Donor House: Advent Story (part 25)

[k_a_webb]

Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5
Part 6; Part 7; Part 8; Part 9; Part 10
Part 11; Part 12; Part 13; Part 14; Part 15
Part 16; Part 17; Part 18; Part 19; Part 20
Part 21; Part 22; Part 23; Part 24

“I found it the day I went searching for it,” Kieran said. “Mother’s name was on it, but there was no father. When we talked about it we decided the most likely reason for that was that Lily’s father was someone else and he was someone who was out of the picture long before he had a chance to have his name put on it. After that we went hunting every time you were out, hoping that we’d find some other clues, because we wanted to know for certain why you treated her the way you did. Our guess was that Lily’s father had been changed into a vampire, but we wanted proof, in case we needed to talk to Lily about it all, as we were going to convince her to apply to enter the House if you didn’t. It was the only way we could think of getting her safe.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Lily asked, trying not to let the hurt enter her voice and failing.

“There was never any proof, otherwise we would have done. We just didn’t want to tell you without having some evidence, because we remembered what you said about telling people what was happening. If there was no proof people were going to be much less likely to believe what you were saying and that was part of the reason you always kept your mouth shut, even though we tried more than once to convince you that you needed to talk to someone who could get you somewhere safe, because the other part was, as I’ve said before, your abiding belief that some day they would love you if you did enough to help them.”

“Kieran, I know I was stupid.”

“Lily, it wasn’t stupid.” Sullivan’s voice made her jump, even though she’d known that he was still there, because she hadn’t been expecting him to speak. “I’m not surprised there was a part of you that always hoped they might love you. When my son decided it was time to kill his mother it was because she didn’t magically change when he removed what he believed the reason for her mistreatment was. Even though I don’t want to say that she never cared about him that was how it seemed both to him and from the outside, but it wasn’t that she didn’t care – she didn’t know how to stop her husband from mistreating her son and she didn’t want to rock the boat as she felt she had limited options. Having a child by someone who was turned into a vampire was never easy.” He sighed. “It still isn’t now, but for different reasons.”

“You won’t remember this, Lily,” her mother said, “but there was a time when he wanted custody of you and believed that he’d get it, because there’d been some new laws put in place that meant any vampire had a right to see their child, even if it was against the wishes of the mother, and there had been a couple of cases that had gone the way of the vampire, although I didn’t imagine for a moment that I would lose custody of you. I didn’t want it, but I didn’t want him to have it either, because I didn’t know how he’d treat you. I know how that sounds.” Lily looked over at her parents – her father was holding her mother’s hand and pushed aside the pity she felt, because she knew they didn’t deserve it, but she was still going to listen to what they had to say. “We fought as best we could, but in the end he won the custody battle, and once that happened we didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t going to let him have you, even though it didn’t seem like we had a choice, so I went to the hunters to pay them to kill your father. We needed him gone, because he was not going to have you.

“For a while I thought it was because we’d spent time and money raising you, time and money that we weren’t going to get back, but then I realised that no matter how I felt about him a part of me, a part I’d managed to keep well hidden even from myself, did care about you. Nowhere near as much as I should, because you were my daughter and you deserved so much better than I was giving you, but I cared enough to make sure that you were safe from him. Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe you would have had a better life with him, because he could have loved you, but I made the decision based on my fear that he would hurt you and I thought it was the right choice at the time. Plus I knew that losing you would have devastated Tara and I wasn’t going to let anyone hurt her.”

“Not all vampires are bad people,” Lily replied, reaching out backwards in the hope that someone would be there and when someone took her hand she smiled. “Some vampires make stupid choices and then realise they don’t want to be the person they’ve become; some never make stupid choices, but that doesn’t make being a vampire any easier; and there are those who are bad people, and they, normally, were bad people before they were changed.”

“That’s something we didn’t know then. In all honesty I didn’t even think he was still alive and yet when I walked into the court room he was there. He looked at me in such a way that I knew meant he’d seen the way I was treating you, because nothing I’d done between the time he was changed and the time we saw each other again had been able to remove the memories I had of him, and I had a horrible feeling he was going to bring it up in order for him to win custody of you, which was exactly what he ended up doing. I don’t blame him. I didn’t realise how bad I was until he documented every moment of nastiness. I promised myself when I left the court room that I was going to change, because you didn’t deserve to be treated badly, but then I looked at you and you stared at me with his eyes…”

“What happened when you sent the hunters after him?” Lily didn’t want to think about what she’d lost, because she had her father’s eyes, so she needed to change the subject. “Did they manage to kill him?”

