Unwanted Heat

Nicholas

“Sir?” Carter approaches us.

“What?” I say more harshly to Carter than I intend to, but this night is turning out like nothing I ever expected.

“I have secured a private room across the hall if you wish to continue this… conversation this evening,”

Carter glances around the room reminding me that we are at a public event. Somehow it appears no one has yet noticed the tense discussion, which I’m grateful for. The last thing Kenzie needs right now is for someone to overhear her life story and run to the press with it. Why I didn’t think to move us to another room before now is beyond me. My entire focus has been on Kenzie and the piece of shit in front of us who caused her so much pain. I completely forgot, that although we were near the entrance to the room, we were still very much in a public place. I was so wrapped up in the drama unfolding in front of me, that I didn’t realize Carter and Hunter were essentially keeping anyone from getting too close.

“Donald, there is a room where I think it would be best if we continued this… discussion,” I take Kenzie’s hand in mine and lead her out the door, where Hunter opens a door to a small but empty meeting room. Obviously, Carter thought ahead as there were two bottles of wine, along with a couple bottles of liquor on a small table at the front of the room. I’m about to turn to ask Kenzie if she would like a drink, when Hunter walks over with two glasses in his hand. Before I have a chance to point out what she is about to drink, Kenzie takes the tumbler full of whiskey and downs it in one quick gulp before handing it back to Hunter.

“I’d like another one please, Hunter,” although still polite as always, her voice is almost… detached and cold.

I long for the woman I had on the dance floor earlier this evening to come back, but I can’t blame her for her reaction to everything that is going on. It’s taking everything in me not to inflict the same amount of pain on the piece of shit woman as she inflicted on Kenzie for so many years. I have to constantly remind myself that I was raised better than to hit a woman. With every minute that passes, this woman pushes me closer and closer to giving into the urge.

Kenzie downs a second glass, before slamming it down on the table in front of. While Donald and I both jump in surprise, neither Kenzie nor Estelle move.

“Explain how my father ruined my mother.”

“You’ve always been such a drama queen-”

“Estelle! You will answer whatever questions she has, or so help me, you will find your own way home tomorrow,” Donald grits through his teeth.

“Donald!” her shock is evident on her face. Something tells me that no one has ever spoken to her like that before.

“You tell her everything she wants to know right now. You don’t get to mess with this young woman’s life more than you already have.”

“Fine,” she says reluctantly. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything,” I answer before Kenzie even has a chance. “Tell her everything you know about her father, his name for starters and then everything else.”

“I don’t know why it matters, he may not even be your father but she told me his name was Brett… Rose, I assume, since she apparently gave you his last name,” Estelle says. “Your mother met him when he was on temporary leave from the military. They were attending the same wedding of mutual friends or so I was told. She was barely eighteen at the time, yet he gave her alcohol and then took her back to his hotel room for the night. She came home the next morning completely hung over and refused to tell us who she was with. It wasn’t until she told us she was pregnant, a few months later, that she finally revealed his identity. Your grandfather tried to locate him, but he had already been shipped overseas and was not scheduled to be returned to the states for several years.”

“So that’s how he ruined her life? By having sex with her and leaving, not knowing she was pregnant?” Kenzie asks.

“In a way, yes,” Estelle answers. “Your mother was supposed to get married; everything was arranged-”

“Wait… arranged? Like an arranged marriage?” Kenzie interrupts.

“UGH, don’t you know how rude it is to interrupt young lady?” “Estelle!” Donald exclaims.

“Don’t you-” I jump in.

“Don’t you know how rude it is to blame a child for her parents’ actions her entire life? To take your own anger out on them, when they didn’t do anything to deserve it? To constantly put down a child, who had already been through so much? Don’t you dare stand here and act all high and mighty with me,” Kenzie spits.

“Yes, the marriage was arranged,” a few minutes pass before Estelle resumes her story. “Avery was to marry the son of a prominent business man in California, which would have brought the two companies together. This had been arranged for years; they had been dating since she was sixteen and he was scheduled to propose marriage to her after she graduated from high school. Only, by then, we had learned she was pregnant, which negated the entire arrangement. I mean, who would want to marry a pregnant eighteen-year-old? No matter how much money your grandfather offered, the man refused to take the responsibility on for another man’s child. And your mother stupidly waited too long to tell us she was pregnant to terminate the pregnancy. She refused to consider adoption, which would have allowed the arranged marriage to continue.”

A small noise catches my attention, normally Carter would be waiting outside with Hunter, but I think there was so much tension in the group that he felt it necessary to stay in the room. He’s standing at the door, keeping an eye on the situation, but I have no doubt he can hear everything that is said. While I would prefer it be Kenzie’s decision what he knows about her past, she hasn’t indicated dissatisfaction with him being in here.

“Let me see if I understand this correctly,” I try to process everything that Estelle just revealed. “Because Kenzie’s mother accidently became pregnant and refused to put the baby up for adoption, you thought that gave you the right to take your anger out on Kenzie when she came to live with you?”

“Surely a successful businessman, like yourself can understand what was lost by the failed marriage-”

“Because of a business deal? That’s how you’re explaining your behavior?” Kenzie asks. “A fucking business deal?!?!”

“It wasn’t just a business deal,” Estelle snaps. “It was our entire future-it was everything my husband had worked for his entire life! We weren’t able to have any other children, which meant that Avery’s husband would be the only one who could take over for my husband when he was ready to retire. Instead she meets some… private in the Army…”

I watch Carter’s fists clench and unclench, as we all heard the distaste and lack of respect in her voice, for someone who served in our military. It’s obvious money and reputation is the only thing this woman cares about; if I hadn’t already lost all respect for the woman already, that would have done it right there.All content © N/.ôvel/Dr/ama.Org.

“You do understand that all enlisted men start off as privates, right?” Donald asks. “Including myself.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Estelle tries to back pedal when she realizes her glaring mistake. “I just meant that as opposed to the son of a successful businessman, who was a Yale graduate…”

“That’s how my father ruined my mother?” Kenzie asks, shocked.

“Yes! Her entire life was set, before she met him that night-her life would have been absolutely perfect! Instead, she ends up pregnant and alone with no one to support her. She took you and ran away one night and it was years before we heard from her again and only then, it was to call and beg us for help.”

“You didn’t help her, did you? I didn’t even know you existed until the caseworker told me she tracked you down,” Kenzie says.

“No, I didn’t help her! It was her decision to keep you; it was her decision to ruin the life we had planned for her. I told her to call your father and tell him he needed to own up to his responsibility; he should have been the one to help hernot us!”

“Did she contact him?”

“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but Avery insisted she tracked him down, but he was still overseas at the time. She claimed he was going to start sending her money and once he returned they would be married.”

“What happened?”

“He was killed in action a few months later.”

“So they never saw each other again?”

“Not that I know of. She called me a few days later asking for help, but as I told her: she made her bed, it was time for her to lay in it.”

“You set her up for failure! She had nothing beyond a high school education and was a single parent with no support. How the hell was she going to make it on her own?” Kenzie fires back.

“It was the decision she made when she decided to keep you. I only stepped in when I absolutely had to-”

“After she died and I had been living alone in a shitty trailer for weeks by myself! You have no idea the life we lived! She was drunk and high all the time; we constantly moved from place to place because she couldn’t keep a job to save her life. She jumped from man to man trying to find someone who would take care of her. God… you have no idea what our life was like! You could have made things so much better, if you just offered the help she was asking for. It didn’t have to be like that… it could have been so different.”