CHAPTER 33:
Where She Has an Unexpected Visitor
~~**~~
When I woke up Archer had already left for work.
It was Sunday and he had recently started working at Seth's automobile service garage on the weekends. Much to my dismay, he'd insisted on paying the rent and buying the groceries this month. I'd only agreed when I'd seen how much it had meant to him. Both my roommates had been beyond elated.
I made my way to the kitchen and smiled when I saw a covered plate on the counter with a note with my name written in Archer's neat handwriting sitting on top of it.
I poured myself a mug of coffee and uncovered the plate Archer had left for me. I sighed in contentment when the vanilla scent of freshly made French toast hit my nostrils.
The door to Nelly's room opened and Spartacus leisurely walked out followed by my sleepy-looking roommate.
I scratched Spartacus behind his good ear.
"You need this more than I do," I said as I handed Nelly my coffee mug.
She took a huge sip and gave me a grateful look.
She eyed the French toast I was eating and chuckled. "So this is why your boyfriend woke me up at the crack of dawn to ask me if I knew how to make French toast?"
I could feel my insides go warm. "He did?" I asked a little breathlessly.
"Yup." She said as she bit into a piece of French toast I'd offered her. "And I pretty much told him to fuck off and watch a YouTube tutorial and then shut the door in his face."
I winced. "You could've been a little gentler."
She rolled her eyes. "Tell that to someone who isn't working two jobs and in their final year of nursing school getting barely three hours of sleep in." She got up and gave me a wink. "Besides, his French toast turned out pretty damn delicious in the end."
I ate my breakfast in silence after Nelly had left. Adrian was probably passed out in his room after working his night shift yesterday and wouldn't be up till mid-noon.
I washed the dishes and placed them in the dryer before grabbing my laptop from my room and making myself comfortable on the living room couch.
I found myself opening Jamie's Facebook account again. My mouse hovered over the message icon but I couldn't bring myself to do it. If Archer didn't get into the University of Florida I would stay in California. Was there even a point in telling him who I was right now anyway?
But in my heart, I knew that I was just being a coward.
I knew talking to my younger brother and telling him who I was had nothing to do with me moving or not moving to Florida.
The conversation I'd had with Archer yesterday played in my mind.
He'd applied to the University of Florida because of me.
He was ready to give up everything for me.
And even though he had tried to reassure me that it was what he wanted my guilty conscience jabbed at me.
He was risking too much.
I wasn't worth it.
The sound of someone knocking on the door pulled me away from my thoughts.
I assumed it was Nelly who'd forgotten something or one of the neighbors asking to borrow something.
Never in a million years would I have expected the person standing in front of me.
"Mrs. Hastings?" I breathed out in shock.
~~**~~
"What are you doing here?" I stuttered in shock as I stared wide-eyed at Archer's mother standing before me.
"May I come inside?" She fidgeted uneasily as she eyed the peeling wallpaper and the dirty hallway carpet.
I stepped aside to allow her space to enter and watched as her eyes studied my apartment. I could feel my shoulders stiffening defensively.
It was clear that she didn't approve of this place but to her credit, she didn't say anything.
For a moment my mind wandered. Archer was someone who was born in privilege but he had never made me feel like I was beneath him. Sure, he'd been surprised when he'd first seen where I lived and he had been upset that someone had to live in such conditions but his response had been out of concern not a sense of superiority.
I recalled how Archer's father had behaved when he had last seen me with his son. How he had made me feel I was worth less than nothing.
And how Archer had stood up in my defense against a man who raised him.
How he had chosen to give up everything to defend me.
It got me thinking- if someone could have more empathy and respect for others than the person who raised them, then maybe ignorance was a choice.
"I heard that my son was here." Mrs. Hasting's soft voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
I was tempted to lie, tell her that I didn't know where Archer was. But even through her seemingly composed exterior, I could see the desperation behind her eyes.
I knew that Archer had deliberately been ignoring her calls and messages.
"Is he here?" She said her eyes filled with hope.
I ran my tongue over my parched lips.
"He's not here," I told her.
I watched her expression fall. I could practically see the hope inside her shatter. Her lips trembled.
She took a shuddering breath "I see-"
She was just a mother who was worried about her son, terrified that something bad had happened to him.
Just as she was starting to leave I heard myself speak,
"Right now."
She paused, "What?"
"He's not here right now," I shrugged "But yeah, he's staying here with me."
~~**~~
I sat down across Mrs. Hastings on the kitchen table as I offered her a cup of coffee. She eyed the cup momentarily before finally accepting it with a polite thank you.
She started down at the steaming cup. Her eyes didn't meet mine when she asked, "Has my son been staying here since . . ."
"Since his father kicked him out of his house?" I completed the sentence for her.
She winced but nodded.
"Yes, he has."
"Thank you for letting him stay with you." She said.
I swallowed, "You don't need to thank me for that."
"He doesn't want to talk to me or see me. He has made that explicitly clear." She sighed in resignation, her shoulders slumped in defeat.
It was my turn to wince now.
