Page 27 of Hot Shot
“Ten million.”
“Bran.”
“I know. I dropped five on her to get her to the court house, ten to have the baby and I had to be on top of her because I’d given her money, money she could have used to abort the baby.”
“She wouldn’t.”
“She threatened to often enough I couldn’t be sure. There was always something she wanted or wanted to do, or me to do, it was easy to get my compliance with the threat of the baby.”
“You did it all for the baby.”
“I did. And I’d probably do it again.”
“What happened to stop her from signing the divorce papers? You said you were trying to get divorced.”
“Carl happened. Whatever he said made her think she would be better off staying with me. Not that we were together in any way other than on paper. I never touched her after we were married. I didn’t even kiss her at the ceremony. Barely held her hands during the quick service.”
“You didn’t…”
“No. I didn’t. I couldn’t. She wasn’t meant to be the woman with my ring on her finger. Wasn’t meant to be living in my house. I can’t to this day, stand referring to her as my wife. If I could wipe it all out, go back in time and erase it all, I would. In a heartbeat.”
“Bran.”
I turn, put my hands on Blake’s shoulders and push her back, finally look her in the eye. “I have never loved, will never love, anyone but you. I hate what I did, what I allowed to happen, hate it all with a bone deep burn that threatens to take me under every day. And it was all for nothing.”
“It wasn’t for nothing. It was for Laura, your daughter. You’re not the type of man who could ever turn his back on his own flesh and blood.”
“No, I’m not.” I lock my gaze on Blake’s. I want her to see what I’m feeling when I tell her the rest. “I knew she wasn’t mine to keep. When Celeste opted for a c-section and attempted to keep me out of the birth, I knew it would always be like that. And when the nurse handed me the baby and I looked at her, I knew. She wasn’t going to be mine to keep but I vowed, with that first touch, that I would do everything I could to protect her for the rest of her life.”
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to say out loud. I never told anyone. The doctors know a little of how Laura really got hurt but when Celeste took the easy way out and took her own life within hours of them telling us Laura had no neural function, no brain activity, I kept it inside. Hid the truth from the world because there was no one to punish.
No one but myself.
“The one person I didn’t know I had to protect Laura from was her own mother. You were right before. I wasn’t responsible for killing Laura. But it wasn’t an accident. Celeste killed her. Killed herself. And it wasn’t postpartum depression either. It was malicious and with the intent to hurt her, to hurtme.”
Blake
I don’t know what to say. I can’t fathom how any human can hurt another, never mind a defenseless baby. At the time the media reported about the accident…
“But she fell down the stairs…they tumbled down the stairs. It was an accident. You couldn’t have saved them.” I know that as well as I know my own name. If Bran could have stopped them, he would have.
“No. We were arguing. Then Laura woke up and Celeste went to get her. I let her. Wanted the break from the yelling and I thought…maybe she was finally feeling maternal. But I heard her. Through the baby monitor. Knew she was going to do something, could hear it in her voice. But I was at the other end of the house and by the time I got there, Laura was crumpled on the floor next to her crib…” he swallows hard, tears rolling down his face. “After, when I went over the video?—”
“Oh, Bran.”
“I scooped Laura up, knew it was bad, she was like a rag doll in my arms, and I knew I had to get her to the hospital. Fast. Celeste followed me, yelling and screaming and when I didn’t listen, she threw herself down the stairs. Begged me to take her with me, to say it was an accident and at that point I just wanted to get Laura to the hospital. She came in the car with me, kept muttering about it being an accident. We went through the motions in emergency, Celeste hysterically telling a bullshit story about falling down the stairs with the baby in her arms, and of course Celeste had the bruises and broken wrist to prove it.”
“She lied about how Laura was hurt?”
“I think she knew she was done. Whatever happened, she knew she’d gone too far. And while I was in with Laura and the doctors, she was discharged, her injuries not life threatening or warranting admission. She went home and erased all the security footage from that point until the week before.”
“But you?—”
“Yes. She didn’t know I had a backup. Everything gets stored in cloud storage as it’s filmed. All she got was the in-house copies.”
“She was never charged with?—”
“No. When the police were called because some of the tests were showing it wasn’t a simple fall, Celeste and I had already spoken. I knew she’d hurt Laura on purpose, called her on it. When she taunted me with lack of proof I told her about the cloud copies. She lost it. Was completely inconsolable and of course everyone thought she was distraught about Laura. The doctor sedated her and gave her a script for sleeping pills.”
