Hearts and Thorns

by Ella Fields

  He knew Jackson was back, but he didn’t know of our tumultuous encounters. I wanted to keep it that way.

  I stared at my half-eaten dinner for a moment before saying, “Victoria came by the bakery today.”

  “As she often does.”

  I shook my head, struggling to meet his assessing gaze. “She came inside this time.”

  Dad whistled, watching me a moment. “She know you call her Victoria?”

  Frowning, I pushed my plate away. “I don’t know, maybe. Why does it matter?”

  Lifting a shoulder, he downed more beer, sighing as he set the bottle on the table. “I imagine it’d matter a great deal to her.”

  “I can’t just forget it,” I said. “And that’s what she wants me to do.”

  “What she’s done?” Dad pushed.

  I nodded.

  He hummed, scraping a nail over the label on the glass bottle. “Maybe she’s not expecting you to forget. Maybe she’s just after forgiveness.”

  “She hasn’t said sorry.”

  Dad quirked a brow. “She’s been saying it in other ways.”

  Frustration heaved a loaded breath from me, pulling at my brows. “Since when have you been her fan?”

  “Never,” he said with a chuckle. “I can’t stand the woman, but that doesn’t mean I don’t respect her to some extent.”

  “Why?” I said, pushing my chair back. “Ugh, don’t worry. I should head home.”

  “Not yet,” Dad said, and I looked back at him, noticing the wary look in his eyes as they danced over me. Sighing, he muttered, “I need another beer for this.”

  I waited until he’d returned, wondering what his deal was, and why everything seemed to be upside down when I so desperately needed for it to be right side up.

  You couldn’t fix or change other people’s opinions, decisions, or actions, and I was growing tired of feeling as though I could no longer predict what would happen next.

  As soon as he’d taken a seat, he dropped the bomb. “She’s not your mom.”

  Four words. Four rushed words entering the air and my ears.

  “What?” I wheezed, blinking, as if doing so would help me hear better. I had to be losing my mind.

  The lines framing Dad’s mouth deepened, and when his eyes met mine, they shined. “Your mother’s name was Sara Elizabeth Dean. I met her while on leave, spent a solid two months with her. It was fun until it wasn’t.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “She had a voice that would knock you off your feet. Sweet and airy. I could listen to her talk for hours.” A wistful smile chased some of the darkness from his eyes. “Her heart was ginormous, and her sense of adventure…” He chuckled, shaking his head. “I’ve never met anyone like it.”

  Shock and fear and sorrow crowded within my chest. I couldn’t move if I wanted to, could scarcely draw a breath without my throat swelling each time.

  “You’re a lot like her,” he said. “But I’ll give Victoria the chance to tell you about her. They were close. As close as two opposites can get.” Taking a moment, he stared at our plates, then cleared his throat. “She wrote me while I was away, telling me that she was pregnant. I couldn’t leave, and she didn’t ask me to. She said she’d be fine, and that hopefully one day, I could meet you.”

  “One day?” I managed, bewildered.

  “We weren’t…” Dad stopped, scratching at his beard. “We had fun, Wil. But for as carefree as she seemed, she was troubled. With the help of Victoria, she managed to get clean while pregnant, but then she relapsed—”

  My chest exploded. “She was a drug addict?”

  Dad nodded. “Yeah.” He nodded again, the dining chair creaking as he shifted. “She, um”—he blew out a breath—“she relapsed and overdosed when she was around eight months pregnant. You were born five weeks premature.”

  But the name change. He’d been there. He had helped me gather what was needed for the process.

  Seeing the question in my eyes, he added, “Victoria was her sister, her next of kin, so she signed your birth certificate.”

  “She overdosed,” I muttered, staring unseeing at the table.

  I knew she was gone. I’d known it since he’d uttered those four words, and perhaps somewhere deep down, I’d known it all along too. Still, the blow rattled something loose inside me, sending ashes of grief sailing through my veins.

