I Never Told You I Love You - Complete

Chapter 69 - Where Were We?

Abe took Janine's hand and led her to sit beside him on the sofa. They sat there for a moment, each sipping their champagne.

"Thank you for calling me, Janine. I've wanted to speak with you for a long time, but especially since meeting Rose in Russia," Abe began awkwardly. "It's been too long."

"Seventeen years," Janine acknowledged.

"There's so much I want to know. Can I please ask?" Abe enquired tentatively.

Janine shrugged. She'd known Abe would have questions.

Abe looked at Janine carefully. More than anything he wanted to know why she'd left. Why she'd taken Rose and just disappeared. But he felt that might be the hardest thing to talk about, so he started with something he hoped would be a little easier.

"So when I met Rose in Russia she told me she couldn't remember anything before starting at St. Vladimir's. What happened between when she was one and four? Where did you go?"

"After I left, we stayed in Turkey for a while, but it can be an expensive place to live, and since I wasn't working we were living off my savings," Janine explained, looking through the champagne to the bottom of her flute. "In the end, I headed to a Dhampir commune in Romania. There were enough single Dhampir mothers there that no one asked too many questions, and it was a cheap place to live. We shared a house there with another mother and her child. She was escaping a difficult situation with the child's father. Once he appreciated she had a flatmate who wouldn't let him get away with what he'd been doing to her, he stopped visiting. It wasn't a fancy life, but we survived."

"So you were there for three years?"

"More like two. We stayed in Turkey for almost a year before then. We left the day after Rosemarie's second birthday."

"And then you brought her here?"

"Yes. I had only just enough money left for the airfare to get us here. She was four, so should really have had her own seat, but I couldn't afford it. She was small for her age, so a kindly Alchemist faked some documents to say she was two so she could sit on my lap for the flight over. I knew I was going to have to leave her, so I cuddled her the whole way. I don't suppose she can remember, but I stayed with her for three days trying to get the courage to say goodbye. I'll never forget the look on her face as Alberta held her as I drove away. Nervous but brave. We didn't tell her I was leaving for so long. She thought I'd be back in a day or two."

"When did you see her next?"

"Not until she was six. I'd taken an allocation with Lord Szelzky in Nepal. He'd had a lot of trouble getting someone to agree to go there as the area was so remote and filled with Strigoi. He was paying well and in American dollars, and the cost of living is nothing over there, so I knew I'd be able to save. I had to pay for her tuition, and then I wanted to save enough, so I had a small nest egg. The plan was if I worked for four years, and was careful with my money, I'd have enough to perhaps take an Academy job and be able to live close to her for the rest of her schooling. I was hoping to set us up so we could be close – possibly even live together."

Abe nodded encouragingly. Janine looked so tense he didn't want to spook her any further.

"Szelzky came back for a visit after two years, and I jumped at the chance to come with him. He was on the East Coast, so by the time I got flights across here, I could only be here for thirty-six hours before I'd have to leave. I'd been crossing the days off on my calendar for months and was beside myself with excitement. You have to understand, Abe – Rosemarie was all I had left, and everything I was doing was for her."