Page 100 of Chasing Home

The young Lee Rose is grinning, a woman perched in his arms that looks like a brunette-haired, brown-eyed version of her daughter. Rory may share Lee’s eyes and nose, but her mother . . . she may as well be a carbon copy of her.

I tear my eyes from the photo to unfold the letter. The splotches on the pages warn me not to read the scrawled words, but I ignore them.

Hi,

That’s as much of a greeting as I think I can give you right now. Is there even a point bothering now? This is my thirty-fifth letter, and I’ve accepted that this will go unanswered as the previous ones have. I’ve grown to expect to find them returned in my mail box. That’s sad, isn’t it?

No. What’s sad is that I’ve been so stupid in the fact I can’t stop writing these letters in the first place. Yet here I am. Maybe I’ve always been stupid when it comes to you. Naïve, too. But who cares? It’s too late to try and change that.

Aurora threw her rice cereal at me today. The whole bowl splattered all over my face and hair. I left her in her highchair and went to the bathroom to scrub it off. By the time I got back, she’d thrown what was left on her table and coated the walls with it.

I cried when I saw the mess. Something so small broke me. My emotions boiled over. All of the sleepless nights and complaints from my neighbours about the crying because she still can’t sleep for more than four hours at a time because of her colic. I sat on the kitchen floor and cried until our daughter started laughing at the cat that always sits on the ledge outside the kitchen window. Simple as that, the beautiful sound of her laughter pulled me out of the pit I’d fallen into.

I was reminded then that you’ve never heard her laugh. Never heard her scream or cry, or felt the slap of rice cereal on your cheeks. I’m almost glad of that.

They played your song on the radio again. I threw it and it broke. Shattered, really. Now my boss is taking the cost of a new one out of my pay. It’s a fair punishment, but I’ve had to cancel the trip to the zoo I promised my daughter because unlike you, I’m struggling with the pennies I have leftover at the end of every month. Oh, how grand it is to raise a baby girl on your own.

Do you remember that night in Blue River? It was our first time out of the province together, and we could hardly afford the gas to get there. We stopped at that small, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town, and you said it felt like home, so we found one of the few available camping stalls at the site just outside of town and put up our tent.

It took all of ten minutes to explore the entire town, but then we found Eleanor Lake. God, it was beautiful there.

We sat on the edge of the dock and watched the families playing on the beach, and you promised me that that would be us one day.

I told you then that I feared being a single mother, and that if we were ever to start a family, I wanted a ring on my finger. A promise that I’d never be left to raise a child on my own.

You proposed then and there. I laughed and told you to try again in a year because I’d say yes then. If we could just get through the rocky start of your career, and you could get your foot in the right doors. Once we weren’t struggling and stressed and fearful.

Well, it’s been three years, Lee, and I’m still waiting.

I hope you’re happy wherever you are,

Piper

My stomach turns at the smeared ink and tear stains all over the page. Every emotion written into that letter stabs at my chest.

I stand, gripping both the letter and picture in a tight fist. Warnings flare in my mind as I stride back down the way I came, to that penthouse at the end of the hall. I managed to avoid getting punched last time, but I don’t know if I’ll be getting away as easily this time.

Not if the anger pulsing beneath my skin has anything to do with it. I’m livid, every protective instinct I have demanding Lee Rose pays for all the hurt he’s caused. Not only to Rory but to her mother. Every doubt he’s placed in my girl’s head to make her feel like she’s not good enough or important enough. That she doesn’t deserve everything and more from those who care about her.

“Get me Riley Rose,” I shout, staring the security guards down from halfway down the hall.

“Not happening,” one replies coolly.

Another touches his ear and speaks again, and a moment later, the door is flinging open. I expect to see Beck, the woman who I undoubtedly know had some role in all of this mess, but it’s not her that steps out.

“Look at you,” I say, brushing off the warning looks from his security. “So brave. Where was this in front of your daughter?”

“Do you know how many people I’ve had claim to be my children over the years?” he asks, staring directly at the paper in my hand.

“How many of those women look like Piper Bennett? How many share your eyes? How fucking many would have access to letters like these?”

I close the gap between us enough I can shove the letter against his chest. He grunts at the impact and takes it from me. The photo falls to the ground, and he drops his eyes to it.

“Where did you get that?” he whispers, falling to his knees to pick it up. When I don’t answer him, his gaze lifts and sharpens. “Tell me.”

“You don’t get to make demands of me after how you spoke to her. How you treated her. I get that this was sudden and confusing and probably terrifying. But you’re a sorry excuse of a man to take it out on her. Believe it or not, all she wanted was a chance to speak to you just once. To have her questions answered. It would have taken one conversation with her to realize that she’s your daughter. You’re a fuckin’ idiot not to have realized it the moment you looked at her.”

He traces his finger along the edge of the photo and exhales a shuddered breath, not replying. I grind my teeth, not buying into the show he’s putting on.

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