Chapter 8:
The press descended en masse on them when they got out of the courtroom. Police officers formed a cordon so that Emma, Charles, Andi, and Ororo could get to their cars unhindered.
Andi collapsed into the back seat of Ororo's car with a gasp of relief, and Ororo quickly got the car moving. Emma had driven Charles to the courthouse; Ororo had brought Andi. As she started the car, she glanced in the rearview mirror. "Andi, are you okay?"
Andi was crying. "My throat hurts, Mom," she whimpered.
"We are going home. Hang on, Andi." The girl nodded, slumping in the seat.
They got home quickly, and Emma got Charles and his wheelchair out while Ororo rushed Andi into the house. By the time Charles got into the house, Andi was sitting on the family room couch, her shirt open so Ororo could dab antiseptic into the raw red line around her throat where she had been strangled. She was gasping and wincing a bit as the antiseptic stung. "That should feel better, Andi," Ororo said, just as the front doorbell rang.
Emma looked up, startled. "We weren't followed by the press," she said, mystified. "I wonder…" She got up and opened the door.
A man stood out there on the front step. "Hello. I'm here to see Alexandra?"
"No press, no reporters," Emma snapped, her face going cold. "Don't you bloodsucking newspaper people think you have enough juicy details for your front pages?" She stepped back and tried to shut the door.
The man shoved his foot between the door and the frame. "No, wait, please, you don't understand," he said pleadingly. "I'm not a reporter. I'm Alexandra's father."
Emma stepped outside the door and closed it firmly. "Then you have a lot to answer for, Mr. Sanderson," she said, her face set and cold. "How dare you leave your daughter with that pair of perverts! The Judge issued a warrant for your arrest; you're going to be going to jail for your abuse. And I hope you die there; you deserve it for what you did to Andi."
"No, wait, you don't understand!" the man grabbed her sleeve as she turned to go back inside the house. "I'm Andi's real father. I'm not Robert Sanderson; I'm her…well, she knows me as Uncle Mike."
Emma opened the door. "Come in," she said coolly. "We need to have a talk."
Andi stared in disbelief. "Uncle Mike! What are you doing here?" She got up and ran over to hug him. Emma crossed her arms and waited, her expression softening somewhat but still cool.
"I came here to see you. I need to talk to you, Lexi," he said. He took a look at the gathered people, and said nervously, "Uh, hi. I'm Michael Hill." He took a deep breath. "Andi knows me as her uncle; but I'm her biological father."
There was a sunned silence for a long time, broken by Andi. She was looking at him as though she'd never seen him before. "You're what?"
"I…uh…" he stared at the floor, then looked back up at her sheepishly. "I'm your biological father."
Andi's eyes filled with tears. "You gave me to Mother and Father," she whispered. "You let them take me. They abused me, they hurt me, and all those years you saw and you did nothing?" She backed away from him, sitting down on the couch abruptly. "How could you do that to me?"
Michael sat down. "I don't have any excuses, Lexi. All I can say is that I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Sorry!" Andi was crying. 'How could you just stand by and watch them hurt me? And you knew, you knew all the time. You could have had me taken away. Anything would have been preferable to staying with them…"
"I didn't know, Lexi," he said. "I thought something wasn't right; I asked Chelsea about it…but they said everything was fine, that you were just going through a difficult phase and they had disciplined you. I didn't know what they were doing…I didn't know until I heard you back there in the courtroom…Oh, God, Lexi, can't you see I'm sorry?" He raked a hand through his hair.
Charles put a hand on Andi's arm to stop her next outburst. "Suppose we all step back and start over," he said. "Ororo, would you make some coffee? Mr. Hill, I'm Charles Xavier. I run a boarding school for gifted youngsters not far from here. Andi is a student there."
The man extended a hand automatically. "I'm Dr. Michael Hall. Pleased to meet you. I can't thank you enough for what you did for Lexi."
Xavier said, "I only did what anyone would do. But I do think that you at least owe us, and Andi, an explanation."
"Yes I do, don't I." Hall sighed and took the cup of coffee that Ororo handed him. "Thank you, Ma'am." He took a sip and sat back in the easy chair, gathering his thoughts. Then he began.
