Asher's Heart

Chapter 32

I got a feeling of déjà vu as I pressed my back against the wall, listening to the conversation going on in my father's study. It felt wrong to eavesdrop like this, but I had a very distinct feeling that this was about me. And I had every right to know about me.

I could barely make out the muffled voices from the closed doors.

"What are you going to do?" Grans asked my father.

"I'm gonna send her away," my father replied tersely.

Were they talking about me? Where was he going to send me?

I strained my ears to hear more clearly, listening closely for a name.

"Maybe it's time, Ted. Let them meet," she said.

"If it were up to me, I would never let that woman see her, let alone meet her. And luckily it is up to me. I'm going to ruin everything here for her and then she'll have no option, but to leave," he said angrily.

Okay. They weren't talking about me. That was certain.

"Don't let your anger get in between your daughter's happiness," Grans said in an elderly voice.

I was more confused than ever. What were they talking about?! I was dying to know.

I took a risk and pressed my ear on the door, making sure that my body didn't touch it. I was so tired of all the secrets. Even my own family was keeping secrets from me.

My Dad scoffed.

"If I remember correctly, you were the one to send her away the last time," he said bitterly.

I heard a sigh.

"That was what she wanted. I just made it easier for everyone." Grans' voice was stern.

"It doesn't matter. Ellie would never see her again," Dad spoke with finality in his tone.

They were talking about Nora. Somehow she was connected to me.

"You can't keep a mother from her child," Grans said and a gasp escaped my lips. My whole world shattered in that moment. My mom was dead. She died when I was two. That's what everyone told me when I realized others kids had two parents instead of one. They told me she was gone. That she wasn't coming back.

"She abandoned her!" my Dad yelled.

Tears pricked my eyes and I slid down the wall. Everything I ever knew and believed was a lie. A complete lie. I couldn't believe my own father would lie about something like this. A sob escaped my lips and the tears fell freely down my cheeks.

Nora was my mother.

My real mother.

That was what I always wished for. But now that it was true I didn't know what to think. Of her. And of everything.

All my life I thought I had no mother. I had been sad and alone without her. And she was out there. She was there, but not there for me.

At some point the door opened, but I didn't realize it until a hand lifted my face up from where I was crying on the floor.

My dad's eyes were soft as he stared at me, his face rueful.

"Ellie," he ventured.

"You lied to me!" I yelled and jerked away from him.

"Pumpkin, I'm sorry," he said reaching out to me again.

"No! You lied! You all lied!" I glanced at my grandmother whose eyes had teared up.