Lake Creek

Chapter Twenty Five

For the first time in Max's life he felt ashamed that he had lied to his daughter about her mother dying. Raven took a seat on the sofa and patted next to her for Max to join her and he walked across and took the place she had offered to him next to her. Raven was leaning slightly forward and linked her fingers together and placed her hands on her lap. Max sat back legs spread wide and placed one of his arms on the back of the sofa.

"Dad" Raven said.

"Raven" her father responded with a nervous smirk on his face.

"Please don't play with me Dad. My head is killing me and I need you to tell me the truth about my mother" she asked him.

"What happened to your head Raven?" her father asked her.

"That's not important now I need you to tell me the truth, no more lies" Raven insisted.

"Well i didn't know she was living on the Seattle reservation but yes your mother is alive" Max said feeling this massive lie leave his body and breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

"I am trying to stay calm about this Dad and I want you to explain to me why you have again lied to me about my mother dying" she calmly said.

"It was such a long time ago Raven, can't we just move on" he asked her.

"No we bloody well can't" she replied her hands beginning to tremble.

Max noticed this change in her instantly and stood up from the sofa and started pacing back and force in the Bellow's family room. He knew now was the time to come clean about everything and get everything out in the open but Max was petrified that Raven would leave and go to find that woman who abandoned her all them years ago.

"Dad, I need to know the truth, please" she begged him as Max took his seat again next to Raven.

"The truth will hurt you love I can promise you that" he said taking both of Raven's trembling hands in his.

"I still want to know Dad, I need to know" she whispered taking a deep breath and waiting expectantly for her father to explain.

"Well here goes, your mother never loved us Raven, she was an extremely selfish woman and basically used me and my love for her to get her away from Lake Creek. She despised her parents and their way of life. At first I thought we were happy and we moved to the beach house and renovated it. We were like a normal pair of newlyweds and then she fell pregnant with you and that's when I started to notice a difference in her behaviour towards me. She became more distant and avoided me at all costs. You were born at home and it was the best day of my life holding you in my arms, the over flowing amount of love I felt for you was instantaneous and I knew In that moment that I would do everything in my power to protect you and love you with every ounce of my being but your mother felt differently. She didn't feel the way I felt about you and she wouldn't even hold you or feed you. I tried for months to get her to bond with you but she had no interest in being a mother or a wife for that matter and she left us both. One morning I came downstairs for breakfast and found a letter she had left for me and I read it, then destroyed the poisonous letter she had wrote so you could never find it and never be hurt by her words" he explained.

"What did it say?" she asked with tears in her eyes.

"Raven, please the contents of that letter were words of a selfish evil woman who was so full of hatred towards me that she took it out on you. You really don't need to hear them" he pleaded with her to not ask him to tell her.

"I want to know Dad" she said determined to know everything about the woman who gave birth to her.

"She just explained how she had used me to get her away from her parents and how she had never loved us and needed to find herself as she loved herself too much to stay in our unhappy marriage" Max finished with a lump in his throat and watched his daughters tears flow freely down her face.