Page 62 of Secret Baby Next Door
He nodded. “You’re right. No need to go wedding ring shopping right out of the gate.” He smiled, and I laughed as he broke the tension. “Still, I want to do something for Maddie to at least begin to make up for all the time I’ve missed.”
I rubbed the back of my head as I reached for my nearby robe, which was draped over one of the stacks of boxes. I took it and slipped it on, tying the sash. The sun was dipping down below the trees outside, and I turned on the light that rested on the current nightstand—also a stack of boxes.
“We can think of something. I don’t know—maybe you can start a college fund for her, or a car fund.”
He furrowed his brow. “Can I ask who was helping you all this time? Maybe parents or siblings or friends?”
“No parents.”
Valentino cocked his head to the side. “No parents?”
“I guess you should know that about me. My dad left us when I was barely a kid, a little after my second birthday, to be exact.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry.”
“Good riddance, you know? From what I knew of him, he was some shitty drunk who left because I was cramping his nightly bar routine. One night he went out as usual to tie one on and never came back.”
“You’re kidding. He left, just like that?”
I shrugged, as if it were no big deal, as if a father leaving his family were one of those things that simply happened.
“Yep. I was so young at the time, and I don’t remember details, but I know that my mom told me about it the next morning when she realized he was gone and not coming back. She called around to make sure he wasn’t wrapped around a telephone pole or dead in a ditch with a bottle of whiskey in his hands, but she’d more or less accepted it right away.”
“Sounds like your mom was a hard-nosed type of woman.” I could sense he was trying to say something kind. But he didn’t know my mom.
“Nope. More like she had demons of her own that took up most of her time.”
“God.” He shook his head.
“She was into booze too, and later got into harder stuff.”
Valentino looked away, clenching his jaw. No doubt he was working through his anger at the idea of someone being so careless and negligent toward her own child.
“The thing about drugs is the more you do them, the more you don’t care about anything else, the more youcan’tcare about anything else.”
“What happened?” he asked. “Who took care of you?”
I allowed myself a small smile at the answer. “My Grandma Betsy—I called her Grandma Bets. Believe it or not, my mom came from a decent family, not so much the case with my dad. Grandma Bets was the exact kind of woman my momshould’vebeen—tough, loving, didn’t take any bullshit. My mom and dad had done their best to cut her out of their lives, thinking she was just some old busybody. But once my dad had left the picture, she made no bones about getting involved.”
A touch of relief took hold of his expression at this part of the story.
“Thank God.”
Another smile from me. “Mom tried to keep her away, sure, but the thing about falling into the pit of substance abuse is that eventually you stop caring about anything other than your next fix. Grandma Bets stayed close, always there to pick up the slack as my mom slipped further and further away. Eventually, Mom got to a point where she couldn’t even bother pretending she wanted to take care of me. The second that happened, Grandma Bets was there to take me into her home.”
“What happened to your mom?” he asked, his hesitant tone of voice suggesting that he already had a good idea of the answer.
“Died—overdosed when I was ten.”
“Jesus. I’m so sorry.”
My stomach tensed. As I spoke, I realized something—I never talked about this subject with anyone. Britt knew, and that was it. There was something about Valentino, however, something that made me feel totally comfortable and open and safe with him.
He reached out and took my hand, total compassion in his eyes.
“It’s fine. Well, it’s not fine, losing your mom that young to something like that is anything but fine. Lucky for me, I was out of the house and living with Grandma Bets at the time. Grandma did her damndest to make sure that I was far away from Mom and her decline in those last few months.”
My throat was tight. Valentino said nothing, instead keeping my hand within his own. It was just what I needed.
