Page 2 of Aidan (The Doherty Mafia)
The truth was, I didn’t even know if she wanted to see me. Maybe the nurse just thought she was doing a good deed by calling me.
I remembered the look on my mother’s face when I told her I was pregnant. I had sincerely thought she would understand. That she would try and help me. Maybe she would even be happy for me, and to see her first grandchild.
But instead, she had locked me in my room while I could hear my parents fighting downstairs. I was sick and terrified. I wanted to be with Aidan. But they cut off all access and communication to him.
After hours of quarreling about it amongst themselves, when they finally came up to my room again, they had a plan. My father refused to even look at me while my mother waved a printed ticket in the air.
“You’re leaving and you’re never showing your face in this town again.” She hissed at me like she had no love left for me in her heart.
I was eighteen years old. Practically a child myself. I was pregnant and wanted to be close to my family. I needed to be close to Aidan.
“Mom…”
I could still hear the desperation in my voice that night, but she walked out of my room and said there was no time to pack. I had to catch the first train out of town that very night.
They were washing their hands off me.
The nurse led me to the room my mother was in and then she left me there at the door.
For several minutes, I just stood there in the corridor, too afraid to even look in.
When I did eventually peek—I saw a frail and gray woman sitting up in bed eating Jell-Owith a plastic spoon. She stared up at a small TV with vacant eyes and didn’t look in my direction, even when I walked in.
“Mom?” I had that same desperate note in my voice.
She put the spoon in her mouth and took a moment to breathe in deeply before she turned to me.
“Leah. You’re here.”
She sounded hollow. Like there was nothing left of her inside. I couldn’t tell if she was pleased to see me.
“Hi, Mom. How are you?”
It was a stupid question but I had nothing else to say. I kept my distance from her like I was still afraid she could hurt me.
“I’m well, my dear. I’m doing okay.” Her eyes brightened a little as she scanned me slowly.
I had written two letters to her in the past five years. The last one had just contained my address and phone number if she ever needed to reach me. The only time she had written to me was to say that Dad had died.
“I’m glad to hear that, Mom. I wanted to…wanted to come and see you.”
“Before I die and reunite with your father in Heaven?”
It amazed me that she still so strongly believed in all that.
“I wanted to be here with you because I didn’t want you to be alone.”
She placed the Jell-O cup and the spoon on the table beside her, then she held out her hand to me and I came forward.
Touching her broke me. Her hands were boney and cold and now that I was closer to her, I could see how much pain she was in.
There was a time when I never thought I could forgive her or my father for what they had done to me. I still wasn’t ready to forgive them now. But I was glad I made this decision to come here and see her.
I wasn’t going to abandon her like they had abandoned me.
My mother lifted my hand up to her lips and touched her mouth to my fingers.
“Thank you, Leah. Thank you for coming. I have been thinking about you. I knew I didn’t have the right to ask you to come here, but I wanted to see you, dear.”
I could feel the tears rising up in my chest, making it hard for me to get any words out.
“Did you bring…my grandchild?” she asked.
She knew nothing. Boy or girl. Twins? Nothing.
My mouth went dry and I pulled my hand away from her. I wished she hadn’t brought it up. I looked away.
“I put my baby up for adoption right after I gave birth. I knew I couldn’t be a mother to the child.”
I sat with my mother in her hospital room for over an hour, until she fell asleep.
I informed the nurse I was leaving and then I walked out of the hospital.
I was back in town five years later and I didn’t know where to go. What to do.
I had some old friends from high school I sometimes spoke to. None of them knew I was back because the last five days had passed in a blur.
I thought about calling one of them now. Maybe I could meet her for a coffee somewhere. I tried to keep my mind off Aidan—wondering where he was and what he was doing. If I might get to see him again. Even from a distance.
