Bound to Be His ( The Archer Family 2)

"I think so, too." Andy nodded. "But it's more than that. I don't think we should see her at all."

"And your brothers agree?"

Andy pursed her lips. "Derrick does. Sort of."

"And Matt?"

"Matt..." She sighed. "Matt doesn't know she's here."

"Why not?" Her heart was pounding along like a stallion’s gallop now. They were finally here. The answer to her question.

"I don't think it would be good for him."

"Why?"

Andy was silent for a minute and then picked up a new bottle and got back to work. "Did you ever have something happen in your life that sort of defined you from that moment on?"

Shay thought of her father's death. The somber funeral and her mother's blank staring face. Then all the boyfriends. The first wedding afterward. That first divorce.

"I think I can understand that," she said slowly, but then she pictured Matt's accident the way it had been on Sports Center. The gore of it. The devastation.

Suddenly, she thought she knew someone who might have an even better idea of that than she did.

"Well, when we graduated high school, Matt decided to drive Derrick and me out to Oregon. We used to do a lot of camping with our dad, so we didn't think it was any kind of big deal, but then we got there and he springs on us that we're actually there to find our mother."

"What?" Shay spluttered. She'd wondered, of course, about what Oregon had meant ever since that first time she'd heard it in the bushes, but she never would have dreamed, never would have imagined...

"Yeah."

"That took some stones."

"Big ones." Andy nodded.

"How did you guys react?"

"Well, I wasn't happy at first. I never really wanted to see her, you know? But I think Matt... you know, he had a year longer with her than I did. He had memories. He had unresolved issues. So, for his sake, I think we both went along with it."

"But how did he know to go to Oregon of all places?"

"He hired a private investigator, as it turns out." Andy shook her head. "He was determined. The PI found a marriage certificate in her name from Portland, so Matt was determined to find her."

"And did you?" she asked.

"Nope." Andy sipped her coffee again. "We spent weeks looking, of course. The address the PI had was an old one. The people didn't have a forwarding address. We thought we might have found the bakery where she worked one day, but Matt had seen pictures and he told us it wasn't her."

"Wow," Shay said.

"Yeah." Andy shook her head. "It was devastating for him, I think. Hard to get over. Like, for one shining moment, he could have had this one thing he always dreamed about, and then just as quickly, it was gone. How could I do that to him again? What if she says she'll come and doesn't show up? Or it could be even worse."

"Could it?"

"Yeah. I mean, what if she comes and she's a total letdown? What if after all these years of picturing who she might have been, she's nothing but a miserable phony?"

Shay considered for a moment. "But wouldn't you want the chance to find out for yourself? Wouldn't you want the chance to meet your siblings?"

Before Andy could answer, a door creaked open at the end of the hall and then Matt's footfall sounded against the tile.

"So, anyway, I told them that they had to remove the sleeves, and they were livid," Andy said, and then let out the fakest laugh Shay had ever heard. Still, she followed along, faking a grin as Matt trudged toward the coffee pot.