Ever Get That Feeling?

Okay, I hadn’t expected this at all. It’s just Cole and I today; we left Chase and Allison with Cole’s father, while we went to go meet Cole’s mother for the first time in seven years.

I have no idea why I’m going, but Cole begged me, so I couldn’t say no to the guy.

Back to what I had said. Whoa! This is so unexcepted. What I mean is Cole’s mother. Cole and I are approaching her now, and we know it’s her, because she’s wearing the red shirt and blue skirt, she said she’d be wearing.

Even Cole seems surprised by his mother’s appearance.

She . . . she’s so young! Not teenager young, but young!

She looks nothing like Cole or Allison, they having a sun-kissed complection with dark hair. She has blond hair that is almost white, it’s so blond. Her skin is very pale. I bet she sunburns easily.

And did I mention how young she looks?!

Her eyes are blue. Ah, there’s something that’s similar to Cole and Allison.

As we near her, I can see the woman is slightly shaking, from nerves I bed. Hurriedly, she stood up, her hands fumbling with the ends of her shirt.

Yeah, she’s nervous.

“C-Cole?” She asked. I could hear the uncertainty in her soft voice.

Cole gave a stiff nod.

Tears started to spill down the woman’s cheeks, almost making my heart break at the sight. This truly was a woman wanting forgiveness. You can’t fake tears like that.

Cole didn’t react to the tears at all. He just stood with his arms crossed, as if to say, ‘well, come on, explain, I don’t have all day.’

“I-I’m sorry,” she sobbed, wiping her eyes, “I’ve just . . . missed you a-and Allison . . . ” She looked around, “she’s not here?”

“Um,” I spoke up, “we left her with her father.”

“Who are you?” She made an ‘oh’ face, “you’re the one who answered the phone?”

I nodded, “and you are . . . ?”

“S-sorry, I’m Anna-Marie.”


Anna-Marie frowned, brushing some hair from her eyes, “why did you not bring Allison?” She asked, seeming to be upset.

“She doesn’t know about you,” Cole said, “and I wanted to know all the details of,” he waved his hands around, “of everything before we dragged her into this.”

Meaning, I think Cole wants to know if Anna-Marie is serious about asking for forgiveness or will she up and go away again?

Anna-Marie nodded, her eyes showing that she understood. “Will you please let me explain everything then?” She asked, twisting her shirt in her hands, leaving a big wrinkled spot.

Cole looked down. I was feeling very uncomfortable. I don’t really belong here . . .

“Maybe I should leave . . . this is family business . . . ” I said, making to walk out the café door. We had met at a small café just a walk away from my house.

At hearing that, Cole looked up, his baby blue eyes almost pleading with mine, “no, stay . . . please . . . ” He looked at Anna-Marie, “it’s okay, right?”

Anna-Marie looked between the both of us, “it’s fine. I don’t mind, as long as I can explain why . . . why I had to leave.”

Had to? Meaning she didn’t leave on her own? She didn’t abandon Cole and Allison like Cole thought?

“Had to?” Cole questioned my very thoughts.

Anna-Marie looked down, her long hair falling over her face. It didn’t stop us from seeing the pained look on her face, though.

“When you came in, I saw the surprise on your faces, am I right?”

We both nodded.

Anna-Marie looked up, “I’m thirty years old.”

Huh? I did the math . . . Hey, I can do math, thank you very much. Okay, Cole’s nineteen, so thirty minus nineteen . . .

Holy mother of . . . No, no, that can’t be right at all. Can it?

“What!?” Cole yelled, “you . . . if you’re . . . then . . . ”

Anna-Marie nodded, “yes. I gave birth to you when I was eleven years old.”

She made a face, as if remembering her past. “I was foolish and I trusted all too easily . . . ”

“I lied about my age and dated a boy who was sixteen years old. When I found out I was pregnant, of course he flipped. He was too young. He wasn’t ready for kids.”

Anna-Marie looked up, her eyes filled with terrible memories. “But what was I supposed to do? I was only a child. But . . . even so, I wanted you Cole, I wanted you more then anything. You were a part of me . . . ”

She sniffed, “dad let me keep you . . . I’d been so terrified he’d make me have an abortion or give you up for adoption, but he didn’t . . . ”

“Mind you, I was only eleven, so I wasn’t ready for the responsibility of being a mother, so my father adopted you . . . ”

Cole blinked, his mouth falling open. Maybe I’m slow, but . . . oh . . . Oh!

