Sisters by Fate

By Kim Huffstetler

Meagan is a senior beauty who has been estranged from her mother for most of her life. As her relationship with her father is rocked on prom night, her whole world is about to change. Will she finally learn to forgive her mother in order to restore any hope of fixing their severed relationship?

Christa is a high school junior who has found

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Feb 11, 2020
• ISBN: 9781647532253

Kim Huffstetler

Kim Huffstetler is an author most known for writing math stories. She lives in Charlotte, NC with her loving husband, her three beautiful children, and their pet bunny. She is an elementary educator who strives to teach her students the 'absolute value' of reading and writing a great book!

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Sisters by Fate

Copyright © 2020 by Kim Huffstetler. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, descriptions, entities, and incidents included in the story are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, and entities is entirely coincidental.

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of URLink Print and Media.

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Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020902798

ISBN 978-1-64753-224-6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64753-225-3 (Digital)

06.02.20

*******                   *******

For Rainy, Emma Laina, and Ethan,

my three most cherished possessions.

And for my loving husband, Jon without

whom they would have never been.

For the one I never met…

I’m sorry.

*

Meagan’s Diary – May 20, 2019:

"It’s ironic how life plays your cards for you sometimes – cards you didn’t even know you had been dealt. Here I was living my life longing for a mother, never even considering the fact that I was an only child. But the gift of sisterhood – now that is something.

I can never be ungrateful for the events of my life that led me to meet the elite group of women I now share an endless bond with, nor my two soul sisters and best friends who bore the same mark as me without any of us ever having known it. But once we did know, none of us could have foreseen the way it would change our lives forever. Today I am grateful for all the women in my life - thank God for them.

I know that we all have choices to make, and the consequences of those don’t always stop on our own doorsteps. Instead, they affect others all around us in ways we cannot often see. But blaming someone for the bad choices they made without acknowledging the one good one which out-shadows all the rest is like destining oneself to a lifetime of sadness, self- pity, and regret.

I have chosen to look past the mistakes the ones I love made in the distant past before they knew what they know today. I choose to look on those mistakes as stepping stones to a future filled with learning – learning how to be strong, forgive oneself, and trust in love. I choose to take what I have learned to change the world one sister at a time."

Contents

Saturday 10 days earlier

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Sunday

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Monday

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Tuesday

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Wednesday

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Thursday

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Friday

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Saturday

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Sunday

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Monday

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Tuesday

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Saturday

10 days earlier

Chapter 1

Prom day. Meagan sat cross-legged on her bed staring absently in the mirror at puffy eyes and a red nose. For most high school girls, it was a day that promised to be filled with manicures, hair-styles, and makeup with moms who giggled and cried their way through it. Unfortunately, not so for this girl.

Meagan couldn’t help that she didn’t know her mother. In fact, as far as she was concerned, her mother was some made-up person from her past. Or maybe she was like one of those relatives you heard other family members talk about but you never really knew.

But her mother was a different story. Deny it as she might, Meagan really did care about this person she only knew from distant memories that she had once treasured. Now those memories just hurt. They hurt way down deep inside, in that secret place she kept hidden from everybody, including herself most of the time. Because how could she let that out? How could she reminisce about the woman who didn’t love her enough to stick around and raise her?

She should have been able to take her mind off it easily enough. After all, she had a date tonight with Connor, one of the cutest boys on the varsity basketball team and the object of many a high school girl crush. He had even rented a limo. She had the perfect dress picked out – not just a dress, but a force to be reckoned with. It was something she and her friends had practically unearthed like a hidden treasure, buried deep within the racks of dresses, last season, as forgotten as she often felt. And of course they’d found the perfect shoes, the bag, and the necklace to match. But she just couldn’t seem to find enough energy to bury the pain quite yet in order to enjoy them.

