My So Called Life (Love Not Included Series Book 3) (3 page)

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dickson, but there is an Officer Belmont on the phone from Oregon. He says he needs to speak to Ms. Daniels immediately.”

What?

I stop all movement.

Oregon.

I haven’t spoken of that place in years. The only reason anyone would be calling from there is . . .

My sister.

I grab at Brent’s shoulders and stop him from moving.

“What? What the fuck, don’t stop. She’ll go away.”

I push again. “No, no. Stop. Put me down.” I struggle to get out of his grip.

“Why, what the fuck? Just ignore it. I’m almost there.”

I break free and drop my legs to the floor. Pushing away from the wall, I grab at my silk robe hanging from the bedpost and open the door to Helena, who looks very embarrassed, knowing what she was interrupting; also Brent is standing behind me fully nude and still hard.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Daniels, but he insisted on speaking with you. He said he has been calling all night.”

All night? I never recharged my phone after it died last night during my party.

“Thank you, Helena. It’s okay. I’ll take the call in the office.”

“Yes, miss.” She moves aside for me to sprint down the hallway into the office. I see the phone line lit up, as it is when there’s a call holding. I grab the receiver, noticing my hands are shaking. Why is someone from Oregon calling me? I look at the time. It’s currently just past midnight.

I pick up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Is this Chrissy Daniels?” The stranger addresses me by the shortened nickname from my youth.

“Yes, this is Christina Daniels. How can I help you?”

“Ms. Daniels, I’m Officer Belmont from the Ashford Police Department. I’m sorry to be calling you at such a late hour, but there has been an accident. . . .”

“O
FFICER BELMONT FROM
OREGON
,
” I snap. “I suggest you get your facts in order before you go calling the wrong people in the middle of the night only to provide disturbing lies to strangers,” I bark at him. To my relief I don’t know any people by the names of Amy and John Bishop.

Then he gives me the chilling news that sets me in my place. Maiden name Amy Daniels, now married to John Bishop.

Officer Belmont explains that yesterday afternoon a truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and drove his semi into oncoming traffic. My sister and her husband were killed instantly.

Amy.

My sister.

I haven’t seen her in six years. I didn’t even know she was married.

I wasn’t always this stuck up and prestigious. Once upon a time, I was born in a small town in Oregon called Ashford. I grew up there with my older sister by six years and a drunk of a mother who drank her life away because our father decided we were not in his life plan. We lived in a rundown house, surviving on food stamps and whatever we could get our hands on before our mother could blow our money on booze.

My childhood was far from the fairy tale I live now. While most kids were playing with dolls and having sleepovers, I was hiding with my sister in closets, trying to avoid the next beat down from our drunken, hysterical mother. The abuse wasn’t always physical, at least not for me. Amy always blocked most swings and took the pain for her own. Mine were mostly mental. The yelling and hatred that poured from our mother’s lips about how we took away her happiness. “You made him leave me” was her favorite saying. “If you were born boys, my husband would still be here.”

My childhood and well into my teenage years were definitely what you would call unhealthy. Having the one who was supposed to love me the most use hatred to wound my young mind made my childhood a struggle. Amy constantly reassured me that her sour words were not true. That our mother loved us and she was just sick. Things were going to get better. She spent just as much time protecting me as she did defending our mother.

This went on for years until I just couldn’t take it anymore. Just after I hit nineteen, I left on the first bus I could afford out to California. I was done taking care of a woman who didn’t lift a finger to take care of us. I was a daughter too. I was the child who needed to be taken care of. Instead, I spent my adolescence cleaning up vomit and dodging child protective services so they wouldn’t take us away.

Amy, of course, fought me over leaving. She begged me to stay. But I couldn’t. I had dreams. And as much as there were some things urging me to stay, I couldn’t stick around one minute longer to watch our mother suck us both dry of those aspirations. We fought the day I left. I told her she was letting our mother ruin her life. To just let her die. We owed her nothing. Her simple one-sentence rebuttal was: she is our mother.

Well, she wasn’t mine. She was no mother to me, and I was done.

The last time I had a real conversation with my sister was two years later when she called to tell me that our mother was dead. She asked me to come home for the funeral. I, of course, said no. Like a bitch.

At that point in my life I just started at St. Markey and I had a showing that seemed more important to me than sending my mother into the grave. She never loved us, so why should I interrupt a life that was becoming successful for someone who never cared about me? I chose not to go home, and my sister and I fought. She told me I was being selfish and didn’t care about anyone but myself. She may have been right but I was doing something for once in my life and that was looking out for me. She accused me of not caring about the life she’d made for herself, and I never even bothered to ask what that life was. That was the last time I spoke to her. I never reached out after that day to inquire about her life. I let our silly fight blow up into something bigger than what it should have been, and I refused to make contact with her. That was almost four years ago.

