Page 35 of Choosing Us

“What?” Vivian whispers, but she might as well have yelled at the top of her lungs.

“Viv, I promised Daddy he would tell all of us. I only found out because I came over last night to borrow something from Daddy, and Jack and Liam were having it out with him in the kitchen.” Sav reaches over and squeezes Vivian’s arm, but I get it. I feel a little betrayed, too.

“Why didn’t anyone tell us? Wait, how did this all come to light in the first place?” I have so many fucking questions right now. “And where is she?”

“I confirmed the hunch I had with a DNA test and took Jack to go talk to her two nights ago,” Liam informs us.

“Where is she?” Vivian asks again, her wide eyes brimming with tears.

“Well, right now, she’s at work. But later, she’ll be at my penthouse because she’s staying with me,” Jack answers.

“She’s local? Who is she?” Finn beat me to it.

“You’ve probably met her, but her name is Cameron Walsh, and she’s the manager at Java Jive.”

“But she goes by Cami,” Liam adds.

“The pretty redhead, wait. Ew. I thought she was pretty.” Finn’s face is scrunched with a mix of disgust and shock, and I’m right there with him. I can’t say I ever checked her out, but I never considered that I could have siblings walking around that I didn’t know about.

“Why is she staying with you, Jack?” Vivian asks.

“She sure as hell wasn’t staying in that death trap,” Liam answers instead, but I don’t understand why he’s so mad.

“It’s not a death trap, it’s just not … the safest accommodations. Cami lives in an RV at a park over near the baseball fields.”

“That’s being generous. That thing is not drivable, which feels like a very basic criterion for something to be considered a vehicle. It wouldn’t start, it didn’t have heat, and I’m pretty sure a raccoon could break the meager lock on the front door.” Liam has a personal vendetta against this RV that I’ll have to decode later.

“With the temperatures dipping into the thirties at night in December, it isn’t safe for her to be out there without heat,” I add.

Liam points at me. “Exactly! The entire thing is a death trap.”

Jack gives him a look. “Stop. We didn’t leave her in the RV; hence, why she’s now staying in one of my guest rooms.”

“For how long? And is that why she moved to Forrest Falls? Does she want to meet us? Does she know we know? Why didn’t she say anything when she first got here? I’ve always felt like she was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Oh my God, does she hate us?” Vivian is spiraling, and now amplified by her pregnancy hormones, the tears are running down her face.

“Take a breath, Vivi. It’s okay. We don’t necessarily have all the answers yet, right?” Sav asks Jack and Liam who nod in agreement.

“She knew our father’s name and hired a private investigator to find him, which lead her—and the RV that she is very fond of—to Forrest Falls.” Jack clearly wants Liam to back off the RV digs, but if it’s a safety issue, I’m with Liam.

“Why didn’t her mother tell her where he was? Did she keep her from us?” Finn chimes in as Dad shakes his head.

“No, I don’t think so. But apparently, her mother passed away when Cami was … what did you say? Twelve?” Dad asks Liam, who nods.

“Yeah.” Liam’s back to being pissed—and this time, it’s not about an RV.

“What aren’t you saying?” I ask him directly.

“After her mother passed away, Cami didn’t have any other family members to take her in, so she became a ward of the state and entered foster care.”

“She what?!” Vivian cries out. “Why did that happen? She should have come here to us. We never would have let her go into the system.”

“That’s what I said, too, Viv. But she didn’t know about all of us, let alone how to navigate that as a child.”

Jack goes on to explain how our sister—I now have three sisters—went into foster care until she turned eighteen, then used her savings to purchase the RV that Liam has a personal vendetta against. Most of her life, Cami knew the name of her father, but also that he had a family and she had siblings out there.

“Did you know?” I ask my father. I know what he said, but I need him to address this head-on.

“I promise, I did not know. I never, ever, would have left her alone like that. You know that. The fact she was in foster care, let alone some of the bullshit she’s had to face alone over the years, I never … I would never.” Dad doesn’t hold the tears back that spill down his cheeks.