The Unspoken Truth

Chapter Eleven [Edited]

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Annie's POV

        The teapot whistles in the kitchen as I finish up the editing of the newest piece for this week's issue of the York Gazette. I stand and pour my tea, pulling up a chair and taking a seat by the window. This is one of my favorite nightly rituals. A rustle comes from the bushes in the backyard of my house. I look up, alert, and I scan the green. A flash of light comes from the innermost entangles of the brush. I grab a candle from the table and set my tea on a place mat. Tucking my hair behind my ear, I open the sliding door and hug my cardigan close. I shine the light around the yard nervously, inching my body closer to the bush the light had come from. When I reach it, my footsteps are quiet and I shine the flashlight where the light had been.

        Two pairs of eyes look up at me, bewildered as I try to use my light as a weapon. The strangers stand, with their hands up over their heads. "Mason?" I ask, squinting in the darkness.

        "I'm here too," Cassie says.

        "What are you doing here?"

        "We need to talk to you," Mason said.

        "What's so important?" I ask.

        Cassie glances at Mason. "I think you'll find this pretty important," she says. I motion for them to come with me into the house. They reluctantly follow as if they are nervous. I try not to think about what they might be worried about. Thoughts pop into my head several times on the treacherous hike to the sliding door but I push them away. I don't want to know what they have to tell me. But I know if I don't find out, it will haunt me into the wee hours of the morning. I glance back at them, they are whispering to each other like they have a huge secret they don't want to get out.

        Shrugging it off, I direct my thoughts back to the article I was editing before I saw the light in my bush. It was about a nearby landfill filling up too far and the company possibly having to build a new one. I wonder if the writer was telling the truth when they wrote that article. It has become something I can't help but think about when I edit articles. I don't like to imagine citizens being misinformed. Maybe it isn't my job, as the editor, to be concerned with this kind of thing. But I am.

        My eyes avert themselves back to Cassie and Mason. The resemblance between them is stunning. I am surprised I hadn't put the pieces together before Cassie discovered their relationship, I am usually good at that kind of thing. When we walk through the door, disposing us into my kitchen, Cassie takes a deep, drawn out breath. I turn to them. "What's going on?"

        "You might want to sit down for this," Mason says quietly. I sit down in one swift motion, folding my hands and looking up at them.

        Cassie sits down next to me. "You're our step sister."

        My eyebrows shoot up as I glance between them, "Your what?"

        "Let us explain," Mason said, sitting down now, too. "Your mother left when you were young, right?"

        "Yeah, she left before my first birthday."

        "Well," Cassie says. "She remarried Kreysten, and they had Mason and me."

        "That's impossible," I said, standing up and pacing around the room. "It just couldn't be."

        "It's true," Mason says. "Kreysten explained it to us when he told us about our relation."

        "Wait," I freeze, mid-pace. "Kreysten knew about this?"

        "I know," Mason says. "It was so weird when I found out that my boss was also my dad."

        Cassie looks at me sympathetically. "I'm sorry for jumping on you with this."

        "No," I said. "Thank you for telling me."

        Mason leans back and runs his hands down his face. "I am so glad that's over."

        Silence sits heavy on our shoulders for a few moments. The world feels so much smaller now I know where my mother went. "Is she..." I stutter. "Is she dead?" Mason bites his lower lip and Cassie nods slowly, her eyes looking off into the distance. I have always been curious about my mother.

        My father raised me after she left but when I asked about her, he refused to discuss it. Everything he did makes sense now. I had been angry at him during my teenaged years when I wanted to hear about my mother most. It felt like he was keeping a secret from me he never intended to tell. His wife left him and had two kids with someone else. Those two kids, the ones that had caused my father so much pain, sit right in front of me now. "Do you know how she died?" I ask them.

        "She was in a skiing accident," Mason says. "That's all I know."

        I collapse in the chair next to him. "I feel... adopted or something."

        Cassie blinks and sits up in her chair, looking at Mason. "There's one thing I don't understand," she says. "If you knew Kreysten was your father all this time, why didn't you tell me?"

        He shrugs. "I guess it never came up. You and I never talked about family."        

        "How long have you known, Mason?" I ask him.

        "Since I moved to New York. I ran into him one day and he said he was my father. I didn't believe him at first, but he convinced me."

        My eyes flicker between them. "I should go to bed, you guys." I say, running my fingers through my hair. "I haven't got the energy to think about this anymore today."

        "Okay," Cassie says, standing up. Mason gets up and they open the glass door they came in.

        "Thanks for telling me."

        "You're welcome," Mason says. Cassie smiles and they close the door, letting the night enclose them. A deep breath tumbles from my lips as I climb the stairs to bed. I focus on my feet, taking each step and dispel my mother and her relationship with my father from my mind. I leave every worry and confusion at the downstairs table, focusing on climbing the stairs. The dark thoughts creep back into my mind when I reach the top. I sink to the carpeted hallway, willing myself to think of my family again. Both my new found one and my father. Of everything I thought Cassie and Mason might have wanted to talk about, this was the last on my list of expectations. And, anymore, I don't know if that's such a good thing.