And now she’s gone.

I’ve been sitting on the couch silently for the past hour. Brent has been staring at me impatiently, waiting for me to speak. When it comes to my past, he only knows the lies that I spun earlier on in our relationship. I’ve kept my past pretty secret. I was ashamed at the way I grew up. How do you explain to people who have grown up having everything about struggle? They just wouldn’t understand. My explanation to Brent, sadly, came right after I fought with Amy the last time. I told him they didn’t support my success and were just jealous. In a moment of anger I told him that even though my mother had just died, she had been dead to me for years. He didn’t console me in any way. He just shrugged and dropped the subject. I never mentioned another word about my sister so I assume he categorized her into my speech about cutting ties. It wouldn’t matter anyway. My life now was in California, end of story.

To even think back over the past few years and know I never once brought up a story or memory about my sister to anyone makes me feel sick with regret.

“Babe. Sorry, but I thought you were on the outs with your family?”

“I was.” I stare blankly. I haven’t taken my eyes off the marble floor. I never mentioned my sister because I turned into a spoiled brat and didn’t want to explain my past. That I left the only blood relative I loved to fend for herself. I let everyone around me believe I was the victim of an envious family that included my sister. Never once did I stand up and admit the truth, claiming my sister to be the sole reason I survived my adolescence.

“Well, then this news cannot be
that
upsetting. What did the officer say?”

“He said I’m her only known living relative. He wants me to identify the body.” That prospect sends chills down my spine. I haven’t seen her in years. I don’t even know what Amy looks like now. I haven’t seen my sister’s face since I left Oregon six years ago and now I’m being asked to identify a person I let become a stranger.

“Babe, that sucks. When do they want you to go?”

“As soon as possible. I guess they have been trying to get hold of me all evening.” This happened while I was getting ready to celebrate my success and I didn’t even know. I feel the first tear fall down my face as the realization hits me. While I was dancing around in my mighty heels, drinking my fancy champagne and playing ‘I’m the best,’ my sister was already dead. The last blood family I had left and she just died. She went out on a drive to do God knows what with her husband and they never made it home.

I didn’t even know she was married.

That isn’t even the most disturbing part of the phone call.

“The officer asked if I could leave as soon as possible.” I pause, trying to swallow, struggling to get moisture down my dry throat. The words that leave my mouth next still haven’t fully registered in my brain.

“I have a niece. I guess she was at a friend’s house.” I shake my head, trying to allow this information to sink in. “Apparently Amy listed me as the contact for her if anything happened to them.”

“Babe, it’s okay. Surely they don’t expect you to just drop everything, do they? You just opened the most prestigious gallery showing in San Francisco. Clearly you’re not leaving. What did you tell them to do?”

Brent’s typical insensitivity rolls right off me. I’m still stuck in the conversation I had with Officer Belmont.

They have a daughter. Who now doesn’t have parents.

“I told them I would leave first thing in the morning. They need me to sign a release of my sister’s body and then make arrangements for their daughter.”

I lift my cloudy eyes to meet Brent’s.

“My sister had a daughter, Brent. I didn’t even know.”

“O
KAY, SO WAIT. THEY
have a daughter and
what
do they want you to do with her?”

My phone to my ear, I’m trying to run around my bedroom while explaining my situation to Lexi. “They want me to come and get her. I don’t know. That’s what they said. I’m not really even sure what that means.” I stuff more random clothes into my suitcase. I look at the time and it’s a little past noon.

“Well, where are you going to take the kid?” Lexi sounds as confused as I feel.

“I guess to her grandparents. I’m sure her father’s parents will take her in.”

I go into my walk-in closet and start grabbing some heels.

“God. That’s crazy, honey. I’m so sorry. From the minimal times you’ve talked about your family, I thought you weren’t close with your sis.”

That statement saddens me. Because of me, we
were
that way. I should have told them the truth from the beginning. That I had an older sister, six years older, who did everything for me. One who would braid my hair while we hid in the closet from our mother’s drunken rampages. She would fix my meals, read to me at night, and most importantly, love me like a parent should. She took on all the responsibilities my mother was supposed to.

I repaid her by leaving the first chance I got.

“Thanks—it’s okay. I haven’t spoken to her in some time. So yeah, we weren’t close.”

Once upon a time, we were inseparable.

“Well, I’m sorry, girl. What’s your plan for the gallery? Does Cornelius know?”

“He does. I spoke to him earlier today. He’s okay with it. I told him I’d be back by the beginning of the week.”

“Christina, it’s already Thursday. You’re going to go home, bury your sister, place your niece in a home with people you’ve never met, and be back at work by Monday?”