Page 60 of My Monster, My Choice

“I was so angry with both men at the time,” I said. “But honestly, if I had been in a better place mentally, I’d have insisted upon it anyway. It just wouldn’t have been a hatchet job.”

“If I’d have been a better brother, I’d have paid more attention and would have taken you to a larger city for the other procedure when you decided,” Bobby says. He shakes his head. “I can’t believe it’s taboo to have one—illegal—yet the wealthy have access to a similar procedure under a different name.”

“You were a newlywed,” I reminded him, then remember his own wife. “Don’t feel guilty. How is Emma?”

“She’s fine. Sends her love and hopes to see you soon,” he says.

“When we confronted father a few years after you’d been widowed, he admitted that he knew you’d moved. It didn’t make sense to either of us that you left town and that everyone was so concerned about your suicide attempt, but no one contacted you after being widowed that we forced the issue. Father tried to blame it on Gary Faillion—you know about the bad blood between them, right?” Jimmy asks.

“No.” I shake my head vehemently, my eyes wide at this news. They weren’t enemies when I lived at home, obviously, since the two banded together.

Bobby cuts in. “Mother left father for Gary.”

“What?!” My mother and Carlton’s father? I can’t believe it. My mother wasn’t a loving woman by any means. She thought Carlton’s family beneath us, though she’d been friends with his mother for a brief moment before she sickened and died. Even when they were friends, it was obvious that they weren’t close, though. It was more of an obligation.

“In any case,” Bobby says, “father tried to blame him. Gary blamed father. Mother pretended not to know anything, but neither of us believed her. That was when we searched for you and couldn’t find you. It was like you disappeared.”

“Tera was living in Eden here by then, dancing for President Montgomery who’d assured us it was a legitimate business. His arrangement with Tera was to pay for Kenny to attend the special education facilities. I had no contact with my daughter in six years. If I had, we’d have found out that the president was paying a discounted price for Kenny’s tuition since I worked there and lived on the premises, and he was using my benefits. The money he saved should have gone to Tera.”

“So that’s why we couldn’t find you.” Jimmy narrows his eyes. “When we threatened to put ads in the newsfeeds, both father and Gary confessed. They knew they would both be jailed for the abortion. Even in their hatred of each other—all three of them because by then, mother had it with Gary—the three banded together and bade us to drop the search.”

“It was for the best,” I murmur. “Where are they now?”

“Prison…and otherwise,” Jimmy says hollowly. “Are you sure you want to know the ugliness?”

I nod. I need to have closure over that part of my life.

“Carlton’s death wasn’t an illness,” Jimmy says softly. “Mother did it, poisoning him over a span of months.”

I can’t help the gasp that escapes me, faintly hearing Tera’s gasp to the right of me. Elex’s hand caresses my shoulder, giving me comfort.

“How?” I croak, knowing the answer even as I ask, and not knowing why I ask because I don’t want to believe what I suspect.

“The baked goods.”

“The muffins I used to take him.” God, no wonder they always contained cinnamon. She knew I wouldn’t eat any and he’d have my share. My breath comes in shallow, quick spurts. God, I helped poison him by faithfully bringing that basket of baked goods whenever I could.

“She knew he was going to ask for your hand in marriage and father was going to agree. But she and Gary were already having an affair, and she wouldn’t be able to leave if you married Carlton. The scandal of an incestuous family. She ended the threat to her own future.”

A family with married ties is considered a family, no matter the blood relation to all. Her relationship with Carlton’s father would be deemed illegal and both would be jailed to prevent future related offspring in a law enacted by President Montgomery.

“Was Gary in on it?” I ask, my voice thready, not sure if I want to know the answer. Could a father kill his own son?

Robert shrugs. “He claims he didn’t know. But it’s awfully convenient that he didn’t want Carlton’s son born. If the baby had been, again, he and mother couldn’t have gotten together, not with a tie between our families. Mother later claimed that she thought he was a different person until she divorced father and married Gary, then his true colors showed.”

“So mother went to prison for Carlton’s murder?”

He nods. “And father killed Gary. He tried to call it self-defense, wanted Jimmy to represent him during the trial. But his motive was revenge. Not for his daughter, as he claimed, because that was when we discovered about the hysterectomy he signed for, saying he saved your life. But”—Bobby clears his throat— “I’m sorry, Teena. The hysterectomy wasn’t a lifesaving procedure. You were bleeding and had an infection, yes. The hospital recommended rest, antibiotics, and internal stitches before more invasive procedures. But father chose the more extreme hysterectomy. We believe it was to force you into marriage with Lyle Garrett, to get you out of the picture and to keep you quiet. To hide his involvement in the abortion. No, his motive for killing Gary was anger over the affair when he realized he’d been duped by the two.”

Wow, this was too much to take in. Not the betrayal by my parents, because I’d faced that. But that Carlton didn’t have to die if not for my parents.

“We began looking for you despite father’s demands to let sleeping dogs lie. It didn’t add up. We believed him when he said your mental state was fractured, that someone from your old life might trigger another relapse. Another suicide attempt. You see, we still believed the suicide story, we just thought it was compounded by Carlton’s death and the abortion by then. But after all this came out, well, then we couldn’t find you. Despite that, we had a lead, and told him were going to discuss it with President Montgomery as soon as we could get an appointment. Then father killed himself.”

Tera gasps, covering her mouth. We’re all quiet for a moment as the new information sinks in. “What was your lead?” she finally asks.

Bobby turns to her. “There really wasn’t one. We were baffled by his suicide. There’s obviously a connection there somewhere with father not wanting us to go that route, but President Montgomery never gave us any time or appointment to speak with him. He put us off for years.”

“He was making money off Tera,” I say. “He knew where I was, but he didn’t even tell her. He’d agreed that I would be able to see her, but once she was taken away, he never let me know where she was until Elex visited me right before her twenty-third birthday. A year and a half ago. I didn’t see my daughter for six years.”

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