Chapter Eight

“My mother was bipolar. I didn’t know that’s what her illness was called until I was about eleven or so, when I was finally old enough to ask questions and do some research. Up until then all I knew was that sometimes Mom was happy and liked to do fun things, but other times she was very, very sad and didn’t get out of bed most days. As I got older, the sad times started taking her over more and more, until that’s all there was.”

Tessa paused to take a tiny sip of the brandy that Ian had insisted she drink. She’d never tried the stuff before, and while the first couple of tastes had made her shudder, there was no denying that the undoubtedly expensive liquor was beginning to warm her up.

“Mom was a writer,” she continued. “She actually had several books published, and the royalties she got from the sales helped support us for a while. Then she started falling deeper into depression and could barely function most days, much less write. And when she did try writing during her manic episodes, it was just a bunch of nonsense, nothing that made sense or that she could ever hope to have published.”

Tessa and Ian were sitting in his library, one of the coziest rooms in his house. He’d started a fire since she had felt chilled, and he was now sitting on the opposite end of the sofa, giving her the space she needed as she visibly struggled to tell him about her life.

“You never tried to find your father?” he inquired gently.

She shook her head. “There was really no place to even begin to do that. One of the few times in my mother’s life when she was actually lucid enough to talk about it, she admitted that I’d been conceived during an especially manic period of her life. The research I did later referred to it as hyper-sexuality. In other words, she slept with a lot of different men in a very short period of time. Any one of them could have been my father. So, no, there’s absolutely no chance of ever learning who my father is.”

“What about the rest of your family - grandparents, aunts, uncles?”

“No.” Another shake of her head. “My mother never talked about her family, not really, but I always had the impression that she’d had a very unhappy childhood, maybe even an abusive one. The few times I tried to ask her about them she always became agitated and changed the subject. I’m guessing she left home at an early age and never tried to keep in touch with any family that she might have had.”

He touched her cheek softly. “Was there no one else then to help you, Tessa? No friends, neighbors, a doctor perhaps?”

“No. We moved around - a lot. When Mom got into one of her manic phases, she’d be full of all these plans, ideas for a new book, and most of those times she’d decide we had to move somewhere different so she could find inspiration. We lived all over the Southwest - Arizona, New Mexico, southern California, west Texas. We’d move at least once a year, sometimes as many as three or four times.”

He frowned. “That couldn’t have had a positive effect on your schooling.”

Tessa gave a bitter little laugh. “It was absolute hell, as one could imagine. I was always the new girl in class, having to play catch up with what all the other kids were learning. I was constantly getting used to a new teacher, a new book, a different way of learning. My grades suffered, and it was usually a struggle just to keep up. And my mother certainly wasn’t any help with studying or schoolwork. When she was manic she’d actually encourage me to skip school so that we could go out and have fun that day instead. And of course when she was down - well, she couldn’t even look after herself, much less take care of me.”

Ian gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. “I’m assuming that with all the moving around you did it was difficult for you to make friends. Is that why you had no one to help you?”

“Partly, yes. I was shy to begin with, so it took me a long time to make friends. And just when I’d finally begin to settle in, my mother would uproot us again and I’d have to start over. So there were never any long term friendships, people I could count on. And then, as I got older, I’d start hearing horrible stories about foster care, especially for kids my age. I was afraid that if I approached a teacher or a doctor and told them about my mother that they would separate us - that I’d wind up in foster care and my mother in some sort of mental institution. So I - I began to look after her as soon as I was old enough.”

“What?” Ian looked and sounded shocked. “How is that even possible, Tessa? How old were you?”

She shrugged. “Maybe seven or eight. When she was in one of her down phases, I’d try to get her to eat, encourage her to get up and about. I learned early on how to look after myself - fixing meals, getting to and from school, even doing the laundry. I was terrified someone would take me away, Ian. My mother might have been sick, but she was all I had.”

“Take another sip of your brandy, darling,” he urged. “I’m sure this all must be upsetting for you to relive.”

Tessa drank a bit more before continuing. “Things got tougher as I grew older and my mother got sicker. When she was manic she’d usually be able to find some sort of job - waitressing, a cashier, a hotel maid. There was never much money, barely enough to keep us going. But when she was down, she couldn’t work, basically just slept most of the day. We - we lived on welfare during those times, sometimes in homeless shelters, sometimes in our car.”

He paled visibly before drinking down the rest of his brandy. “My God, Tessa. To think of you in a place like that - being homeless. Christ, I want to wrap you up in my arms and never let go of you,” he told her fervently.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said softly. “It really wasn’t as bad as I know it must sound.”

“No, I’m guessing it was far worse and you’ll never admit to me just how bad it really was,” retorted Ian. “But I won’t press you for more details right now. Go on.”

Tessa began to twirl a lock of hair between her fingers, betraying her agitation. “As soon as I was old enough I got a job. Fortunately I matured early, so I looked two or three years older than I really was. At thirteen I bluffed my way into working at a summer day camp. Some of the kids attending the camp were older than I was.”

“Thirteen. Bloody hell, you were still a child.” He shoved a hand through his hair, mussing it, clearly displaying his distress. “But it’s beginning to sound like you never really were a child.”