Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

She has the same hair color as me, and the same pouty lips. She's tall and very thin, her wide eyes are showcased in a respectful amount of mascara, those lips that look like mine are covered in a matte red lipstick. She looks older than the woman that I remember from my childhood. That's not surprising considering it's been fourteen years.

The last time that I saw this woman, I had found her lying still in a pool of her own blood with her arms cut from her wrist to her elbow crease. Her stomach was swollen with an eight month old fetus, her wide eyes were shut and her face was wet with tears.

"Eleanor," She says my name in a familiar and gentle voice. "It's really you."

I stand paralyzed beside Micah, not sure about what to do in this situation. I've never imagined seeing her again after she didn't come back for us at the foster home. Just when I thought that I was getting my life together, this happens. That's just great.

"It's really good to see you," She adds when I don't say anything, glancing over at Micah and then back at me. "I hope that this isn't a bad time."

"This actually is a bad time," I clear my throat and find some words to say instead of just standing here like an idiot. "Any time is a bad time, I don't want to talk to you. I have things to do."

"El-"

"No," I stop Micah from saying my name, maybe trying to reason with me to hear her out. "I have to go."

I'm beginning to tolerate my father's existence in my life only because he didn't know that Casey and I were in foster care. He thought that our mother would have taken us after she got out of the mental hospital for trying to kill herself. But she knew where we were, and that we'd stay there if she didn't come get us. She let me rot in that place just so that she could start a new life.

You shouldn't be able to start a new life once you have children. And if you do, then those children should start with you, not be left behind.

I try to walk around her to get to my car, but my mind is buzzing and I can't see very well. I can't think. I can barely even move.

I feel like I'm eight years old again, finding my mother in the kitchen, on the floor. There was so much blood and I thought that she was dead. I thought that the baby was dead too. Even before Casey was born, I was so excited for him to be here. I felt so alone when it was just me and my mother that when she told me another baby was coming, I was so excited to not be alone anymore.

But when I walked into the kitchen that day, and I saw her lying there unconscious, I couldn't breathe. I had never felt more alone in the world than I did in that moment. Nobody ever paid much attention to me, I only had my mother. Who, granted, didn't pay much attention to me either, but she sometimes brushed my hair and made me dinner. Only on her good days.

She was dead, I thought. I was only eight, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't reach the phones, so I had to run to a neighbors house covered in my mother's blood.

Covered in blood and tears, I looked just like my dying mother.

"I know that you don't want to see me," She walks with me to my car. "But I need to explain something to you. Chelsea called me and told me that you have been misinformed about your childhood."

"I have to get my boyfriend to campus, I don't have time for this," I decide as I go to open my car door.

Micah stops me, putting his hand over mine. "Hey, I can call and cancel. I think that you should hear her out."

"You have an exam next week, you can't cancel your study group," I remind him in a quiet voice to keep Bonnie out of it.

"I can't leave you like this, you look like you're really freaking out," He mutters, looking very concerned for my well-being.

I know that this exam is important for him, and he's been stressing about it lately. I can't let my terrible family problems hurt his education. Especially right now when he's looking for a job.

"I will talk to her," I make a deal with him. "Only if you go to your study group. I'll be fine."

"Okay," He gives up and kisses my lips very briefly.

With a resigned sigh, I turn around to face the woman waiting for my decision. "I'm going to take him to campus and then I will meet you at the coffee shop on the corner of first and eighth."

To make my decision final, I open the door and get inside of the car. I start it while Micah gets in the passenger side and I don't even look back before I take off out of the parking lot toward the Georgetown campus.

"Are you sure that you'll be okay?" Micah looks apprehensive. "I could call Casey."

"No, don't call Casey. I don't want him to know that she's here. Hopefully, she won't be here for too long anyway," I sigh. "She said that Chelsea told her to come? Is she trying to play some sort of game?"

"I don't know. I'll call Jay and see what's going on," He offers me as I'm pulling up to the building that he needs to be at for his meeting. "Call me if you need anything, alright?"

"I will," I promise him. He leans over and kisses me briefly before he leaves the car and heads into the building. I know that I promised him that I'd go meet Bonnie at the coffee shop, but I'm tempted to just go home and forget that the past ten minutes have ever happened.

I don't want her to show up at Casey's school though, or my apartment, so I end up pulling into the parking lot of the coffee shop and convince myself to walk into building.

I see her sitting at a little table in the corner of the shop and when she sees me walking toward me, she offers me a nervous smile. "Thank you for meeting with me, Eleanor."

"You have ten minutes," I sit down in the chair across from her and I adjust my blazer so that I can sit comfortably. Well, as comfortably as I can in this situation.

"I came here because Chelsea had explained to me that Silas has been lying to you," She informs me quickly. "Up until a few days ago, I thought that you were living with Silas. He was supposed to raise you like I couldn't. But she said that you are under the impression that Silas thought that I was raising you while you were living in foster care."

"What are you talking about?" I give in to her accusations because I'm curious. I shouldn't go digging up the past and just move on, but Silas has specifically told me that he thought that I was with my mom all of these years. I want the truth, although I don't trust either one of them.