At least Meagan had the two best friends in the world for as long as she could remember, Juley and Tracy. Like most little kids, they had made a pact to stick together through the good, the bad, and the ugly. Meagan had always secretly thought that she alone was responsible for either the bad or the ugly. Though she’d never told them much about her mother or the reasons for her sometimes somber moods or sudden pricks of tears threatening to well, she had a feeling that her father had clued them in. They had always been kind, always stuck with her, and never said a word.

Looking at those carefully selected items lying across her bed now, she sighed. Alone, she mused, her friends having shyly but tactfully declining her offer to get their hair done together because they had already made plans to go together with their moms who were also friends.

Poor things, thought Meagan. They had looked so reluctant when they had looked down at their shoes to stammer out the reason they couldn’t go - ashamed that they had something she didn’t and they knew she wanted deep inside. But they were right; their mothers did need this special day to be a part of. Meagan felt foolish for not even considering that before she had opened her big mouth. It was times like this her own lack of a mother shone through in her inability to use the most basic form of women’s intuition – to know when to keep your mouth shut.

It’s fine, Meagan had lied. I don’t even know what I was thinking – duh. She’d rolled her eyes and smiled, but the last word, intended to lighten the mood, came out in a hoarse croak.

Hey, Meg. You can come with us, Tracy volunteered with a sheepish look on her face.

Totally! exclaimed Juley with almost too much enthusiasm. She glanced at Tracy whose look was both hopeful and resigned at the same time – hopeful that Meagan might say yes, but resigned to the idea that if she did, she may be even more miserable than being alone. "We just have to be together, and our moms love you."

Meagan had glanced from face to face, seeing the honest concern for her in their eyes and a glint of her own pain mirrored back. She’d tried to keep the tears out of her eyes that threatened to give her away. Her friends’ mothers did love her…so why couldn’t her own mother? She’d shoved the thought aside.

Gimme a break, dorks. You guys have a great time. We can catch up before Connor picks me up at seven. Just call me when you’re ready, and I’ll have my dad give me a lift to your house, Trace. She’d scrutinized their expressions; perhaps her brave façade was working? They were starting to look somewhat appeased; or was that relieved? Meagan pasted on her best, albeit fake, mischievous grin. Besides, my dad would love to come with me for a makeover!

Her friends had giggled, obviously satisfied that Meagan was going to be marginally okay without them. Plus it didn’t hurt that they both loved Meagan’s dad, Jeremy. He was a hunk, after-all, and at only 41 he gave all the mothers (and their daughters) a reason to turn their heads. He had never gotten married, but at times like this Meagan almost wished he had. Then she would have had someone…

Ugh! Enough all ready! She thought angrily at herself. Get over it! With that and a smile she didn’t feel, she’d hopped into her car and cranked the engine. She honked her horn twice as she left her friends standing in the driveway exchanging glances. Just for good measure she stuck her phone out the window. Call me! she hollered as she turned onto the main road.

The thing of it was, Meagan’s dad really would take her out for her makeover. She knew that without even asking him. He would be supportive and funny and even attempt to non-chalantly fill in all the gaps created because he was a man – like take her for ice cream, get his hair cut, and maybe even get a manicure of his own. She even knew that he would actually be touched and honored to be a part of such a special day with his only daughter. But still, sometimes she felt inside that all his noble attempts to be both father and mother to her were actually things for which she should feel guilty for inflicting upon him.

Meagan had glanced back out her window to be sure her friends had gone inside. Once she had safely cleared the corner and passed the next intersection, she let the floodgates to her heart open and pulled over to finally cry.

Chapter 2

The weekends were often a lonely time for Laney. Her two young brothers were off on a play date with the neighbor’s little ones this particular Saturday, and she was left alone in the old house while her parents worked or golfed or volunteered somewhere. Though Laney had lived on campus at her school her first year at college, she had given that up last summer when all the girls ran off to their exciting summer plans. Laney had finished the summer semester at home and never left, not missing the cold showers and late-night crazy-business that often interfered with her studies. At home, she had the carriage apartment over the garage all to herself.