"I'm sorry?" I tried to sound sincere but it came out more like a question.
I recalled how Archer had told me about all those times when his father had emotionally, verbally, and sometimes even physically abused him and his mother had just stood by silently and on occasion even sided with him.
I couldn't find it in my heart to show her a lot of sympathy.
She took a moment to compose herself. She straightened back up and tilted up her lips into a pleasant smile.
"I'm not here to see Archer." She said, "I have something for you."
She took out a sleek envelope from her purse and slid it towards me.
Alarm bells started going off in my head.
"What is this?" I asked as I eyed the envelope suspiciously.
"Open it." She urged.
An uneasy feeling started to settle in the pit of my stomach but I slowly tore the seal open and looked inside.
My heart dropped.
It was a check.
In my name.
My eyes widened in shock as I counted the number of zeroes on it.
"What-" I managed to sputter.
Mrs. Hastings shrugged nonchalantly. "It will help Archer move out of this godforsaken dirty place. You can leave with him of course. I understand that is the only way he will agree to go."
My lips drew into a thin line as I felt hot pulses of anger and humiliation course through my veins.
"Why did you write this in my name?" I asked quietly.
I watched as her eyebrows drew up in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, Archer is your son, what's yours is his. So why did you write the check in my name instead of his?" My voice grew louder with every word.
She pursed her lips. "Because obviously after what had happened I knew Archer wouldn't have accepted-"
A humorless laugh escaped my lips cutting her off.
"And you automatically assumed that I would?" I seethed. "Because I'm so desperate and pitiable that even after how much you people have insulted and degraded me I would still accept your money."
She looked dumbfounded at my reaction. "I am offering you a chance at a better life, with Archer."
I shook my head, "And I am choosing a life where I can get up each day and look myself in the mirror." I stood up. "I don't need your charity, and neither does your son." I looked her in the eye, "You don't need to worry about us. We can get by perfectly without your help." I motioned towards the door. "If this is the only thing you came for I think it's best if you leave now."
She kept herself composed but I could see that her face had grown pale. For a while, she didn't speak, didn't move.
"You know," She finally spoke. There was a tinge of wistfulness in her voice. "I wasn't born into privilege like most people assume."
I inhaled sharply. Shock coursed through me at her words.
Her eyes met mine. They were the same forest green color as Archer's. "I know what going to bed hungry feels like and I know what it is to be shivering in cold because you don't have a roof over your head. I had to struggle like hell and I had to sacrifice a crucial part of myself to get where I am today."
She ran a hand through her hair and the gesture reminded me so much of Archer.
She continued to speak, "The funny thing is that now that I think about it, back then the thing I hated most wasn't hunger, or the cold or not having money to buy nice things . . . it was the loneliness I used to feel. I'd always thought that if I managed to be rich and successful I'd always be surrounded by people who adored me and I would never have to be lonely again."
"Did it work?" I found myself asking.
Her lips tipped up into a sad smile.
"No, I suppose it didn't."
~~**~~
For the next three hours, Mrs. Hastings told me about her life. Her name was Erin. She told me that her deceased father had been a convicted felon and that her mother used to work three jobs to keep food on the table. One of her mother's jobs had been as a cook for the Hastings family where she'd met David Hastings. The two of them had fallen madly in love and she'd been only nineteen when she'd gotten pregnant with Jordan. They'd gotten married the same year.
She told me about Jordan. About how beautiful and special he had been. She ended up having a huge fight with him over the woman he wanted to marry. How he had left home to live on his own after that fight. She told me how much she regretted not getting a chance to fix things with him, and how she missed him every day.
Then she told me about Archer, who'd been her little miracle baby. She'd had him a full twelve years after Jordan and the doctors had advised against having him because it had been a high-risk pregnancy but she'd wanted him so badly and in the end, she'd had him and she couldn't have been happier.
She told me how naughty Archer had been as a toddler. I laughed when she told me that four-year-old Archer had shaved off half his father's mustache while he slept and how one time she'd spent the entire night looking for her favorite heels only to find out Archer had put them in the freezer.
She also talked about how compassionate Archer had always been. How he'd brought back home a kitten with a broken leg in kindergarten and sobbed until his parents promised to nurse it back to health. How he'd sold the new phone they'd gotten him for his sixteenth birthday and gave the money to their housekeeper when she was having trouble paying rent.
She also told me how bad things had gotten for him at his last high school. How badly people had treated him and how much he had changed because of it.
She had her faults but she was a mother.
And in her own way, she did love her son.
"I think I see small glimpses of the old Archer when he's around you." She told me. She gave me a cheeky grin. "Do you want to see some old pictures of his?" She tapped her phone. "From baby photos to his sweet sixteen. I have them all saved here."
I nodded eagerly.
I had never seen a picture of Archer as a kid and I was suddenly dying to see what baby Archer looked like. I bet he was absolutely adorable.
She went to her photo gallery and clicked on the album titled 'Archer'. She was sliding through her gallery. Stopping now and then at a picture to tell me a small background story.
We were halfway through when I saw the picture.