I wanted a future with my 8B.
“The truth is, I did look them up. About a year ago, I hired someone to do some digging. Leika thought it might help give me some sort of closure and I guess I was curious, too.”
I watched sadness and nervousness pinch her features, but she didn’t speak.
“My parents were young when I was born. Fifteen. They were from a place not far from here in Connecticut. On top of getting knocked up that young, my mother was an addict. The best I could find out she was sent away to stay with some relatives in New York City. When I was born, the state took me from her – because of the addiction. She OD’ed a few months later.
“Oh my God,” she said and covered her mouth with both hands. “Court –” she moved to scoot closer to me, but I raised a hand.
“Let me finish.” I needed to get it all out. I’d held it in too long. I hadn’t even been this forthcoming with Leika. She’d had to pry information from me bit by bit over months. But I needed Bianca to know. And if I didn’t tell her now I didn’t think I ever would.
“Most babies get adopted – it’s the older kids that have a harder time being placed, but my mother had used during the pregnancy and so I,” my voice broke. “I was born dependent on opioids. Drug babies aren’t quite as easy to love – we scream for the first few months of our lives and some end up with a whole slew of medical issues. I guess I was lucky in that regard, I was healthy. But I wasn’t a baby anyone wanted because of it so I bounced around foster homes. I did that most my life. I never stayed in the same place more than a few years. Some of the foster parents had good intentions, some of them just did it for the paycheck, but it didn’t matter. I was too angry at the world for it to matter who they put me with. I refused to talk or cooperate, I was a complete asshole if I did speak to them. As I got older and people stopped trying to connect with me, I found trouble in other ways. I did shit I’m not proud of – stealing, vandalism, basically I was a punk.”
“You were acting out,” she added.
I nodded. “Maybe. I was bitter and pissed at the world. Anybody that tried to get close I ran off and eventually people stopped trying. I was just biding my time until I could be on my own.”
“What about your father?” Bianca looked pale like it was her past we were uncovering instead of mine. “You said your mother died, but what happened to your father?”
I let out a breath. “He stayed in Connecticut. Went on to finish high school, college, got married, had more kids. I never heard from him or my mother’s family. It’s like after she died they all just forgot about me too.”
“Are you sure he even knows about you. If her family sent her away…”
I nodded solemnly. “His signature was on the paperwork. He signed away his rights.”
“I’m so sorry Court.”
We sat in silence for a few moments and Bianca wrung her hands nervously while I worked up the courage to continue.
“That’s not all.” I scrubbed a hand over my chin. “He’s still here. In Connecticut. In this damn city.”
She looked up, wide eyes and mouth parted. “Are you going to reach out to him?”
I looked at her sweet unassuming innocence so excited at the possibility of me finally finding a family and I’d never felt so hard and dark by comparison.
“Yes, but not in the way you think.” I sighed. “This isn’t about reconnecting with my father, so he can wrap me in his arms and tell me how much he thought of me over the years.” Even as I said the words I couldn’t keep the tiniest bit of hope from taking purchase. Hope was dangerous, and I needed to keep it carefully in check. “But I do want to move on and I think telling him what an asshole I think he is might be the only way I can do that.”
“But, what if –”
“What if he wants to be a father to a thirty-four-year-old man he never met?” I laughed. “He’s a big shot in the community. He’s not going to want some drug baby secret to come out and tarnish his reputation.”
“You don’t know that,” she insisted.
I scoffed. “If he’d wanted to find me he could have. He had the means and plenty of opportunity. Anyway, that is why I’m here. Why I took a client here and why I’m here now. Ten months I’ve been sitting on this information. Waiting, trying to decide if I really wanted to come face to face with him, but now I’ve practically been gift-wrapped an opportunity and it feels like the right time. I can speak my peace and be done with him.”
Bianca scrunched up her face like she was trying to understand.
“He watched her get sent away and just wiped his hands of both of us.”
“Court you don’t know that.”
“I know enough. I just want to look him in the eye once and demand he face the consequences of his actions.”
It sounded so much more callous when I said it out loud. But he’d built a whole life pretending I didn’t exist. Like my mother had been nothing. I wanted to be rid of him the same way – erase him from my life forever.
Her blue eyes turned the shade of a country love song – sad but mesmerizing.