Laney looked around the large empty room. The family room in the main house was still somewhat alive with the whispering trickle from the 200 gallon aquarium that separated the great room from the study, but it always seemed lonelier with the absence of the boys’ laughter ringing off the raw timber beams that lined the soaring ceilings. Not that she minded the quiet too much. Normally it would have given her time to work on her college coursework, but this week she had finished her spring finals, and she was honestly tired from the semester’s killer load. She didn’t relish the thought of reading any more microbiology or learning any more about pharmaceutical drugs.

Laney had always wanted to be an obstetrician. She wanted to be someone who could help mothers give birth to their babies in a joyous and uncomplicated episode, especially since her own mother, Winnie, had so much difficulty with her last pregnancy. The twins, Luke and Cam, were born to her when she was 40 – the end of the road for child-bearing, as many viewed the age, and an age where every pregnancy was monitored with eagle eyes and waiting hands.

The fact that her mother had been taking fertility drugs for so many years was most likely what had led to the development of the fraternal twins in her womb who essentially fought with each other for position throughout her pregnancy. She had been so sick that it was hard to witness, and she was confined to bed-rest so early on that Laney and her father, Jake, could barely remember her ever moving around the brick and stone mansion that had been her home since it had been her wedding gift. The whole horrible ordeal ended a full six weeks early when doctors took the boys in an emergency Cesarean to save the lives of all three people involved.

That had been four and a half years ago, but Laney still felt the fear as sharply as she had back then. It was almost surreal, watching someone you loved receive joyfully the gift they had been wishing for so long and then slowly deteriorate in an ironic twist. Winnie regressed quickly from the bustling, beautiful being she had been into a sallow, colorless, helpless figure who spent every day fighting for simple motion and bravely bearing the pain of the beatings that were constantly taking place inside her frail body. It had taken her over a year to regain her looks, her health, and her confidence after that episode, and all of her reproductive parts were left in the room where the boys were born.

It was Winnie’s last hurrah, so to speak, and it could have been her last day on earth had the doctors not saved her. This was what drove Laney to work so hard in school. She wanted to deliver babies, save mothers, and witness new life beginning.

Even though she had already been guaranteed a top-notch education at the esteemed preparatory school where she had spent 12 years of her life, she was not satisfied until she had graduated a year early, as valedictorian no-less, and was accepted into the pre-med program at Columbia College on full-four-year-scholarship. Given her family’s financial situation, however, Laney had declined the money and asked that it be awarded to another deserving candidate anonymously. Really she could have gone anywhere, but with the twins so young, she had wanted to remain close to home. She also didn’t mind the fact that the college was an all-girl school. Still, she was proud of her accomplishment, so much that since her graduation nearly two years ago she had not even allowed herself a summer semester off. This year would be different, though. She was going to volunteer as a lifeguard at the lake and allow herself a little downtime to celebrate reaching the half-way point in her college journey so early.

It was summer break now, at least for Laney. With the absence of school work, she had already begun getting restless, a feeling she rarely indulged, and didn’t fully understand how to deal with. Perhaps it was because Seth was coming down to spend the summer in his family’s home down the street. She really missed him while he was away, and she had scarcely spent any time with him in real life since the day he left last summer.

Laney was smart – even ridiculously so – but she often lacked the more human emotions and even flawed characteristics that bonded people together. She was a quiet, kind, and compassionate young lady with a close-knit group of friends that she had since she could walk, but she wasn’t nearly as comfortable in the social settings that had plagued her throughout the last year of high school. That was part of the reason she had elected to graduate early – to avoid the awkward encounters at parties, the expectations to relax with the other kids getting drunk in their parents’ mansions, and the careless decisions to make out with boys she didn’t even really know or like.

Seth had already gone to college by Laney’s final year, as he was two years older than her. His choice to be several hundred miles away at UNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina secretly hurt her, but she could understand his need to accept the package the esteemed school had offered him. His family was not nearly as wealthy as her own who could trace their heritage (and their money) back generations to before the Civil War. It didn’t change the fact that she was often lonely for him and he for her. Laney hoped that this summer might be the one that changed all that, and maybe changed their relationship for good. Whatever may be, she thought, we shall know soon. His arrival was tomorrow night.