"I loved your father for a very long time. He told me that if we had children together, he could leave his wife for me," She explains to me, talking quickly so that she can keep everything within the ten minute time limit that I'd given her. "I don't know how much of your childhood you remember, but I'm sure that your memories of me are not fond. I never wanted children, I was never a good mother and I wasn't cut out for it. I did it for Silas.

"He wanted you, and he wanted Casey too," She continues, her fingers fidgeting with each other on the table. She's got a nice manicure. "But when I moved to D.C. to be with him, he turned me down."

"I remember that fight that you had," I tell her. "When he was yelling at you for coming to the city to be with him."

"I had thought that having a family is what he wanted, and then we'd be together. When that didn't happen and I realized that he'd never leave Chelsea for me, I was absolutely devastated. I'm sure that you remember how that ended."

With lots of blood. Of course I remember.

"When I got out of the facility that I was staying in, I got better but I knew that I still wouldn't be able to raise you or your brother the way that you deserved to be raised. So, I went to see your father one last time when I got out, while you were in foster care. I gave him the address of the foster house, and I told him that I was leaving town. I gave him the paperwork that he would need to get custody of both of you."

"You're lying," I say slowly. "Silas didn't know that you left without us. Did Chelsea put you up to this?"

"I know that you have no reason to trust me," She sighs. "But if I knew that you were stuck in that foster home, I would have come back for you. I saw the love in Silas's eyes when he held you as a baby, the day that you were born. And when he'd visit every month, I saw how much love he had for you in his eyes. I was so sure that he'd be ecstatic to take you both home."

"This is ridiculous."

"Well, I don't have any proof. You could go ask Silas yourself. Maybe he'll tell you the truth, now that I'm here," She suggests. "Chelsea asked me to come because after I told her the story, she had informed me that you've been rekindling your relationship with Silas on the basis that he didn't know where you were. I don't want you getting close to that man without knowing all of the facts."

"If you thought that I was being raised by Silas, why didn't you question the fact that we were never on TV with the rest of his family? You have seen him on TV, haven't you?"

"Yes, of course. I just thought that he didn't want to go public with his children out of wedlock. I truly thought that you were still part of his family though," She answers me, looking very sincere and apologetic. I don't buy it though. She could still be making all of this up. Chelsea doesn't want me forming a relationship with Silas, so she put Bonnie up to convincing me that he isn't who I think he is.

And it's not like we are forming a relationship. Not a strong one anyway. I let him buy me a car and he's helped with some of Casey's school, but we don't talk regularly or anything like that. I'm still pretty much disgusted by both of my parents, no matter who knew what. They both left and neither one of them wanted me or Casey.

"You're telling me that you had two kids. You went through giving birth twice to kids you didn't even want just to end up with some married prick?" I ask her. I've always known that part of the story, that she never wanted kids herself and did it for Silas. I had always thought that she concocted that plan on her own though, I didn't know that Silas asked her to have kids with him. That is, assuming that she's telling the truth, which she probably isn't.

"I know that it sounds ridiculous and pathetic on so many levels," She confirms with a nod. "But I was young and I wasn't in a good place. I really loved him, and he was the only person that was ever there for me. I really thought that he'd be there for you too. Look, you should talk to Silas about this. I just want you to know the truth, Eleanor. I'll be in the city for a few more days, you can call me anytime if you want to talk some more."

She hands me a business card with her name at the top and under her name, it says that she's a realtor. When I knew her as a child, she worked at a hotel front desk. It seems that she's gotten her life together in the past fourteen years that she's spent away from me.

"There's one more thing," She says quickly before I can get up and leave. I want to go talk to Silas to see exactly what's going on and why Bonnie is showing up in the city for a family reunion. "I was unconscious when they saved Casey. I was heavily sedated when they took me to the nursery to see him and he was connected to all of those tubes."

"That's what happens when a mother tries to kill her son," I remind her. I know that she was mentally ill at the time, but I can't understand how she couldn't get past that for Casey's sake. Then again, her maternal instinct never really did kick in.

"I know," She closes her eyes, seeming ashamed. "I would like to meet him. I never got to meet him."

"No," I say quickly and without even having to think about it. "We were never really your children. We were just props for you to use to get the love and affection of a married man who was only using you. You are not Casey's family, I am. And I won't let you drag him into this mess."

"At least tell me how he's doing," Bonnie pleads with me.

"He's doing great, no thanks to you. He's really smart, and brave, and kind. Nothing like either one of his parents, by some miracle," I answer her as I stand up from the table now to leave. "You made your choice not to be a part of our lives. You can't go back on that now."

I leave the coffee shop without looking back at her. I don't want to believe her because it's easier to take Silas's side in this. He didn't know that I was in foster care, that's why he never came for us. Bonnie left because she was sick and she never wanted us anyway, she tried to kill herself when her con to get him to leave his wife didn't work.

That's what it was—a con. Because Silas never asked her for children. Why would he do that when he already had two kids with his wife? That doesn't make any sense.

I still can't go back to my apartment until I've gotten some more answers from Silas himself. Although, if he has been lying, I'm not sure why he would start telling the truth now. I have to at least try.

I have to know the truth, despite the fact that it absolutely terrifies me. I don't really want to know what happened when I was eight, or which parent is more terrible than the other, but I know that I need to find out. It'll gnaw at me until I know the truth about what happened fourteen years ago.

All I want to do right now is find out what the hell is going on.