by Kendra Leigh
Except the person in the picture wasn’t me.
“Momma.”
My fingertips grazed over the image of my mother as my first tear splashed onto the back of my hand. I turned the pages of the album in silence as the tears continued to fall, Ethan stroking my hair gently, allowing me my reticence to reacquaint myself with memories of my mom.
There were many photographs of my mom and a younger Veronica together, stemming over a long period of time. I watched as she turned from a teenager into a woman before my eyes, her hair changing styles, her clothing adapting to the latest trends. The pictures were yellowed with age, their clarity reflecting the proficiency appropriate to their time, but each one was a gift. A window into a life that, until today, I was completely unaware of.
As the images became more recent, they came with captions written underneath in neatly penned handwriting: My 21st; Frankie’s party; Me and Flick; Flick and Ronnie ice skating; Flick and Ronnie at the lake house; Flick’s dad’s restaurant; Me with a hangover; Flick with a hangover.
I read each one with mounting confusion and finally finding my voice, raised my head to look at Veronica. “Flick?” The question was short, my voice small, but slowly I was returning to a sentient state.
Veronica smiled, her lip curling sideways the way Ethan’s did. “Short for Felicity. I was Ronnie, she was Flick—always.”
A smile spread slow and wide across my tear-stained face as I fell instantly in love with the endearing nickname. “Flick.” I repeated the word, wanting to see how it felt on my lips.
“You weren’t exaggerating when you said Angel was the mirror image of her mom,” Ethan mused from where he rested his chin on my shoulder, his head tilting toward me affectionately. “No wonder you freaked when we arrived.”
“I’ve never seen such a close resemblance between a parent and their child. It’s uncanny,” Richard added. He’d been quiet until now, respectfully so.
Veronica reached for another album, opening the first page. “Look, this is of the two of us pregnant—with you guys. I was almost ready to give birth. Your mom would have been in her first trimester.”
Ethan and I exchanged a look, neither one of us really certain how we felt about this weird revelation that we’d known each other all our lives.
The two women in the picture grinned smugly at each other: Veronica almost busting at the seams, my mom’s bump barely showing in comparison. The next few pages were filled with pictures of babies. Two, to be specific, becoming older with each snap.
“Oh my God,” Ethan breathed. “These are of us.”
With wide eyes, I stared at the two playmates in the photos, moving through their toddler years together, laughing and playing and falling over, all smiley and… grubby. Ethan had the cutest dimples, his hair honey imbued and tousled even then. The girl—me—well, I suppose I looked like me. “I’ve never seen a picture of myself as a child,” I muttered without thought.
Veronica and Richard traded frowns. “You haven’t got any pictures of your childhood, at all?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Only of the twins.”
She caught her breath as if suddenly recalling their existence. “The twins! How are they?”
The edges of my lips turned down as I shrugged on a nod and turned back to the pictures. Each one had a caption indicating the date and location, or a fragmented account of the story behind the picture. Many were taken in Central Park and there were several at a beach resembling the one at Claudia’s house in the Hamptons.
Turning the page, I found a five-year-old Ethan applying a Band-Aid to my knee, his face a tumultuous combination of love and concern as he looked up at my tear-streaked face. The caption read, Angelica Takes a Tumble. The image brought a lump to my throat.
“I remember your mom tried to put it on for you, but you both insisted Ethan could do it. It fell off as soon as you got to your feet, of course,” Veronica explained warmly.
A glance at Ethan’s glazed eyes and dazed expression suggested he was having as much trouble as I was absorbing this information.
Most of the pictures were just of the two of us, but some included a baby Damon and some were taken with our moms. I wondered briefly why the twins didn’t appear in any, but found myself distracted by my mother’s smile, especially in the later photographs. Was it me or had it changed? For some reason, I couldn’t help but notice that it no longer seemed to reach her eyes. It was as if a light had gone out, and in its place was a sort of dullness, a pinched, strained kind of look.
I was about to ask about it when I felt Ethan tense beside me, his arm around my waist drawing me tighter. “Jesus Christ.” His voice was low, hoarse with sudden unease.