Laney walked over to the fridge. Freshly cleaned counters smelling of lemon greeted her when she entered the kitchen, and a handsome display of spring fruit and nuts sat appealingly in the center of the island. Berta must have been here, she thought. Berta was the family’s housekeeper who worked every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and some Saturdays. Laney had never spoken to her much, but she suspected Berta knew little English. She had been with the family since before Laney was born 19 years ago, but the girl felt as though she barely knew her.

Snagging a beautiful red apple, Laney scrutinized the calendar. It was the second Saturday in May. Mom was at a charity event for underprivileged children in the neighborhood several blocks away in the sprawling, old money, golf-course community they lived in. She shrugged. What the heck. I like helping out. And she did. In fact, the eager faces of the young children receiving book-bags of food to feed their families for the weekend would take her mind off the long, looming summer before her and the two little faces she would not see until the evening.

With that she shrugged a light colored shirt on over her tank top and grabbed a box from the recycling pile to fill with food. I’ll just make a quick detour to the grocery store, she decided, grabbing the keys to her convertible off the peg. On her way out the door, she left a note for Berta to set the alarm if she was still there. Of course, Laney would have never known it; the help parked their cars around the back of the house.

Chapter 3

Christa stared again at the stick in her hands, then glanced furtively back at the package. She tried to focus on the red lines but couldn’t seem to make the words in the directions section mesh with what she was seeing with her own eyes. She looked back at the viewing window before reading them again for the tenth time. Stick, package, stick, package. Her head was starting to hurt. It looked like it was; it even said that’s what it meant. But it couldn’t be…it just couldn’t be. She was only 17. How could this have happened?

Of course she knew how this could have happened. She wasn’t a child anymore, and she was involved, both emotionally and physically, with her first and only love, Clint Myers. Her thoughts drifted to him. Oh crap, she thought. How am I going to tell him? What is he going to say? Her head started to hurt more. They had been going together since the beginning of the school year, both of them juniors, and both of them with plans to leave their hometown of West Columbia, South Carolina. She wanted to go away to art school; he had toyed with the idea of law enforcement or possibly even military service. With another year of high school remaining, they had never really talked about what the separation would mean to their relationship. It always seemed too early for that. Christa swallowed a hard lump in her throat. She wouldn’t want to hurt him or ruin his plans for the future.

Thus far they had just been having a great time together. Though neither one of them was particularly popular or super-attractive, they were both good-looking young kids who were helping each other through the monotony, pressure, drama, and angst which was high school. She still hung out with her friends at lunch and he with his. It’s not that they were hiding their relationship; it’s just that what they shared was precariously balanced on a line between best friendship and teenage lust. Or was it more than that? Both of them were thoroughly convinced that all they would get from their friends was pressure for details and basically grief for getting serious with someone when they were only a year from graduation. They enjoyed each other’s company far too much to sacrifice that to the scrutiny of their other friends.

Christa tore her thoughts away from that avenue. Somehow, though, the possible presence of the second pink line would not let her mind go free. Though she desperately tried not to think it, she caught herself wondering what her parents would say. Her mom had Christa when she was only 19, but she always made a point of telling her not to make the same mistakes she did.

Christa thought for a moment. Had she been a mistake? Okay, probably, just like this would be considered a mistake. But did that mean her mother regretted having her? She tried to look back over the years and remember any times when her mother had made her feel like a burden or like she wished she had done something different. Nothing came to mind. Instead, she had always felt like a welcomed joy, even enjoying priority over the various men that came and went over the years before her mom had married Ted 10 years ago.

Suddenly Christa was filled with a burning urgency to talk to her mom, to cry together and talk about how Christa was conceived and born and why her real dad left and what her parents had said and how she made the decision she did…just everything! But Christa knew she had a great deal of thinking to do on her own before she would be ready for that.