“As far as I know they did, but they could easily have been lying to me. They didn’t show me any proof that he was dead, because they said that taking things away from the body was a bad idea, so there’s a chance he might still be alive. Maybe the vampires here can help you find out for certain.”

“That’s possible,” Alice said, “and it’s not unusual for a group of hunters to lie if they don’t manage to kill a vampire, because they don’t want people to believe that they aren’t capable of doing the jobs that they’re paid for. If you give us the information before you leave we’ll do the work, but you will never be welcome in the House again, as you have admitted to what you did to Lily, and we’ve heard the same thing from two of your children.”

“I understand. Lily, I know it’s not good enough, not after everything we’ve done to you, but I am sorry. I’m sorry I punished you for being the daughter of the man I loved, because it wasn’t your fault that he became a vampire, and I’m sorry I punished you for him suing me for custody.” Lily’s mother sighed. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, I don’t deserve your love, and I hope that you manage to fix the damage that we caused.”

For a long moment Lily stared at both her parents. It was possible to see the sorrow in her mother’s eyes, but it was quickly replaced by the same hatred that had always been in them, and she realised that the woman was saying what she knew she needed to say in order to get her other children to forgive her. When Lily looked at Kieran she could tell that he already knew what their mother was doing and didn’t believe a word that she’d just said. Unwanted tears welled up in Lily’s eyes once more as she turned away from both of them, because if she was going to fix the damage she needed to put herself first, not the people she had tried so hard to make love her.

Sullivan wrapped his arms around her. “She doesn’t know how to tell the truth, Lily,” he whispered into her ear. “The woman is so used to lying that she just keeps doing it, even when she shouldn’t, and I think that’s something your brother worked out a long time ago.”

“Probably,” Lily whispered back, letting herself be comforted by the vampire she’d barely even known hours before. “Do you think what she said about my father is true?”

“It might be. If it’s possible we’ll find out for you, but I do think that your father, whoever he was, did something to really hurt your mother, and that’s why she’s been punishing you your whole life.”

“Right, I think it’s time you left,” Nick said. “If we go over to the reception desk we can right down the information that we’ll need to begin the hunt for Lily’s father, if he really exists, and once you’ve done that your names will be put down on a list, so that you’ll never be able to enter the House again.”

“What if Lily forgives us?”

Kieran laughed. “Lily’s never going to forgive you. Maybe, if you hadn’t of been speaking for the crowd and instead focused on your eldest daughter, it might have happened, but once again you were so focused on me that it didn’t matter to you that every word you said to Lily was a lie. Fortunately, Mother, I know what your lies sound like, and I will not let you do that to her again. She does deserve better than you for a mother.”

“Kieran, we love you.”

“I know.” Kieran sighed. “If only you’d been able to share that love you felt for me, Tara and Beth with Lily we might not have been in this position, but you couldn’t and I’m still not certain we know why. There’s every chance that what you just told us about Lily’s father was another story, to go with the other stories you’ve told us about why you can’t love your eldest daughter, but I really hope you actually told the truth for once. Nothing you ever do will be able to take back what you’ve done, but if you have told the truth we might be able to find a parent for Lily who actually cares about her, because if he did sue for custody there’s a chance he did it to protect her from you.”

“He failed, if that was what he was trying to do, and I’m not sorry for what I did. He didn’t deserve Lily, not after what he did to me.”

“What exactly did he do to you, Mother? Become a vampire?”

“No, he tried to convince me to become a vampire too, not long after Lily was born, because he wanted us to be a family.” Lily’s mother laughed. “Like that was ever going to happen. Be a family – two vampires and a baby… All he knew was that he loved me, he loved Lily from the moment he saw her, and nothing I could do would get him to leave me alone. He wouldn’t even walk away when I remarried. He kept telling me that we’d have a good life together, even though he had nothing, and the only reason he sued for custody was to hurt me the way that I’d hurt him.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.