Page 197 of Choosing You

“Yes. I do.” He answers with such conviction that a chill runs through me. “I don’t mean to scare you, honey, but I need you to know that this is very serious. He wants to be president. And given that he’s the frontrunner nominee, he may actually have a chance of that coming true. He’ll do what he needs to do to make sure nothing gets in the way of that. If he was just running the family business or doing anything else, I wouldn’t worry at all. But with this campaign, he has too much at stake.”

It’s a good thing I’m in a hospital because I’m finding it harder and harder to breathe.

“What else do you know? Did he ever try to hurt my mom? I mean, after it happened, did he ever do anything?”

“He, uh. . . I don’t know, Jade. I don’t think we should talk about it. It’s over now.”

“Tell me. What did he do?”

Frank takes another deep breath and lets it out. “He owns a pharmaceutical company. His family does.”

“Yes, I know. What about it?”

“Well, I think he had someone giving your mother pills all those years. That doctor at the free mental health clinic downtown? That one she saw all the time? I’m almost positive he was working for Sinclair.”

“Why? What was he giving her?”

“Your mother said they were antidepressants, but they never seemed to help her, so I took one from your house after she died and had it tested at a private lab. The guy from the lab said the pills contained a substance that causes severe hallucinations and is extremely addictive. It could cause other addictions as well, like your mother’s addiction to alcohol. I think sometimes your mother didn’t even know who you were, Jade. I think she was hallucinating, thinking you were someone else. Someone trying to hurt her.”

“How could you not tell me this?”

“Because if I told you, I would’ve had to tell you the whole story about your father and we’d be in the situation we’re in now. But then that letter showed up and—” He sighs. “I swear, if your mother hadn’t wrote that damn letter none of this would be happening.”

I sit there trying to think it through. Frank’s theory about the hallucinogenic drugs makes sense. Sometimes my mom didn’t even call me by my name. She’d call me other names. And she’d scream at me for no reason. Like she was completely crazy. I thought it was the alcohol. In fact, the one and only time I met that doctor from the clinic, I told him about her odd behavior and he told me it was from her drinking. I was 13 at the time. I believed him. Why wouldn’t I?

“So why did he drug her?” I ask. “He could’ve just killed her.”

“He obviously wanted you to still have a mother. Maybe he thought it was better to have you with her than in foster care or with an adoptive family, both of which could cause you to look into your past someday. Whatever the reason, I’m convinced he was controlling your mother with those drugs. He had to make her crazy so she’d never talk. Or if she did talk, nobody would ever listen.”

“Can we come in now?” Ryan walks in, startling both Frank and me.

“No,” Frank says. “We need another minute.”

“You’ve been in here forever. What are you two talking about?”

“I was telling him about what happened a couple weeks ago,” I say, trying to explain the serious looks on our faces. “You know, with that guy.”

“Oh. Sorry. Go ahead. I’ll be right outside.” Ryan leaves.

“Jade, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. How are you doing?”

“With all this going on, I haven’t really thought about it.”

“So that boy doesn’t go to school there anymore?”

“No. I don’t think he’s officially kicked out yet, but I don’t think he’ll be back.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You haven’t said much about it.”

“I know. But Garret’s helping me get past it. We talk a lot.” It’s a lie. I haven’t talked about that incident since it happened. Not even to Garret. “Now tell me what to do with this other situation. I’m totally freaking out here, Frank. So Sinclair had my mom drugged and then what? You think he somehow killed her? But I found her dead on the bathroom floor. She didn’t have injuries. She overdosed.”

“I think she did that to herself. I don’t think he had anything to do with it. She probably hit a point where she couldn’t take the hallucinations anymore.”

My heart sinks thinking about the life my mother had after that horrible night. She didn’t mean to be a bad mom. That’s why her letter sounded like it came from a different person. Itwasa different person. It was her before those pills turned her into the mother I knew.

“Jade, are you 100% sure you can trust Garret?”

“Yes, of course.”

---