A Score & A Decade

Chapter 13

"You are Roselle Rodney."

Zoe felt like the ground had been yanked from beneath her feet. She felt as though someone had poured a gallon of ice-cold water down her back. Her vision turned blurry for a second and she felt like she was free falling and she grabbed the edge of the table even though she was still seated.

"I'm...what?" Zoe whispered, her voice shaking. 

The voice on the other end of the phone was soft, "You're Roselle Rodney." Andra repeated.

Her face crumpled, and she let out a loose sob and a wail, dropping the receiver that was in her hand. He burst out crying. She cried and she cried and she cried until she couldn't breathe anymore.

She must have cried for what felt like hours, months, years, an eternity. She finally stopped, head pounding, eyes burning, and picked up the fallen receiver.

"Zoe?" Andra's voice called out, surprising her. She hadn't expected her to still be on the phone.

She hiccuped, and then replied, "Yes?" Her voice sounded fragmented.

"Zoe, I should have told you, but I came to care for you, I did!" said Andra, trying to defend herself.

"You should've told me. And don't you lie, Andra. You didn't care. You drank all day and you drank all night and you drank all the time in between. You would come home and throw bottles and shoes and vases at me. You didn't care for me one bit and don't tell me otherwise." Zoe said, her voice thick but firm.

"Zoe -"

"No. Stop. Dad, no, Jonas, was never at home. Guess he was kidnapping kids, wasn't he? The house burning down? Was that an accident?" Zoe spit.

"Zoe!"

"Don't you dare! I always wondered why a mother would hate her child, but now I understand. It was because you aren't my mother at all!"

"Zoe, please. I love you, I really, really do."

"No, you don't! Stop lying! Haven't you lied enough? My whole life, that's all you did. Lies, lies, and more lies. Please just stop!" 

Zoe had had enough. Her whole life had been a lie. She could have had a wonderful childhood, growing with a loving mother and a caring father. Instead, she had grown up with a woman who was constantly hungover and a man who was never home.

"Zoe, I'm your mother in all the ways that matter - "

"No, you're not! You were never my mother, and you never will be! I hate you Andra, and you can bet to have the police at your door soon. The entire conversation has been recorded and you've been cornered. Everything that you've done in your life - aiding a felon, taking up multiple and illegal fake identities, kidnapping minors, trafficking humans, and illegally adopting a child - will be paid for by you. You'll be serving a very long sentence in prison. Very long indeed." Zoe said, almost exultantly and cut the call without waiting for Andra's reply.

Putting down the receiver, she breathed in and out heavily. She had solved the case...but what she had learned was highly astonishing. She had a real mother out there, who had been waiting for her for 30 years. She was not Zoe Simmons, but Roselle Rodney. And her mother was a kindhearted, warm woman named Louise Rodney who made peanut butter cookies every time she thought of her daughter.

Zoe burst into a fresh wave of tears. But these tears weren't of sadness and anger. No, these tears were of joy, because she would now go to Louise's house and not meet her as a woman who had lost her child, but as a woman who had found her child...And as her mother.