He was staring at a picture on the opposite page and as I began to follow his gaze, Veronica spoke again.
“Oh, look at the two of you in dress-up clothes. You used to love acting out the old fairy stories, but that one was your favorite.” Beside me, I heard Ethan catch his breath. “You always insisted on wearing those shoes in place of the proverbial glass slipper.” She chuckled. “In fact, you never had them off your feet.”
In the photograph I sat on a stool, Ethan, wearing a crown, kneeling at my feet as he slipped my foot into a shoe.
The caption read, Cinderella and Prince Charming.
And the shoes—a pair of shiny, red patent.
Releasing a strangled sob, Ethan pushed to his feet, moving swiftly across the room toward a set of French doors. I watched as he shoved his hands into his hair, his jaw muscles bunching as he battled to contain whatever emotions were raging through his mind.
But me… I felt a strange, overwhelming sense of calm.
“Why the hell can’t either of us remember this, Mom? And why hasn’t Angel’s dad mentioned it? He knows we’re a couple.”
Veronica blinked, a series of rapid fluttering of her lashes, her chest rising and falling as she inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Ethan’s brow crumpled in confusion. “What are you sorry for?”
The two gazed across the room at one another, but it was Richard who spoke first. “Ethan, I know this must all have come as a shock, but your mother and I did what we thought was best for you at the time.”
“What was best for me?”
Richard stood up from the arm of the chair he’d been perched on next to his wife and shoved his hands deep into his pants pockets. “You and Angelica were practically joined at the hip when you were young. You came to rely on each other, emotionally—too much. When we left for London, you took it really badly. For the first few months you wouldn’t settle, wouldn’t mingle with the other kids, even cried yourself to sleep at night. Eventually, we had to let you take a photo of Angelica to bed with you. You’d drift off with it clutched in your little fingers.”
The more Richard said, the more upset Ethan seemed to become, his eyes glazing over, an almost imperceptible quiver in his lower lip.
Richard continued, nonetheless. “After a couple of months passed, you began to talk about a new friend. Alistair. The more you talked about him, the less you talked about Angel. Suddenly you were happy again. When we came to your room one night to tuck you in, and found you fast asleep with her photo still on your bedside table, where you’d left it that morning, we… well, we thought it was time to put it away. Gradually you forgot. And it was best for you that we didn’t remind you.”
Ethan stood there, his mouth ajar in a sort of confounded, incredulous stupor. “And what about Angel?” The question tore through a heap of pent-up emotion. “Was it best for her? Did anyone give that a thought?”
“Stop it!” I stood, the words leaving my mouth before I was aware I’d even formed them. “Ethan…” I gazed at him across the room, a riotous storm brewing in his eyes. I shook my head slowly. “It’s not their fault.”
There was no way Veronica and Richard Wilde could have even the vaguest clue as to why their son was so upset. But it was becoming unmistakably clear to me. As
if realizing we needed some time alone, Veronica stood, touching me gently on the arm. “We’ll give the two of you some space.”
When the door closed behind them, I gazed at my wonderful, sensitive man standing by the terrace doors with the sun on his face. The emotion that he’d been battling to contain finally spilled on to his cheeks, his shoulders shaking gently with the release.
“Ethan… please… please, don’t cry.” I moved swiftly, eager to close the gulf between us.
Closing his eyes, he took a breath, inhaling deeply through flared nostrils, his lips clenched to prevent them from trembling. Swiping at the fallen tears, he finally spoke. “I… I feel like I’m going crazy.” His hand moved, clutching his chest. “Like my heart is physically breaking. It’s like I can feel the pain of losing you… and I can’t bear it.”
“But you’re not losing me. And you won’t, not ever.”
Suddenly, his eyes turned on me, searching my face with a silent plea. “I swear I will never leave you again, baby. I would kill anyone who tried to tear us apart.”
“Nobody will ever come between us, E.” I took his face in my hands and kissed a falling tear as it trickled down his cheek, and then his arms were around me, squeezing me to his chest.
