Chapter 6

All throughout the bus ride home, Amber was fuming. She had long since dried her eyes and began to process all she had heard at her mom’s office. And she was livid! She had been played for a fool by the Bryces’. How dare they send her all the way to see her mother for the first time without the entire truth! She was going to rain down hell on them the minute she got home. She was sick and tired of being the weakling always, trampled upon by everyone she ever met! It was time for a change!

Amber slammed the door into the house so loud the rattles shook. Eleanor had been taking a nap on the couch, and jumped awake when she heard the door slam. Taking one good look at Amber’s face, she knew that the jig was up. Without a word to Amber, she yelled her husband’s name, “Ha-rry!”

Harry was upstairs when he heard the door slam as well. He was rushing down the stairs when he heard his wife scream his name. He started to respond, “Honey, are you al…” His voice trailed off as he looked at Amber’s face. His wife whispered two words, “She knows.”

Harry swallowed a gulp. He had been apprehensive about Amber going to see her mom because he knew they hadn’t told her the entire truth yet. Unfortunately, as his wife had insisted, it was the only way to raise the necessary funds for her treatment. He felt very guilty especially since it was all his fault.

Amber clenched and unclenched her fists as she stared at the couple she called Dad and Mom. Truly, they had been good to her all these years she had spent in their care but to learn that they had been paid to take care of her by her biological mom was too much of a blow for her to bear. It felt like her whole life was a lie.

“I want to know the entire story. Start from the beginning. Now!” she yelled through clenched teeth.

Harry jumped and tried to soothe her, “Amber honey…”

“ No! Don’t call me that! Don’t you dare call me that!!”

“Okay dear, would you at least sit down a bit? These emotions are too strong for the nature of your heart please, Amber!” begged Harry.

“I don’t give a fuck about that! I want the truth! Now!!” she yelled.

“Okay, okay…” Harry began, trying to placate her. “Just take it easy, okay? We will tell you everything. Right from the beginning, okay…just don’t get too agitated Amber honey, because of your heart.”

“Start talking!” spat Amber. “Start talking NOW!”

Harry sighed and began, “Your mom and I, we were all friends. We all worked for a very important and dangerous man, Don Lino. We got into a mess and Don Lino never forgives nor forgets. We would have been killed. It was your mom who helped us disappear. She helped us escape. In return, when she needed our help, we couldn’t refuse her.”

“Why did she need your help? Why did my mom need your help?” Amber demanded.

“That’s not for us to say, Amber. That’s your mother’s story to share.”

“What?? Don’t you dare try to be self-righteous now!! You lied to me! As a matter of fact, both of you have been lying to me from the first day we met! You acted like you wanted to adopt me because you really liked me, but you were paid to do so, weren’t you?!”

“Amber, please don’t hate us. We did what we needed to do to survive. We gave you a home and love, everything you never had. Yes, it was a job for us at first but we came to love you, your personality, your kind heart, your sweet spirit. And you were ready to fight your way to good health.”

Amber collapsed sobbing into the floor. “I always wondered who would want to adopt a child as sick as I was. I thought you guys were such angels to do that. I never imagined you were paid for the job!”

Harry rushed to her and held her in an embrace. “Don’t say that Amber, please don’t. Yes, it started off as returning a favour for an old friend but you became much more than that to us. You have become like a daughter to us.”

“Yet, you still lied to me! You sent me to my mum with a hidden agenda! You didn’t bank on the fact that she’s even more cold, ruthless and heartless than the both of you!”

Harry paused, he knew he needed to tread carefully, knew he was at a risk of alienating Amber forever and with it, his wife’s only chance for treatment. It looked like only the truth would pacify her.

“Amber honey,” he began again. “Sometimes in life you do things you regret so much that you wish you could turn back the hands of time. I was an addict. Not drugs or anything like that. I was addicted to gambling. One day, a shipment came and it was money. Wrapped up in bundles of old clothing. I was in charge of receiving the shipment . I couldn’t resist. I took two bundles. It was insane and the most stupid thing I’d ever done. We had to run away, my wife and I. Hilary was just a baby…several times we were close to being captured by Don Lino’s men but your mother always alerted us and we were able to evade them. She helped us fake our deaths and get them off our tracks.”

He took a deep breath and tears fell from his eyes. “When she told us she had a child she had given up for adoption and she wanted to find you…you gotta understand, it was the least we could do to repay her for her kindness over the years. She’s a hard woman, your mother. Life shaped her that way…life shaped all of us that way…”

Amber was silent, as she considered all that her foster father had to say. It was a big revelation, too heavy for her simple soul to handle. Her foster parents had been part of the mafia? Her birth mom too? Who was her real father then? Silently, Amber rose to her feet and walked up the stairs to her room, oblivious to the calls by Eleanor. She felt drained. It had been an emotionally draining day for her. She whispered “Goodnight …” just before she turned the corridor to her room.