Page 41 of Dancing With Guilt

“Protest all you like, but I saw how you watched June’s little friend whenever she was at the house. Besides, I saw the notes. You adored that girl.” Ms. Young waited for his denial, the smile still there, but her eyes watching him.

“What notes?” He asked, his skin blanched and he suddenly felt sweaty. She couldn’t mean those notes?

“The notes she thought were from Liam, my love,” she finally answered, and he felt his stomach plunge somewhere around his feet. That knowing look was back in place and Lincoln wanted to just disappear into a dark void. His mother had read his notes to Chloe?

Fucking hell, this was worse than he’d thought it would be.

“Why couldn’t you have respected my privacy, mother? Why did you have to read those notes?” Anger was replacing embarrassment now and he didn’t bother to hide it. “Normal mothers don’t read their children’s love letters.”

‘Oh we all do, son, don’t be fooled. Besides, would you rather I didn’t tell you I’d read them? Mothers always know what their children are up to, I’ve told you that before.” She finally picked up her coffee, sipped at it, then put it down to look at Lincoln. “There’s nothing abnormal about keeping an eye on your children.”

“There is when it’s about love and sex, and teenage…” He waved his hands, not wanting to say the words, but her silence forced him to. “Desires.”

“That’s nothing to be ashamed of, Lincoln. She was a lovely girl, and quite the handful now from what I hear from June.” His mother’s smile was back in place but there was nothing catty or knowing in this smile. It was just…a smile.

“Mother, seriously. Please don’t. You’ve always been the coolest mother in the world, but this is none of your business and having you in my business now is kind of weird.”

“Are you or are you not still my child?” She asked with a raised eyebrow. That eyebrow was a warning that he didn’t heed. Still, she went on. “Your grandfather would have said I don’t behave like a good Chinese woman should, but look where that’s got most of them.”

Lincoln didn’t say anything, and finally, his mother took off her hat, slipped out of the black heels on her feet, and looked at him. “You’re tired and aren’t eating enough.”

She got up and looked in cupboards until she found an apron and put it on. He knew it was useless to protest as she looked through the fridge and freezer to find the ingredients to make his favorite meal. “So, this woman had a child for you?”

“Yes, her name is Lily,” Lincoln answered, turning to watch his mother chop vegetables.

“And you didn’t know it?” Ms. Young continued to chop, but her eyes were on Lincoln.

“No, she hid the girl from me. Like you hid me from my father.”

“That was for a very good reason, Lincoln,” Ms. Young answered, pointing the knife at him.

“Who was my father, mother?” He asked, wondering if now would be the time when she would finally reveal the truth.

“You’re old enough now, I suppose you can know the truth.” She sighed as if she had the world on her shoulders before she shrugged. “His name was Colin Firth.”

“Colin Firth? Colin Firth the actor?” Lincoln sputtered, then glared at his mother. “Stop messing with me, Mother.”

“Fine.” Ms. Young lifted her hands in the air and glared back at him. “His name was Colin Fuller.”

“Colin Fuller. Okay.” Lincoln had no idea who that might be, the name wasn’t one in their circle. But then, it wouldn’t be, would it?

“We had a lot of fun together at first. We were young, wild, experimenting with alcohol and other things I don’t care to remember.” Ms. Young shuddered and Lincoln knew not to push. “Then I realized I was pregnant. I stopped drinking because of you, but your father didn’t.”

Lincoln kept quiet, letting his mother work her way around the story he’d waited decades to hear.

“I wanted to be the best mother to you that I could be, even before you were born, so I tried to eat good food and not drink anything bad. Your father kept at it, and I came to realize being with him wasn’t so fun anymore, but I had you to think of. I wanted more for you and to have a home, but we had no money, and everything became so stressful. Really stressful.”

Ms. Young paused, her hands still as memories played across her face as emotions. “Your father got violent, especially when he was drunk. Very violent. Only, he’d forget the next day and ask me what happened to my face. Of course, he’d apologize, swear it would never happen again, then act like nothing had happened. Only it happened over and over again, until I finally ran one day.”

She came back to reality for a moment, looking at him with so much love it nearly melted his heart.

“I couldn’t let him hurt you the way he was hurting me. I knew he would if I stayed, so I ran away. I thought about giving you up once you were born, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t speaking to my parents at the time so I couldn’t ask them for help, but I found a job at a Chinese restaurant. The owner let me live in the apartment upstairs, even though it was cramped. It was a two-bedroom apartment, one for men, one for women. There were already three other women in the girl’s room, and two men in the other. I decided we couldn’t stay in that situation and with the help of the restaurant owner’s wife, I found a rich man to marry.”

“That was the first man I thought was my father,” Lincoln said, his memories of that man not very pleasant. Not terrible, just not pleasant.

“No, I thought things with him would be fine, even if I didn’t love him. Then I found out that he really didn’t like you. That changed things,” Ms. Young said with a shrug of her shoulders, as if one man was as good as the next. “That’s when I took up with his friend. He loved me, he accepted you, and it was alright for a little while.”

“But you still weren’t happy,” Lincoln asked, some aspects of his childhood suddenly becoming clear.