I'm Afraid I Won't Be Able to Leave

Asher Keating’s eyes flew open to see Leah Sinclair standing there, her face deathly pale, looking utterly lost.

He hurried over and gently put an arm around her. "What are you doing here?"

Leah Sinclair had been resting, but she faintly heard screaming and crying from the room next door.

She was worried Asher Keating might do something rash in the heat of the moment. Feeling uneasy, she pushed through her discomfort to come and see, only to overhear what Mabel Grant said at the door.

Mabel Grant turned to look at her. Leah’s face was ashen, her eyes filled with disbelief as she stared intently at Mabel, who suddenly found herself at a loss for words.

Fighting through the pain, Leah Sinclair walked step by step toward Mabel Grant, her voice trembling. "Tell me, what... what were you just saying?"

"Sister, back then, Mom..." Mason Grant began, trying to explain anxiously.

"I wasn’t asking you!"

"You heard right. You’re my daughter, the second daughter of the Grant family." Mabel Grant’s voice trembled as well.

But she knew this wasn’t the right place for this conversation. She took Leah Sinclair’s hand and said softly, "I know you must have so many questions. It’s not a good time right now. How about I come find you tomorrow and explain everything properly? For now, you should go back and get some rest."

As she spoke, she looked up at Asher Keating. "Third Master Keating, take her home for now. I’ll come to see you both tomorrow."

"No! You’re going to tell me everything right now!"

Leah Sinclair refused to leave. After twenty-four years, she was meeting her supposed mother for the first time. How could she possibly walk away knowing nothing?

Mabel Grant looked at Leah’s stubborn yet bewildered eyes and sighed softly. She turned and said, "Nash, Shawn, I’ll leave this to you. Mason, you’re with me."

As she passed Asher Keating, she said quietly, "You come too."

Asher Keating followed them silently into the room across the hall. Leah Sinclair’s gait was a little awkward, and as he watched from behind, his brow furrowed.

"Have a seat."

After Mabel Grant had Leah Sinclair sit on the sofa, she casually gestured for Asher Keating and Mason Grant to do the same. She and Brandon Jacobs sat opposite them, and silence descended on the room.

Asher Keating sat beside Leah Sinclair. Her body was trembling slightly, so he took her hand. Leah dazedly turned to look at him, the rims of her eyes slowly turning red. Asher felt a pang in his own heart.

"This story... it begins more than twenty years ago. I was with Tobias—your father. He was Thomas Sterling’s younger brother, but his personality was completely different from Thomas’s."

Mabel Grant’s gaze grew distant as she recalled the past. "He was a very good man. When I became pregnant, I knew my family would never approve, so I hid it from them, determined to have you. But your grandmother found out. On the day you were born, I was too weak... She had someone take you from my arms. They came back and told me she... she’d thrown you out in the mountains."

As she spoke, Mabel Grant could still recall the utter despair and rage she’d felt watching her wailing child being carried away, powerless to snatch her back.

"I always thought you were dead. After that, I left the country. I didn’t come back until over a decade ago, when I moved to Kingsford. A few months ago, your grandmother passed away. Just before she died, she finally told me the truth: she had only given you away to a family. But the person who had taken you away had already passed away years earlier."

"I couldn’t find any leads. For the last few months, we’ve been searching for you in secret. Then, when Third Master Keating posted online to officially announce you as his girlfriend, Mason saw your photo. He noticed your eyes looked just like mine, and he saw the red mole on your collarbone."

"I wanted to come to Riverfall immediately, but Nash and Shawn told me not to rush, since we couldn’t be sure. Ever since Mom found out you were still alive, she’s been looking for you, Sister. I was afraid of getting her hopes up only to be wrong, so the three of us came to Riverfall first."

"When Shawn visited your home for dinner last time, he managed to get a strand of your hair. I sent it for a DNA test, and the results confirmed you are Mom’s daughter. My sister," Mason Grant finished, picking up where Mabel Grant had left off.

Leah Sinclair remained silent after they finished. Both Mabel Grant and Mason Grant watched her with apprehension. Seeing her lips pressed into a thin line, Asher Keating gave her hand a worried squeeze.

Leah Sinclair lifted her head and looked calmly at Mabel Grant. "So... you weren’t the one who threw me away?"

"How could I ever throw you away? Tobias and I were truly in love. You were our child. How could I have possibly parted with you?" Mabel Grant’s eyes filled with tears as she met her daughter’s distant gaze.

"Then... what about him?"

Mabel Grant knew she meant Tobias Sterling. Her heart seized. "He... he’s dead. It was an accident. But he loved you so much. The moment he knew I was pregnant, he bought a small gold locket for you and said he’d give it to you the day you were born."

"...An accident?"

"Yes, an... accident. He died when I was five months pregnant with you. Then, after you were born, you were taken away. I was utterly devastated, so I left the country."

Leah Sinclair’s voice trembled as she looked at Asher Keating. "Asher... I-I’m not an orphan. My... my mom and dad didn’t throw me away, right?"

Ignoring that Mabel Grant was still there, Asher Keating gently pulled Leah into his arms and kissed her. "No, you’re not."

"So, Sister, you... please don’t blame Mom. If she’d known you were out there, she would have found you. All these years, Mom would always take out the one photo she has of you from when you were born, and the clothes she’d prepared, and just... cry quietly. She thought I didn’t know, but I always knew," Mason Grant said, his voice full of sorrow as he looked at Leah Sinclair.

Mabel Grant flushed, embarrassed by his words. She truly had no idea Mason had ever seen her cry; she had always thought she’d hidden her grief so well.

Leah Sinclair looked at Mabel Grant. After a long pause, she spoke softly, "So, I should call you... Mom?"

The moment the word "Mom" left Leah’s lips, tears streamed down Mabel Grant’s face. Unable to hold back any longer, she walked over, knelt before Leah Sinclair, and gently embraced her. "Yes. I’m your mom."

She had thought Leah would reject her, even hate her. For days, she had been a bundle of nerves, preparing herself for a long, difficult road to reconciliation. She never imagined Leah would accept her so quickly.

Asher Keating, however, knew just how adaptable Leah Sinclair could be. ’When I first made our arrangement, she hesitated, but then she adapted to her new role just as quickly.’

’She was always keenly aware of her position. It all stemmed from her upbringing, which had forced her to learn how to adapt so quickly.’

’For Leah, parents were the one relationship she had yearned for the most, a weight on her heart for more than twenty years. Her childhood fear was that her parents had abandoned her. Now she knew that wasn’t true. In fact, they had both loved her dearly. There was no way she wouldn’t accept them.’

Held in Mabel Grant’s embrace, Leah Sinclair’s body was stiff. This was her mother, the person she had longed to meet for twenty-four years. For the very first time, she was resting in her mother’s arms, and her own tears began to fall uncontrollably.