She looked down at the stick again. Honestly the second line was so faint that it might not even be a line. And aren’t these tests supposed to be wrong half the time? she pondered. Besides, she didn’t even feel sick, and everyone knew you felt sick when you were…she stopped herself before she could think the word.

Christa needed a release. She grabbed her most beloved belonging and shoved it into a messenger bag at her hip. There are simply too many beautiful things in life to sit around here worrying myself to death, she scolded. Giving the stick one last cursory glance, she opened up her underwear drawer and shoved it down to the bottom to be forgotten about for a while. Wow. That feels better, she thought. She stopped herself on the way out of her room to turn around and gather the remnants of the package as well, marching them deliberately downstairs to the curb to await Monday’s trash pick-up.

Chapter 4

Christa’s mom, Lisa, was always working it seemed. Even though the day was Saturday, it couldn’t have made a bit of difference. Besides, today was prom day in Lexington, and it promised to be a busy day at the exclusive hair salon where she worked near the Irmo area mall. She did make it a point to take Sundays off to spend with her family, but the barbeque she had planned for tomorrow was not going to pay for itself.

Getting wearily out of bed, she paused to sooth the aching muscles of her neck. Why do I work at a full-service spa I still can’t afford to enjoy? she wondered to herself, slipping her aching feet into the same old flats she wore every day. It was no matter; Ted was as good of a man as there was, and she would be due for a weekly foot rub that evening. The idea made her smile.

Lisa cranked up the hot water in the shower despite the blistering 80 degree heat outside, never-mind that it was still morning. The afternoon promised to be in the 90’s, and she needed to feel fresh and relaxed if she was going to make it till 6:00pm in the busy salon and retain her pleasant disposition. The water felt good on her muscles, and she remained inside the steamy box until her fingertips were red and her hands beginning to look like prunes. Reluctantly she stepped out, gathering herself into a thick terry towel.

She had so few indulgences in life. It was hard being a mom, especially the mother of a 17 year-old when she was only 36 herself. She felt as though she was always trying too hard to be supportive, to provide the right kind of life, and to fill the same comforting role her own mother had two short decades ago. Yet those were big shoes to fill. Her own mother, Angela, had moved to Charleston, South Carolina about five years ago to look after her ailing sister, Jane. When Jane died last June, she left the charming manor she loved and a respectable inheritance to Angela who was only 55.

Angela had married straight out of high school and was pregnant with Lisa a year later. Lisa’s father, however, had not made it past his 25th birthday. He had been killed in a drunk driving accident (his own fault) when Lisa was only three. Angela had known the end to their marriage was coming one way or another; she never looked back and never remarried. She was one of those souls completely content in her own little life. Though she was only an hour and a half away, Lisa missed her terribly.

She sighed. I may not be her, but I’m still a good mom, she realized suddenly. The thought made her smile. I am a good mom, she reaffirmed. She knew Christa didn’t mind that she worked so hard; she also wasn’t the least bit embarrassed that her mom was a hairdresser. Since she wasn’t much of a mall-rat, Christa rarely visited her mom’s workplace, but at least Lisa knew she didn’t shy away because she was embarrassed or ashamed.

The truth was that Lisa was really proud of what she did. She wasn’t some shampoo girl with no talent, but was instead a level four stylist, commanding $40 for a simple haircut. It had taken her years to rise through the ranks, but now she was a confident professional that could choose any salon in the city to work in if she chose. She did not choose, though, because she was happy with her job, her clientele, her friends, and even her home. Wow, she thought to herself in wonder. How long did it take for me to feel this way?

She knew, though. It had been a relatively hard road that had started when she was only 18. She had found out she was pregnant, of course, but then after that…She skipped some of the after that before recalling how hard it was balancing her beauty school requirements with raising a small baby. Then having to crawl back to her mother’s, where consequently she was met with open arms, and where she remained until she had graduated and took her first job cutting hair for $10 in a cheesy strip mall.

It was three years later before she was able to stand on her two feet and seek out a home for her and Christa. Against her mother’s urging, Lisa left home for good, taking with her the only possession she could not live without – her little girl.