Playing for Keeps by Yahrah St. John Read Free Book Online Page B

mother turned around, her cheeks were stained with tears. It hurt Avery to see her mother in pain, but she would not be dissuaded. She wanted the whole truth and nothing but. She deserved that much.
    â€œWe adopted you because I couldn’t have any children,” her mother said. “I couldn’t give your father a child and despite my shortcomings, he stayed with me. He vowed we’d have a family someday and we did. We had you.”
    â€œOh, Veronica.” Her father came toward her mother and pulled her into his arms. She collapsed under the emotional strain, but he didn’t let go, he just held on tighter.
    Avery did feel a pang of guilt. It couldn’t be easy for her mother to admit that she wasn’t perfect, that she was flawed like the rest of the human race. “I know this is difficult for you, but imagine what this is like for me,” Avery said. “I need answers.”
    â€œHoney, now is not the right time,” her father said over his shoulder. “Can’t you see your mother is upset?”
    Turning blindly, Avery dropped the adoption papers and stumbled down the stairs. She couldn’t stand it anymore. Knowing that her parents, the people she’d confided in, loved and trusted the most, had betrayed her was beyond unbearable.
    Seeing Avery upset, Louisa instinctively called out to her, but Avery shook her head, grabbed her jacket off the coatrack and rushed out the door.
    Somehow she managed to hail a cab and once inside she fell against the back seat. Her whole world was falling apart. Avery covered her mouth with her hand and smothered the grief that threatened to spill out. How could this be happening?
    A short while later as she rode the elevator up to her apartment on Central Park West, the future looked bleak. Her mind was spinning and she had no idea how she was supposed to go on after learning her life was built on a lie. Once she was inside her apartment, she felt sick to her stomach and barely made it to the bathroom before purging her breakfast. Afterward, she fell down to the floor and let out a gut-wrenching sob.
    Â 
    Avery’s emotions raged over the weekend as she reeled from the knowledge that she’d been adopted. She tried losing her sorrows on the piano by playing sad music, and when that didn’t work she did the one thing that usually made her feel better and that was making pottery. Once she felt the moist lumps of clay in her hands as she sat over the potter’s wheel, with her foot on the treadle, Avery felt somewhat calm. But then, out of nowhere she had a bout of hysteria that had her so debilitated she had to leave the wheel. Hours later, she’d accomplished nothing. Somehow she managed to put one foot in front of the other and make it to work on Monday. She masked her inner turmoil to her coworkers and boss even though she was dying inside.
    The only thing she was sure of after she’d cried her eyes out was that she had to find her biological mother. Even if the woman didn’t want to have anything to do with her, she had to find out where she came from, or at least that was what she told herself. But Avery secretly hoped that her biological mother would want to have a relationship with her. She knew that it would hurt her parents to hear she was launching a search, but this was something she had to. If she didn’t, she would always wonder and never be free.
    The problem was that when she called the New York State Department of Health to obtain an original copy of her birth certificate, she discovered that all adoption records were sealed. They suggested she register with reunion agencies or petition the court to open her adoption file. All of which could take a considerable amount of time and Avery had to have answers now. What she needed was to find an honest, reliable private investigator to research her past. Luckily, one of her sorors, Julia Peoples, a fellow alpha kappa alpha from NYU, was a criminal