Chapter 60

Juliette was not having any story about her birth mother. She did not want to reconnect with her and she was still very upset that her birth mother could abandon her from birth. She felt that her mum just wanted to get her out of her womb and throw her away, fortunately she decided to throw her by the dumpster at the orphanage. She just calmly said, "Then that's all I want to talk about. You cannot say you want me and then abandon me at the orphanage and never came to get me. I'm not something she tossed and now needs to reconnect with. I'm a person! With feelings too. She could not even muster the decency to drop me at the doorstep of the orphanage. What if I had cried to death in the rain. I was literally some minutes old! Was she that desperate to get rid of me? Look, she's dead to me and I don't wish to talk to her ever!" Then she finally removed the necklace on her neck and dropped it on the floor.

While Juliette was talking, the woman that came with Sister Cordelia earlier, Janet, came up behind her. She was listening to everything and her head was bent in remorse and sorrow. Sister Cordelia knew that Juliette was filled with rage and nothing she or Janet would say that would change her mind towards her. Sister Cordelia had invited Janet to come see Juliette hoping that if Juliette saw her real mother, her heart may soften towards her.

Juliette noticed that Sister Cordelia kept staring behind her so she turned to see what Sister Cordelia was looking at and she noticed that it was the woman from earlier, the one she had introduced as her friend.

Juliette did not want to be rude so she leaned towards Sister Cordelia and whispered, "I thought you wanted to have a private conversation, what is she doing here?

Sister Cordelia smiled and said, "This is Janet" then she opened her hands for Janet to come closer to them and said, "Janet, this is Juliette." She turned back to Juliette who had still not figured out what was going on and said, "Juliette, Janet is your birth mother"

The smile that was on Juliette's face disappeared at the revelation that Sister Cordelia had made. She was filled with so much fury and instant hatred towards Janet. She looked at Janet and noticed the physical features that they both had.

How did I not notice this before? How did I not see the pattern before now? Sister Cordelia wanted to lure me back so that she could set up a meeting like this with this selfish woman that calls herself my birthday mother, Juliette thought.

She had so much to say to Janet. She wanted to say things that would hurt her as much as she felt. She wanted scream at sister Cordelia but instead she looked directly into Janet's eyes and said, "I hate you more than I have ever hated anything. When I think of the word hate, only you comes to my mind. You were subject to my imagination and I imagined you as a lot of evil things but now that I have a face to it, I know what evil look like." Then she yelled, "You're dead to me, stay the fuck away from me" and stormed off.

"Juliette, come back..." Sister Cordelia called back at her but she was already out of the room. She turned back to Janet, Janet looked physically heartbroken, tears swelled in her eyes. She did not imagine that her only child would hate her this much. She imagined a different meeting and reaction to this meeting. She did not believe Sister Cordelia when she had informed her that Juliette developed a resentment towards her and already did not want her or anything to do with her from when she was just nine years old.

"Janet, listen, she will get around eventually" Sister Cordelia said as she started to pat Janet on her back.

Juliette got back in the living room and then she went to Ashley and said, "Ash, can you wait and get the documents? Also, give me your keys, I cannot be in this house right now."

Ashley and Matt could see that there were tears in her eyes and that she was very upset. Ashley handed her the keys to the car while Matt offered to take her to the car. Skye also followed them to the car.

Matt did not say anything when they got into the car, he just watched Juliette try to fight the tears that was struggling to fall down from her eyes. He could see that she was very upset but he did not know what else to do or say, he just tapped her shoulder and opened his arm showing her that she should lean in for a hug. Juliette began to sniffle and then she leaned in for a hug.

Ashley that was in the passenger seat in front of the car leaned back and tried to console Juliette. She had never seen Juliette that vulnerable, nobody had seen her that vulnerable. Soon, her sniffle changed to tiny sobs on Matt's shoulder, he just continued to pat her back, whispering, "It's okay, you're safe. You are fine, I'm here with you."

After what seemed like ten minutes of her crying on him, she moved away and proceeded to clean the tears from her face and then relaxed. Skye handed her the water from the bag that they bought on their way here. She gulped down the water and said, "Where's Ash? We need to get the hell out of here."

Skye wanted to know what was wrong so she said, "What's going on Juls? What happened in there?"

Matt just said, "I guess she's still trying to get the documents from the woman—the woman you were talking to earlier."

Juliette sniffled and said, "Oh."

Matt wanted to ask her what happened in there because he knew that whatever was serious enough to upset her this bad was probably something unexpected. He did not know if it had something to do with Skye but he needed to be sure it was not because he knew it would hurt Juliette, so he asked, "What happened in there, Juliette?"

Juliette arranged her hair away from her face and said, "It's nothing serious, Sister Cordelia just pulled a fast one on me. She basically played me to come here and then jumped on me with something that I already buried."

Of course what she said confused both Matt and Skye, she was practically speaking in codes but they did not want to upset her further so they both nodded and did not ask further questions.

Ashley went into the room that Juliette had come running and screaming from and then she saw Sister Cordelia trying to console the woman she had come in with earlier, she assume that the woman was the reason for Juliette's angry outburst so she asked, "What the hell is going on here? Sister Cordelia, would you care to explain why Juliette ran off crying like she did?"

Sister Cordelia offered Ashley a seat beside them and said, "I think you should take a seat, it's a long story."

Ashley looked at her with a questionable expression, she was not interested in sitting but she knew that that was the only thing that might make Sister Cordelia talk about whatever it was they were talking about earlier. She did not want to fully sit, so she just sat on the arm of the chair and said, "So?"

