Emotional Connection

process the impossible

~

The four of them sat in the coffee shop that they'd visited so often that the baristas knew their names and orders, talking about dragons and tv shows and everything in between.

"Speaking of mysteries, are we ever going to settle this bet?" Jace spoke up.

"What-what bet?" Charlie asked.

Ashley sighed, "remember the woman in the shop that acts all strange around me? Well, Jace here thinks she might be my mum. We have a bet as to whether she's related to me or not, and if she is, what relation she is." Ashley explained, leaning back. "You can join if you want."

Charlie shrugged, "sure, seems alright. What did you all bet?"

"Obviously you know Jace's, I bet she was like an aunt or something on her mother's side." James pushed his empty mug away from him towards the side of the table, "Ashley said maybe a friend of her mothers."

Charlie nodded. "Sorry, Ash, I'm going to say that she's related to you." He laughed at her glare. "Though I agree more with James that maybe she's an aunt or something. You don't look similar enough to be directly related."

Jace shrugged, "are we going to settle the bet? Are you going to ask her who she is to you, or should I?"

Sighing, Ashley raised her hands in surrender. "I'll do it. It would be weird if you did."

"Are you going now?"

"Sure. Why not." Ashley stood, pulling the dark green hoodie on again, and grabbed her purse, shoving it back into her pocket. "Wish me luck!" She waved to them, leaving the coffee shop, walking back down the road to the shop with the woman who couldn't figure out how to behave around her.

It wasn't far, maybe thirty seconds, though Ashley dreaded every step. It was as though she was walking into something she couldn't even begin to comprehend, and she knew once she started the conversation, once she opened that door, there was no closing it again, even if the woman didn't answer her, Ashley would still be wondering until the day she died.

She stood back on the street as the door opened before her, letting the people out of the shop before she entered.

"Hello-" The woman's smile dropped as she saw who it was, just for a second, before it was plastered on her face again. "Can I help you?"

Ashley swallowed. "Yes. Yes, I'd like to know who you are and why you act like that around me."

She turned away. "I don't know what you mean."

Ashley sighed, stepping forwards. "You do, and I'd like answers. Please, All I want is to know who you are."

The woman sighed, hunched over in defeat. "Alright. But you must promise me that your father-"

"I left my father. I haven't spoken to him or seen him in well over a year."

She turned, shocked. "Really? You were always so attached to him, he'd never let you leave his sight."

Ashley's eyes widened. "So you knew me?"

"I did. Once, a long time ago now."

"Did you know my mother?"

Faltering, the woman didn't answer right away, simply bowing her head, bracing herself against the counter. "I'm her sister."

Ashley breathed in sharply. "You- you're my aunt?"

She nodded. "Your aunt Winnie. I'm sorry if how I acted made you uncomfortable, it's just... when I saw you, I knew who you were immediately; you looked so much like your mother. Even now, with the blonde hair, you're unmistakably her daughter. And with everything she had been through, with how long it had been since I'd seen you or your father, I didn't know if you knew me, or of me. I always doubted it, and your confusion to my actions when you were first in here proved your father completely erased everything of your mothers when she'd been forced out."

"Forced?" Ashley said, weakly. It was a lot to take in at once, that she had family she'd never even heard of. She'd never asked about her mother or her mother's family, but the fact that her father had intentionally kept her away from her aunt even, was almost unforgivable.

Winnie nodded sadly, sitting on her stool. "Our parents were getting sick, you see. They were old when they had us, and older still by the time you came along, and Wendy spent a lot of time caring for them. Your father, he didn't like that, he didn't like that he now had to take care of you nearly all of the time instead, that he couldn't go off galivanting on his fancy trips leaving the two of you at home. So he gave her an ultimatum: she could forget her parents, leave them in a hospital somewhere and be a mother to you, or she could leave and never turn back. Wendy..."

Ashley blinked, looking down at the floor. "Mum would have never turned her back on someone who needed her."

Winnie nodded. "It broke her heart. She thought once our parents had passed that Michael would allow her back to care for you again, but he froze her out completely, refused to respond to her letters, refused to let her see you."

Ashley had to lean against the wall, trying to process it all in her mind. "Where-" her voice broke, so she cleared her throat and tried again. "Where is she now?"

Winni held back tears. "No longer with us. Not for three years."

Ashley felt as though her heart had been torn from her chest. Even though she could hardly remember her mum, even though she'd never really had a relationship with her, it still hurt to know she'd died, and hurt even more that her father had intentionally kept the two of them apart.

"I'm so sorry, Ashley-Rae." Winnie quickly made her way over, wrapping her arms tightly around her. "I'm so sorry."

The door opened, the three guys walking in and immediately rushing to Ashley-s side as they noticed her on the floor.

"Ashley, Ashley, are you ok?" Charlie asked, trying to make her look at him, but there was a blank look in her eyes, even as the tears fell.

"What the fuck happened?" Jace asked, though he spoke softly, making sure not to use any sort of tone that could be conceived as accusatory.

Winnie stood, allowing Charlie to take Ash into his arms, rocking her gently as she tried her best to understand everything.

"You can go upstairs, if you go through the white-painted door there's a sitting room, you can all talk there." She spoke softly. "It's best if Ashley-Rae tells it herself." She didn't meet anyone's gaze, simply returning to the backroom.

James raised an eyebrow at Jace who shared his questioning look, the three of them making their way up. Ashley in Charlie's arms.

She managed to calm herself down enough to talk through everything Winnie had told her, the three men all displaying their disgust at her father and sympathies over her mother, and talking through it all helped her to process it a little better. "So... I have an aunt. And... I still don't know how I'm going to be able to process this."

Charlie still had an arm wrapped around her protectively, looking at both James and Jace.

"We'll get you through this. We'll make sure you get through this."