“Are you saying . . . that the dad I thought was my dad for my whole life is really my grandfather?” Cole asked, in a whispered voice.

“Yes,” Anna-Marie said, “dad adopted you, calling himself your dad. So you were raised to believe that I was your mother and he was your dad. You never questioned why we didn’t act like a couple, or slept in the same room, because you were just a child. You were just happy as long as you had two parents who loved you.”

“But . . . but what about Allison . . . ?” Cole got a horrid look in his eyes, “don’t tell me . . . ”

“Oh, God no,” Anna-Marie said, “dad was my dad! Period! Nothing more.” Anna-Marie looked sick at the mere thought what Cole had thought.

Cole nodded, “okay, I’m relieved to hear that. So how did Allison come about?”

“When I was eighteen, I met and fell in love with a man . . . Allison was born, b-but . . . ” Anna-Marie looked away from Cole and I, her shoulders slumping.

“Allison was sickly . . . and I was there every moment, hoping things would turn out okay . . . but when Allison’s dad found out about the muteness that had come about . . . ”

“I learned that he wasn’t who I thought he was . . . for one, he said he didn’t want a girl, and would have nothing to do with a girl, who couldn’t carry on his name, and . . . and . . . ”

Anna-Marie stopped talking, shaking so bad, it alarmed me. I could tell Cole was worried as well, despite the anger he felt for her, which I can see has started to ebb a little, as her story progressed.

“Why did you leave?” Cole asked, “just cut to the chase. Why?”

“I tried to kill him,” Anna-Marie said.

Okay, what?! Please rewind and go back. I didn’t just hear that, did I?

“Excuse me?” Cole said, blinking. I could tell he thought he’d heard wrong.

Anna-Marie sighed, “I was going to the hospital to visit Allison. It was a day after she had her first corrective surgery, which your father paid for,” she said, of course talking about her own dad.

“You were with Gerald.” His father . . . er, grandfather, I presume.

“So . . . I went into Allison’s room and there was Mark, Allison’s birth father. I was surprised, because as I said, Mark wanted nothing to do with a daughter, let alone one with a disability.”

“He seemed to be staring down at her, with such a loving look on his face, that it almost made me take a step back. But as I walked closer, I could tell . . . God . . . ”

Anna-Marie put her hands over her face, “his smile was maniacal and then I watched him pull Allison’s pillow out from under her and try and suffocate her . . . ”

Cole let out a little gasp. I reached out, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“I-I flew into a rage . . . grabbed one of the knifes left over from lunch when I had been their earlier eating and . . . ”

“It’s not pretty . . . I stabbed him over and over again, screaming . . . Doctors and nurses came in and had to force me away from Mark . . . he was barley alive, but . . . ”

“I was lucky . . . I didn’t get turned into one of the worst things imaginable . . . he lived, though for trying to kill Allison, he got sentenced to prison . . . as did I . . . It didn’t matter that I was only thinking of Allison, I tried to kill him, I wanted to kill him . . . ”

By now, Cole had tears running down his cheeks, and so did I.

“That was why . . . you were in prison . . . ?” Cole said, not objecting when Anna-Marie pulled him into a hug.

“Yes, but since I was only tried to kill Mark out of defense of my daughter, my sentence was lighter then Marks. I just got out . . . and called you right away . . . ”

“Why didn’t I know about any of this?” Cole asked, “I thought you left . . . that you didn’t want me or Allison . . . because she was mute . . . ”

“No, baby, I wanted you so bad! And I wanted Allison just as bad. It didn’t matter that she was mute, she was still my beautiful daughter. I love you guys so much.”

“Your father, my dad, didn’t want me to tell you, and he turned away all the phone calls he got from me . . . ”

She smiled through her tears, “don’t be angry at him for that. He was worried about you guys and what it would be like to learn your mother was in prison for trying to kill someone . . . but now that I’m out, I couldn’t stay away . . . and dad can’t keep me away . . . ”

“So, please may I be in your life again? I can’t make up for the time we lost, but we can make a new life together, making new memories . . . ”

Say yes! He has to. He can’t truly turn her down after learning the truth and it is the truth, because I can tell she’s sincere.

“Mom . . . ” Anna-Marie’s eyes filled up with tears, but this time for a different reason. “I missed you,” Cole sobbed, seeming much younger in my eyes then he was. It was almost like he was a twelve-year-old boy again.

“Yes,” Cole said, “mommy, yes,” Cole clung to Anna-Marie.

Like I said, just like a twelve-year-old boy again.

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