  “They kept her on life support for two weeks, waiting for your lungs to develop further, and then…” He didn’t need to finish. “It’s one of my biggest regrets. That I couldn’t be there. I didn’t know,” he said, his voice breaking. “I had no idea until it was all over, and Victoria contacted me with the funeral arrangements.”

  Dad let me sit with all he’d said for untold minutes as he finished his beer, his gaze heavy on my head as I stared at my hands. I squeezed them together, over and over, watching my skin turn white, then redden, trying to lessen the tremors.

  “Your grandparents had written Sara off years before you arrived. Victoria was all she had, and in turn, all you had. In a sense, she rescued you, raised you when I couldn’t, and loved you like you were hers and hers only.”

  Dad huffed. “I was thankful, at first. So fucking relieved you had someone to look out for you and to be there when I couldn’t be. But as the years passed, I began to grow up, and she grew more possessive, and I knew.” He put his bottle down with a thump. “I just knew she’d never tell you. That she’d cover your existence in pretty lies and dress it up as normal.”

  “Would she have ever told me?” I looked up then, my blood running cold. “How can someone live with a secret that huge?”

  Dad mulled over that for a few beats. “The way I see it, no. And though how you came to be might have been a secret, one thing shouldn’t be forgotten here.” His eyes met mine, solid warmth and unyielding sincerity. “For all her faults, she is still, and will always be, your mother.”

  “She’s a liar,” I exhaled.

  “True, but she loves you. She loves you as if you’re hers. I’ve often wondered if it’s because she believes that to be true, or if it’s because she loved Sara with a devotion I’ve never encountered from siblings before.” Dad tapped the table. “You ever wonder why someone as fancy-pants as Victoria purchased a house that sat atop a cemetery?”

  My eyes rounded, a tear trickling down my cheek. “Oh, my god.”

  Dad’s lips pressed together. “They grew up here. Moved away in their teens.”

  “Why now?” I heard myself ask. “Why tell me now? So I’d what, go easier on her?”

  “Something like that. You know I never knew my own parents, have no idea who they are.” He’d grown up in foster care. “I didn’t want that for you. I’d always planned on telling you when I thought you were ready. But planning and doing are different things. When was a good time to upset you? You’ve already been through enough.”

  I was up and out of my chair, making a beeline for the door.

  “Willa.” Dad followed, grabbing my car door when I’d climbed inside. “Jesus. What are you doing?”

  “Whatever I need to,” I said, yanking on the door. When he wouldn’t budge, I glared at him. “You need to let me.”

  Moonlight washed over his grave expression, defeat sagging his shoulders and loosening his grip on the door. “Drive carefully, and at the very least, text me when you get home.”

  The drive was a blur, my mind in overdrive as everything Dad confessed tried to settle within my head and heart.

  A crazed laugh shuddered out, tears dripping down my cheeks, as I wound through the backstreets of the cove. It all made so much sense. So much dizzying sense.

  Since I’d known how children came into being, I’d always thought Dad and Victoria had some type of one-night stand. I was never corrected, and I was never steered in another direction when I’d implied as much to Victoria before Dad had moved to the cove.

  I didn’t notice the extra cars in the drive. I didn’t care. I parked on the street and crossed it, headin
g straight for the door and letting myself in.

  Ainsley’s laughter filled the hall, and I followed it to the dining room, where she, Victoria, Heath, and Jackson were eating dinner.

  “Willa,” Heath said, beaming and dropping his fork.

  Jackson’s eyes shot up, but I ignored him, my focus, all my frantic energy trained on the woman with the perfect updo and drooping smile. “Willa.” She pushed her chair back, standing. “What’s the matter?”

  “You might want to remain seated, Mother.” A strange sound left me, maybe a laugh, maybe a wail, maybe both, as her forehead scrunched. “I know.” I nodded. “I know everything. Everything you never thought I deserved to know.”

  Victoria swallowed, her eyes welling, her question strained. “How?”

  “What’s going on?” Ainsley asked.