Sister Cordelia looked at the woman as if asking for approval and then the wan spoke first, she said, "Honey, my name is Janet Curtis, I am Juliette's birth mother"

Ashley's eyes widened and then she slid fully into the chair and Sister Cordelia said, ''I told you you will need to sit down for this one."

Janet looked at Sister Cordelia and then back at Ashley and said, "I have been trying to reconnect with her for the longest time and I have been asking Sister Cordelia to give me her address but she wouldn't. She told me that it would frighten Juliette and I just wanted to see my baby again. I even bought a house in New York because I heard that she was in New York, Sister Cordelia still did not want to give me her address—"

"Lady—" Ashley interupted

"Janet. Ashley, show courtesy and call her Janet, she just told you her name was Janet." Sister Cordelia corrected her but Janet patted her hands and told her it was okay.

Ashley did not bat an eye, she was not going to be poliet to the woman who just confessed to almost pulling a surprise visit on Juliette, so she said, "Janet, why did you think that you'd dump her some minutes after birth at a dumpster and just think you're entitled to her life now as an adult?"

Janet sniffed and said, "There were reasons I could not openly keep her off at the orphanage. When I got to the dumpster that night, I had just run away with her, she was not even cleaned up, she still had blood all over her body, and my placenta was still hanging down but I tied it around my thigh and ran away. Look, I was running away from—just know that I was trying to protect her life—"

"While trying to barely live too" Sister Cordelia explained further. "When I saw her at the dumpster—I don't know if Juliette explained much to you but the dumpster has this huge tree and Janet was trying to hide there—she was worn out, scared and barely able to move. It was raining, she had a paper gown, you know, the type they give you at the hospital but she wrapped Juliette inside, close to her heart to keep her warm, she was trying to preserve Juliette's life. She had walked for hours from where she ran away from and they were looking for her with hounds and other cars, I had to hide her inside the orphanage for a week, I took Juliette from her and tried to nurse her because she had developed pneumonia from the cold. Janet had gotten an infection and I had to sneak a doctor who was a friend of mine into the room I hid her in the basement, to treat her. They could have both been killed if Janet had—"

"Killed? Killed by who?" Ashley asked.

Sister Cordelia looked at Janet again and she nodded and said, "Juliette's father"

Ashley did not understand what they meant, she wondered why Juliette's father would want to kill his own daughter and even go as far as using hounds to track her down to kill her. She blinked a couple of time and then asked, "Like-like her real father?"

The two women nodded their heads.

"So, he wanted to kill her?" Ashley asked again, she wanted to be sure that she had heard what Janet and Sister Cordelia had said.

"Still wants to, if he finds her." Janet said calmly.

Ashley shook her head and said, "So, we gotta get her out of here as fast as possible, we also gotta report to the police or something. They need to know what is acty going on, we cannot let this go on." Just then, she noticed that the women were not even panicking half as much as she was, and she wondered why they were so calm when they practically just said that there was a mad man out there that wanted to kill her best friend. "Why are you guys so calm about this? Didn't you just say someone was trying to kill my best friend?" We need to do something!"

Janet took a deep breath and said, "Ashley, we cannot force her to do anything she doesn't want to."

Ashley could not believe what she just heard so she said, 'If she knew that someome was about to kill her, I think she will be more careful."

"No, the thing is, she is safe not knowing about it." Janet replied very calmly. Sister Cordelia nodded to what Janet had just said and then she said, "Juliette does not trust Janet and whatever we tell her now will make her curious and she will expose herself. When she trusts Janet, that is when Janet can help her."

"And I don't know how long that will take because I need to get my baby out of this country. I had to change my entire life and I have been living on the low because I don't want that man to find me or her." Janet added.

Ashley noted that she was very calculative. Something about the way Janet spoke and the way she behaved made Ashley believe that she could actually help Juliette, so Ashley asked her, "What do you guys want me to do to help. I cannot let my only family die in the hands of her mad father. What should I do?"

Janet looked at Sister Cordelia as if she was trying to get her permission, Ashley was over this signal the two women were trying to pass to each other and then she said, "You guys! Please stop with the look of permission from each other, I'm invested in this as it stands now."

Sister Cordelia took a deep breath and then Janet said, "Ashley, I'm sorry, it's just that I don't know if this is a good idea, I don't want you to get hurt, this is not your fight, it is—"

"Okay, I'm just gonna stop you there and say this, I am invested in this okay? Juliette is my family and I know that we're not blood related but she's my younger sister and I will go to war for her. I will give up my life if it means that she will be safe because she will do the exact same for me. She is the only person I know that takes loyalty very seriously so I will do anything you guys want me to do just to keep her safe." Ashley said and she meant every word of what she had said.

Janet and Sister Cordelia saw her determination and knew that she was serious about what she had just said so Janet said, 'Well first, I will give you my card, it has my address and my phone numbers and most of my stuff on there." Then she reached into her bag to bring out her card for Ashley.

Ashley was trying not to laugh at what Janet had just said about owning a physical card, so she said, 'Um Janet, you know that you could digitalize all that right? Do you have a cell phone?"

Janet was confused but she said, "Yeah, I have one of those but what if your phone gets missing and you need to make an emergency phone call or if your phone's battery is dead or something and you need to contact someone, then what do you do? Beside, I heard these things are very trackable"

Ashley nodded and said, "Damn? You're just like Juliette, you make everything sound interesting and you give great points in arguments. Fine, give me the card."

Janet brought the card, when Ashley saw the card, she realized why Janet wanted to give it to her, it was a beautiful card and it looked like a credit card, it was sophisticated, just like Janet...