Page 72 of Finding a Melody

“And then he makes an appearance again with a letter.”

“That’s what it should have been like, but that isn’t. He’s always been sending me letters. I don’t know how long, or how many, but he’s sent me letters in the past.” Tears filled my eyes again.

“What are you talking about?” Paxon seemed confused.

“Lindie got rid of them. She never told me. I only know about it now because the letter he sent me was forwarded to me and she’s already in the hospital.”

“Wait. Hold on.” Paxon tried to understand. “Are you telling me your mother kept his letters away? Got rid of them? And never told you?”

“Yes.” I sniffed and blinked hard, unable to focus as my sight grew hazy.

“Cadence?” Paxon grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight. “Take a breath.”

I did as he said and all my nerves settled again. “I’ve been putting myself out there, singing the best I could with the hopes that he’d hear me. That he’d hear my song and know I was calling for him and he’d come. I’ve been doing that since the day he walked out on me. But he never came. I thought he abandoned me, didn’t want me anymore. I thought that for nearly ten years now. And then to find out that he had been trying to reach me, but Lindie was stopping him...” I shook my head. I didn’t know how to deal with that. He had made me hurt for so long, but now I had to completely change how I felt for too long.

It left me feeling off balance.

“Your mother is a bitch.”

“Ah.” Huh? Not what I thought I’d hear from Paxon.

He shrugged, jaw tight. “I can’t begin to understand your relationship with her, but at the end of the day, your mother is a Grade-A Bitch. You can yell at me or kick me or whatever for calling her that, but it needs to be said.”

“You’re right.”

That shut him up.

“She is a bitch. She’s been a bitch for so long that I don’t know what a mother is supposed to be like. She’s ruined my life repeatedly. Controlled it for so long that I’m not even sure what I want anymore. And even now, while locked away in the hospital, she still wants to control me. I still love her though and those feelings can’t change. When my dad abandoned us, she didn’t do the same. She kept me. Raised me.”

Paxon snorted at that last bit.

“I’m alive now because of Lindie, Paxon. She may not have done it the way that’s normal, but for us it was our norm. I have so much more flexibility in my music because of her, because she’d lock me in a room and force me to produce until my voice was gone and my fingers wanted to fall off my hands. And then she’d continue to push me further. That’s my reality. It’s wrong, yes, but it’s what I knew. Now that I have freedom... it’s hard. But I have all this flexibility because of what she did to me. I have people coming to me for work. I don’t need to dive into the slush of other producers in hopes of getting work. I still get new clients calling me all the time. Lindie’s a bitch, but she’s my bitch.” I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to say, because Paxon was right too. But for me that wasn’t the only truth.

I was sure everyone would think just completely cutting ties with a woman who would beat me was the best idea, probably the only answer, but it wasn’t that easy. I wish it was, but it wasn’t. I loved my mother, and at the end of the day, she was that way because of what I had done. I needed to take some responsibility.

“You’re too good,” Paxon said.

“So I’ve been told.”

“Well, it’s the truth. What are you going to do about your dad?”

“What should I do?”

Paxon shrugged. “I can’t answer that for you.”

“Well what would you do?”

He thought about it for a moment. “If my mom wrote me a letter, I’d burn it. But that’s because I know who she is. You don’t know who your dad is. What you thought he was is apparently wrong. So why not find out?”

Paxon was right, and it followed with what I’d been thinking.

“I’ll write him,” I said. I finally had an address. So why not?

“Sounds like a solid plan to me.”

His gaze was a bit too intense for the moment, so I cleared my throat and glanced at the TV, deciding to change the topic. Hopefully to something more lighthearted. “What are you watching?”

“A show about an obsessive psychopath trying to find love.”