"Andi's mother and I never married. We were living together at the time. She was working as a dancer at an adult club; I was trying to get through medical school. We had no money, no means. There were times when she would go out and turn an extra trick just to get food on the table. When we found out she was pregnant we were devastated. We could barely afford to feed ourselves; how were we going to afford to feed, clothe, and raise a child?
"Then one night Deanna came home with a huge tip. She said she'd gotten the tip from a trick whose condom broke. She said he was rich, and she could tell him the child was his. So she carried Lexi until she was born.
"At that time Dean and I had an argument. The little bay girl was so tiny, so helpless; I didn't know what kind of family she was going to go to. I tried to talk Dean into changing her mind; but she was adamant, and to tell you the truth, I was desperate. I was studying almost all the time for my degree; Dean was out all hours f the day and night working a regular job and turning tricks to support me. I felt guilty about having her take on a child, but I really wanted to keep Lexi. Dean got tired of the constant arguing, I guess; because two weeks after we brought Lexi home I came back in from school one night and Dean and Lexi were gone. She came back in hours later, without Lexi and I asked her where the baby was.
"'I took her to my john, just like we agreed,' she told me. 'If you're worried about the baby, don't. He's rich, and he's married. I told him the baby was his, conceived when the condom broke, and told him if he didn't take the baby I'd go to the press and tell them that he was fooling on his wife and had a baby illegitimately.' I wondered who would be rich enough that he would worry about public exposure, but Dean wouldn't tell me who it was, afraid that I would go and try to take the child back. I was determined to get the name, though; I was only a month away from graduating, and I thought after that I would be able to start supporting both of us and the child.
"Well, the night of my graduation three of my buddies and their girls went out to a party, and Dean and I were both invited. Our designated driver got drunk too. In the car on the way back, we crashed. Dean was killed instantly. I was devastated. In only a few months I'd lost both my girlfriend and my child. I was frantic. I tried to find Lexi; I went down to the corner where she hung out and asked the girls there if they knew her trick; they all said no. Eventually I gave up.
"I worked for a few years for myself, then went and joined another practice with an old, established doctor. He was rich. We worked together for a year, then he died suddenly of a heart attack. In his will he left me his practice, which was worth a lot of money. I sold it and took the proceeds, used part of it to set up my own practice, and set the rest aside into a trust fund for the child I still hoped to find.
"When my father died I went home for the funeral. At the funeral I ran into my long-estranged sister, Chelsea, who had eloped with a wealthy man my father didn't approve of. She had a beautiful little five-year-old girl with her at the funeral; I took one look at her, at Lexi, and I knew. She was the little girl Dean had given up. She looked exactly like Deanna; long brown hair, and she had the same huge, brown doe eyes. I could barely speak when I approached Chelsea; she and I had never liked each other; but I had to know. She told me that Alexandra was hers; but I knew her better than that. I could tell she was lying. I almost told Chelsea she was lying, and told her the child was mine; looking back now, I wish I had. Lexi, your life would have been very different if I had.
"Chelsea introduced me to her husband, and I found out he was Robert Sanderson, the business mogul. I was crushed. I wanted so badly to claim the child as mine; but I thought Lexi was better off where she was. She lived in a mansion, had servants, all the clothes that she wanted, and to me at least, she looked happy. I convinced myself that she was better off where she was; all I could offer her was a public school education, a regular house, and a normal life. I could never afford the fancy schools, all the opportunities that money could buy, and everything she already had. So I made the worst decision of my life; I kept quiet.
"I told Chelsea that I had once had a little girl like you; that she had died in a car crash along with my girlfriend. I told her that I knew raising a child took a toll on their finances; I told her that I knew your clothes weren't the same quality as theirs. She told me that while the business was doing well, most of their assets weren't liquidized. So I told her that I would set up a trust fund for you in my daughter's memory; and that she could use it to get you whatever you needed. She thanked me, and took the money. I kept careful records of what went on with that fund; I saw the money being taken out of it. I thought it was being used for you. But it wasn't, was it?"