  I wanted to scream at her, but I wasn’t here for that.

  I was here to watch the blood drain from the face of the liar standing before me. I was here to make her feel even an ounce of what she’d made me feel. Years ago when I was eighteen, reckless, and in love, and now, twenty-four, hollowed and defeated. All thanks to her.

  “This isn’t the place,” Heath spoke up. “Willa, you and your mother should talk. How about you two—”

  “You knew?” I said to Heath, my eyes still fixed on Victoria. A humorous huff departed my cracked lips. “Of course. Everyone but me.” I didn’t remove my gaze as I said, “How about you, Jackson? How long have you known my entire life has been a lie?”

  Jackson cursed, a chair screeched over the floor.

  “Don’t,” Heath said. “He doesn’t know, Willa.”

  My brows jumped, tears sliding down my cheeks. Victoria was shaking her head now, inching a step closer to me. “Don’t you dare,” I whispered.

  “Willa,” Jackson said. “What’s happened?”

  “She happened.” I sniffed.

  “Please,” Victoria murmured, her lips wobbling. “You can judge me all you want, you can hate me, but we need to talk about this properly.”

  “Talk about fucking what?” Jackson hollered, out of patience.

  “Jackson,” Heath warned.

  “Either tell me what’s going on here, or shut the fuck up, Dad.”

  “She’s not my mom.” I slid back a step, smiling now. “She never was. Not only because mothers don’t treat their children how she did, but because her dead sister, the one practically buried in our backyard, is my real mother.”

  Victoria screamed as I raced out of there, and I heard something smash.

  Inside my car, my heart thundering through every limb, I could hardly see. I pulled over on the next street and turned the ignition off, my head falling back against the headrest.

  Cars zoomed by, the streets growing quiet as the time on the dash neared nine.

  My eyes cleared. Eventually, I unleashed enough sorrow to ease the weight on my chest and to take note of my surroundings.

  Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I snickered as I thought of what Victoria would say, and then I saw it.

  There were no streetlights looming above, but there were solar lights scattered throughout the hills and dips of sprawling green. I stepped out of the car, wrapping my cardigan tighter around me, the wind drying the damp upon my cheeks.

  It didn’t take me long to find her. Two houses down from ours, she sat upon the hill, overlooking the mass of memories beyond. With trembling fingers, and a heart to match, I trailed them along the grooves of her name.

  Sara Elizabeth Dean.

  She was twenty years old when she died. Already, I’d lived more of a life than she had, all the while never knowing who she was. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

  She might have been an addict, but the thought of having a child, and of that child not even knowing of your existence had me saying it again. “I’m sorry.”

  Wilting flowers were tucked close to the headstone. Victoria’s favorite. Daffodils. The silken texture crumbled within my fingers, and I rested my head against the cool marble, watching the breeze carry the remains downhill.

  Soft swishing, and then an exhaled breath, as Jackson sat down beside me. His hand was warm in mine, a tether to something real.

  If it had been broken, it was real. For perfection, I’d learned, was often the lie.

  For minutes, or maybe hours, the moon a white button against a dark gray sky, he said nothing, and I didn’t even try.

  When my lips finally cracked apart, my voice was low and hoarse. “How can you forgive Ainsley, but not me?”

  He answered instantly. “Because I don’t, and I never will, love anything the way I love you.”

  Then he was gone.

  Willa

  A week passed before I finally let myself acknowledge what I needed.

  And what I needed wasn’t explanations or apologies.

  It was knowledge.

  Next door to the same ice-cream parlor we’d visit after church as kids, Victoria waited outside the café.

  She didn’t remove her sunglasses as I approached, but she did offer a weak smile. She went to stand, but I motioned for her to stay seated.

  With a calm I’d practiced inside my head on the walk over, I lowered into the opposite metal seat, set my purse in my lap, and asked, “Have you ordered?”

  “I can’t have kids.”

  My exhale faltered. “I’d really rather we order a—”

  “I had a hysterectomy when I was sixteen. Endometriosis. My parents were sick of the constant hospital visits.”

