“He doesn’t know you’re here?” she asked again, desperation in her voice, and fear.
It didn’t take much of an imagination to guess who she was referring to...
“He has no idea,” I said.
I found myself wanting to reassure the tiny woman in front of me.
“And I promise, Mrs. Bennett, if you help me, he never will.”
She seemed to ponder that for a moment, before shaking her head.
“You better come in. And I go by Tracy Gibbons, now. Never call me that, again.”
*****
“Shot?” Tracy gasped, appalled at what I had told her.
I didn’t know the woman, and she had abandoned Lee as a baby, but there was something about her that made me relax and I’d ended up telling her the whole story, instead of the version I’d rehearsed.
She was harmless.
I’d known that the moment I‘d set eyes on her.
She had a sadness about her, a lot like the air of sadness that had surrounded her daughter, when I first met her.
It didn’t take a wild guess as to who had caused this sadness in them both; Jimmy Fucking Bennett.
“Yes,” I replied, concentrating on the topic in hand. “And without a kidney donor, then…”
“I’ll do it,” Tracy burst out. “Of course I’ll do it. If I am a match, that is.”
I sighed, the biggest fucking sigh of relief.
I hadn’t expected her to agree so easily. But, Jesus, I was grateful.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice thick with emotion. “Thank you, so much.”
Tracy nodded, and busied herself with making coffee.
She would be okay. Lee would get better. I couldn’t think about Tracy not being a match…She would be and that was that.
So many emotions rushed through me, that I felt a little light-headed.
“I know what you must be thinking,” she said, as she handed me a cup of coffee.
I lowered myself and Hope onto her small beige couch, and watched as Lee’s mother paced the floor.
“You are probably wondering how I could leave her, with him.”
I shook my head.
“Actually, no, I’m not. I’ve met the man. Believe me, I get it.”
She seemed surprised with my response.
“I tried,” she choked out. “I tried to take her, but he…” She stopped and covered her mouth with her hand. “He hurt me. He hurt me so badly, that, one day, I broke.”
She wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “When she was three months old, I’d tried to get us out.”
“It’s okay,” I said quietly. “You don’t have to explain.”
“He must have known I was going to leave him,” she rambled, ignoring what I’d said. “I had all the things I could sneak without him noticing, hidden at Mora’s house.”
She frowned, as she remembered. “But the day I was going to take her, he told me to go to the store…said he needed more whiskey and I was to go alone.”
“He cut the brakes in my car, I know he did,” she said angrily. “My brakes failed, and my car went off Benny’s bridge into the creek.”
Holy Fuck.
“I was pulled out by Ted. And he and Mora…helped me disappear. I knew that if I went back there, he would kill me. Mora and Ted promised they would watch her. I didn’t have a choice.”
Holy fucking shit balls.
I was speechless.
I had no clue, what to say to the woman.
“I must ask you,” Tracy whispered. “Has she been harmed? Did he ever harm her?”
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
If I told her the truth it would obviously kill her. If I didn’t, she’d know I was lying.
“She has a good life now,” I said finally.
“And you, you’re her husband?” she asked, looking from Hope to me.
“I am, or at least I will be, when she eventually decides to say yes. She’s a little stubborn, your daughter. She’s making me work for it.”
Tracy cracked a smile and I could see the longing in her eyes to hold Hope, so I decided to use it to my advantage.
I took Hope out of her sling and stood up.
Tracy’s eyes widened as I offered her my child. Tears filled her eyes, as she took Hope with trembling hands.
“Hope, say hello to your grandma,” I crooned, stroking her curls.
Yep, I was using my baby as a pawn…as collateral.
I was a shithead.
“Hope,” Tracy whispered. “She is so beautiful. There is so much of you in her. But she has Lia’s curls.”
My head snapped up. “What did you call her?” I asked.
“Lia,” Tracy confirmed. “He called her Delia, but she was always Lia to me. My beautiful, little, Lia Rose.”