Page 50 of Losing Hope

“Yes, when I came home for Faith’s funeral, I confronted him. I wanted answers about what really happened.”

“So, tell me, what happened?”

“About two weeks before Faith’s death, she sent me an email and told me that she was no longer seeing Robert.” He looked at her and clarified to be sure she understood. “Your father.” She nodded that she understood, and he continued. “She said he had told her the affair had to end as it was getting too involved and he didn’t want to hurt your mother.”

Hope scoffed and muttered under her breath, “A bit late to be worrying about that, wasn’tit?”

“Yes, I think so. Anyway, a week or so later, Faith actually called me, which she never did. It wasn’t easy getting calls overseas. I never knew where I was going to be day to day, but she managed to get lucky and catch me on base. When I finally got on the phone and said hello, she started crying. I was terrified that something had happened to one of our parents, but when she could finally speak, it was to tell me that she was pregnant.”

Hope’s hand flew to her mouth as she gasped in surprised horror. “What? Pregnant?” Her eyes flew open wider as the next thought crossed her mind and flew out of her mouth. “And it was my fathers? Are yousure?”

He spoke quietly. “Faith had only ever been with one other person, her high school boyfriend, and that had been three years prior. I’m quite certain it was your father’s. Although, he didn’t believe that and told her as much when she told him. Called her a gold digger and accused her of trying to trap him. She said she pleaded with him and even showed him the date of conception to prove it was his. She was already almost five months along at that point and knew it was agirl.”

“Your poor sister. She was so young. I can’t imagine what she must have been going through.” She looked up to meet his eyes and could see how hard this was to talk about with her, and then a thought struck her. “Oh my God, Gage. Do you know what that means? Your sister was pregnant with my half-sister. What does that make you tome?”

“It doesn’t make me anything because the baby was never born and Faith is dead.” His words weren’t meant to sting, but theydid.

“I’m sorry, Gage.” She spoke the words as if it was her fault his sister haddied.

“You have nothing to apologize for, Hope. But perhaps your father does. Maybe if he had treated her differently, maybe she and your mother would still be here today.”

“So, my mother did learn about the affair?”

“This is the part I don’t have all the facts to. Faith sent me an email the day before the accident and told me that Robert was insisting she get an abortion, saying he would take matters into his own hands if she didn’t. She said she would never abort the baby that far along and was going to contact his wife and tell her about the baby. Faith thought, if your mother knew, she would leave your father and then he would go back to her.” Gage shook his head. “Like I said, she was very young and naïve."

“I don’t know what happened after that. The next news I heard was from my captain, informing me my sister had been in a car accident and wasn’t expected to live. By the time I arrived back in the states, she wasgone.”

“But you asked my father. What did hesay?”

“He actually told me the same story he told you, that his wife had given her a ride home due to the bad weather. What he didn’t know was that I knew about the affair and the baby. And when I told him I knew, he denied it all. How can a man turn his back on a woman carrying his child? He knew he had a daughter coming into this world and wanted my sister to kill it so it wouldn’t interfere with the picture-perfect life he had already created for himself.”

Hope began to shiver as the words he spoke about her father sunk in, and slow, fat tears slid down her cheeks as she finally, once and for all, understood why Gage left her at the airport that day. Not only did her father destroy a young girl’s belief in love and happily ever after, he had also just destroyedhers.

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