  My lashes fluttered closed, and I sucked in a fortifying breath. “Victoria.”

  “Please,” she said, and the way she’d said it, without desperation and without weight, made me pause. It was just a word. An empty, resigned word.

  Looking at her, I nodded, and she continued. “Sara was my best friend. She was two years younger than me, but she was my person. She was my person even when I got annoyed with her energetic, risk-loving personality. She was my person even when she got caught up in the wrong crowd, and I tried desperately to get her back. She was my person even when our parents jumped states for work and left us to our own devices most days. She was my person even when I gave up on her and began a life of my own after school. And she was my person even when she got knocked up by a Marine and needed help.”

  Tears collected, fast and strong. I didn’t blink for fear of setting them free.

  “She was nothing like me, and it used to drive me insane.” Victoria choked on a laugh. “She was wild, but she was the sweetest soul I’d ever known.” Her bare lips curved. “Until you.”

  The waitress arrived, and I cleared my throat, but Victoria ordered for us. She got halfway through requesting a tea for me when she paused.

  I nodded, thanking the waitress. Her smile was dimpled as she tucked her notepad in her apron and left.

  “Did she pick my name?” I had so many questions, but it seemed the least important were the ones I most wanted answers to.

  “She did.” Victoria sat back, retrieving her wallet from her purse. “I didn’t have the heart to change it. She knew she was having a girl, and it excited her to no end.”

  Before I could ask my next question, she opened her wallet. Her finger dug behind a picture of me and Jackson taken in the first grade to retrieve the one hidden behind it.

  My eyes remained on me and Jackson, tracing our red cheeked smiles, the too large and missing teeth, and the arm he’d flung around my shrinking shoulders.

  “You two,” Victoria said, noticing where my attention was. “We couldn’t take you anywhere without people commenting on how adorable you were.”

  We’d had no idea. Those innocent faces, the innocent affection and scorn we’d shown one another, and our unbruised hearts. It was impossible to predict a future, but even when ours took a turn we didn’t see coming, I was certain we never imagined it would turn out like this.

  My thoughts receded, the bruised organ inside my chest swelling as Victoria slid a picture of m
yself over the table.

  It was me, but with different eyes. Everything else—the hair, the smile, the eyebrows, and the shape of her jaw—it was all me. I was all her.

  “She had deep dimples,” Victoria said. “Yours are more faint, but even so”—I heard her swallow—“twins.”

  My hand reached out, hovering then retreating, my heart screaming in my ears until Victoria said, “Take it. I have plenty more.”

  The waitress arrived with our drinks, and I coughed to rid the emotion in my throat, quickly depositing the picture inside my purse.

  In silence, we readied our drinks, passersby drifting in and out of the café, families walking down the street.

  “How long has Heath known?”

  “I told him when you were ten.”

  That morning before church slammed into my addled brain as I remembered Dad showing up, and Heath’s confusion during all the yelling.

  The fighting that’d transpired the following week.

  “You’re not sorry,” I said the obvious, taking a big gulp of too-hot tea.

  “Far from it,” Victoria said. “I’ve hurt you in ways I’ll always be sorry for, but not for this. This,” she said, her tone steel, the mother in her rearing her head for the first time in years, “was a decision made from love.”

  “It was selfish,” I said, meeting her eyes.

  She didn’t even flinch, just sipped her coffee. “I know. My love for you makes me selfish. When it comes to you, that will never change.”

  We stared for a minute, and although I was certain I’d had a million and one things to ask, I couldn’t seem to remember a damn thing.

  I drank my tea, stewing over what had been said.

  “Will you come for Christmas?” she asked, then finished her coffee.

  I choked, patting my chest as I tried to swallow some tea. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Victoria handed me a napkin to wipe my chin. “I know it might be a lot to ask, and I know you have a lot to think about, but I’m not about to just fade out of your life.” Her chin tipped up, the stubborn set grating. “I refuse to.”