Hall took a sip of his coffee, and looked up at Andi. "I'm sorry, Lexi,' he said. "If I had known, I would have. I know now that anything I could have given you would have been far better than staying where you were; but I didn't know that then. All I could see was what I had, and what I thought you had.
"Well, I started getting invitations to the Sandersons' parties; though I didn't like my sister I attended them anyway just to see my little girl. I thought there was something wrong with the way you were treated; marched out in front of all the guests like a little trained pet and made to perform on the piano; but I didn't know that all that practice came from being forced, I thought it was talent. As time went on, though, I thought something must be wrong; you seemed to be really withdrawn, and you jumped at every little thing. One night as you got up from the piano I saw a big black bruise on your leg. I asked Chelsea about it. She said that you had just gotten in trouble at school and she had to spank you. I wanted to take a look at it; but she sent you up to bed and I never saw anything again. I thought it seemed suspicious; but Lexi, I didn't know for sure.
"Then I picked up a newspaper a few months ago and I saw your name. I read the article. It said that your parents had put you in the care of Dr. Hebron, who had then abused you so badly they feared for you life. I can't describe what I felt; shock, horror, guilt, and shame. I immediately went to the bank and I feel responsible for what happened, Lexi. I wished that I had kept tabs on you and what happened; but I didn't blame my sister until I heard what you said in the courtroom today. Lexi, please tell me the truth. Did Chelsea do all those things to you?"
Andi regarded him quietly for a few minutes. "Yes," she said finally. "She did. She and Father both." She looked down at her cup of coffee for a few minutes. "She'd make me stand in a corner of their room and watch them. She used things on my body that left me bleeding. I hate her."
Michael buried his face in his hands. "I'm so sorry, oh God, I never knew…my poor little girl…Oh, God," and he started to cry.
Andi bit her lip, looking at him, then put her cup down and walked over to him. She sat down on the arm of his chair and hugged him gently. "It's okay," she said. "You didn't know. How could you?" She sat like that for a long moment, her head resting on his shoulder, as his shoulders shook.
Finally he hugged her back. "Chelsea was furious that I had stopped her usage of your trust fund. She and Robert filed a motion to have you reinstated as her daughter, but the judge in Family court flatly refused. She had signed you away to begin with; and then, too, you're eighteen now. The trust fund has been sitting idle; the terms are that you can't touch it until you're twenty-one, but if you want it now, I could have that changed--"
Charles interposed. "Andi has her own bank account given her by her teacher, Miss Frost, who, if I'm not mistaken, wants her to become her protégé in Frost Enterprises. The trust fund, however, could be placed in the care of her current guardian, Ororo Munroe. I assure you, in her hands it won't be misused."
Michael looked at Ororo, sitting quietly on the couch beside Andi, and smiled weakly. "I can see that. I will have the arrangements made. I understand if you're upset, Lexi; I understand if you don't want to see me again; but I hope you can forgive me someday for what I did."
Andi looked at him. "I can't say I'm going to forget; but I will try to forgive."
He stood. "I guess that's all I have a right to expect. I'm not going to ask that you allow me back into your life; you have your own. But in case you do want to talk to me about something, here's my number." He took a small white card from his pocket, then fumbled for his wallet. "Here," he said, taking a yellowed photo with tattered edges from his wallet. "This is a picture of your mother and me. You should have it." He took a last look at it, then handed it to Andi and slipped out the door before she could say anything else. Emma got up after a moment and closed the door.
Andi sat looking at the picture. She did look a lot like her biological mother. They had the same nose, hair, face, and eyes. Only her mouth and smile were her father's, but there was enough of a resemblance there.
She looked up at the three adults watching her soberly, and dropped her shields. She felt uncertainty from both Emma and Charles; and from Ororo, a fear that maybe Andi would want to live with her father rather than her. Andi sat back down on the couch beside Ororo and said, "Don't worry. You're still my Mom. I'd rather be here than anywhere else." She hugged Ororo tightly.
Ororo buried her face in Andi's hair. She didn't want anyone to see the tears of relief in her eyes. Her little girl was going to remain her little girl.