Chapter 1-3
518 Words
I’ve done some terrible things in my life and I’m trying to work through them. Thankfully, Jordan and Trevor have found each other and I hope that one day they’ll forgive me. That being said, I hope you’ll help me find my other son. Although I have a lot of regrets, I know leaving him in the church was the right thing to do. I was a mess, and all I cared about was getting high. I’m ashamed for so many things, and I’m trying to set things right, which is why I need you to help me locate him. Even if he doesn’t want to have anything to do with me, he has two brothers and they’ll want to know about him. In time, I hope I can face all three of them and ask for forgiveness. Drugs have ruined our lives and I have nobody but myself to blame.
The letter went on to explain where exactly she’d left her baby and when. It was signed by someone named Mavis.
“What does this have to do with me?” I asked Jordan.
“Both Slammer and Mavis are deceased, but Slammer’s widow gave me this letter a few days ago. After doing some research, I found out the child she left at the church was you.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “What? I don’t think so.”
“You were adopted, right?”
“Yeah, but they’d never mentioned anything about someone leaving me at a church.”
“An administrator at Saint Michael’s, the church you were left at, said you were given to an adoption agency and went to a home right away. Your adoptive parents are named Jack and Emily Dodge, right?”
“They were,” I said, my heart heavy as I thought of the couple who’d raised me. Unfortunately, both had died after I’d graduated from high school. The only father I’d ever known, Jack, had been everything I could have asked for in a parent. Supportive, loving, and stern enough to keep me out of jail, even though I’d sometimes hung out with a rough crowd. Unfortunately, he’d smoked like a chimney and died of lung cancer.
Then there’d been my mother, Emily. She’d spoiled the hell out of me, which probably made me kind of an asshole, admittedly. She died a couple years after Jack, from a brain aneurism. Their deaths had been hard on me and Bonnie had been my salvation. Her betrayal was such a blow. It felt like someone else close to me had died, only this time... I didn’t have anyone to help me through my grief.
“That’s what I thought. If you check your adoption records, you’ll find that Saint Michael’s released you to them twenty-seven years ago.”
“How do you know all this?”
He smirked. “I have my ways.”
“What does this have to do with you?” I asked and then remembered the name in the letter. Jordan.
His lips twitched. “Apparently, I’m one of your older brothers.”
A flood of emotions rushed through me. It was hard to believe what he was saying was true. “You sure about this?”
He shrugged. “We can take a DNA test.”
So, in other words, this guy wasn’t totally convinced yet either.
***
- Writer