“I’m so, so sorry, baby.” His breath came in gasps as he sobbed, clinging to me through his anguish.
I pulled away, just enough to see his face. “Ethan, you have nothing to be sorry for. Please try and tell me why you’re so upset.”
Deep down, I thought I knew where his mind was going with all this, but I needed to hear it from him. He reached up and began to stroke my hair.
“You know I’ve often wondered about the very first time we met that night at Eden. Your striking beauty was the first thing that hit me, the reason my eyes followed you from the second you walked through the door. But I think I knew even then that it was more than an instant physical attraction. I’ve always dismissed it, put it down to there being some truth to the crazy, romantic notion of love at first sight. But the magic, the magnetism that had me gravitating toward you, the reason I couldn’t tear my eyes away from you… it was like I knew… without really knowing—”
He thrust his hands into his hair, appearing suddenly exasperated with himself. Then as if finding strength of mind, he took a fortifying breath and grasped my hands. “I remember watching you… that night at Eden. Every single detail of your face, every move you made, every tiny idiosyncrasy fascinated me. With every breath you took, you drew me in. The way you absentmindedly played with your hair, twisting it around your finger. The way your nose wiggled ever so slightly as you spoke.” He caught his breath, his voice straining against the building emotion. “But it was when you did that thing that you do—when you’re feeling self-conscious and sort of try to hide behind your splayed hands and peep through your fingers. Like this…” He moved to the abandoned photo album, flicked over a couple of pages and presented it to me.
In the picture I was giggling, my cheeks flushed as I hid behind my hands and peeked through the gaps of my fingers, just like Ethan had described.
“You see? You did all those things back then, when you were small. The first time I loved you. Each and every time I’ve witnessed you do one of those things, it’s like it sparked some deep forgotten memory and my mind was trying to grasp it before it disappeared. I always thought it must be that you reminded me of someone—and you did. You reminded me of you.”
Smiling, I recalled the numerous times I’d seen that quizzical look in his eye as he’d scrutinized my face, like he was trying to pinpoint something and couldn’t.
“I couldn’t explain it, even to myself, but that first night, I already felt as if you were mine. And when you ran off into the night like Cinder-fucking-rella, it was like I’d lost a chunk of me. I thought I was going crazy in the days that followed, losing my head over a woman I’d met only once and hadn’t even spoken to, but I couldn’t get the image of your face or the way you smelled out of my mind, and I couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing you again.” He laughed suddenly, an incredulous outburst of giddiness. “You know, I actually followed you to your father’s office that day and waited for you to come out. Jackson was seriously worried about the state of my mental health. You hadn’t returned my calls, and I’d tried flowers. I spent huge portions of my days thinking up ways I could just… casually bump into you. And then when you emerged from the building and literally fell into my arms, I knew with absolute certainty it was where you belonged—it’s where you’d always belonged. I just didn’t understand how I knew. But now it all makes perfect sense.”
“Well, that’s a good thing isn’t it? All this just makes our love extra special. Your mom’s right, it is romantic. We’ve been in love for all our lives and didn’t even know.” My words seemed to encourage him, the light returning briefly to his eyes, but it was only brief. He blinked and a shadow of despair shrouded his features again. I threaded my fingers into his hair, holding his head firm in an attempt to read into the depths of his mind. “What is it, E? Why are you so sad?”
The pain in his face was almost palpable. “Do you remember when I first learned about your past? I said I felt like I’d let you down. Like, somehow, I felt I should have been there to save you from the pain and misery of your childhood?” I nodded, recalling how sad and helpless he’d seemed that day. “Well, now I know that’s because I did let you down. I should have been there to save you—and instead, I abandoned you.”
I knew it!
“Wait a minute, Ethan,” I yelled at him. “You didn’t abandon me. You were six years old, for Christ’s sake. You weren’t in a position to save me then.”
“No? Then who was? Because somebody should have.”
Just then there was a tap at the door and Veronica and Richard reentered the room.
“Why didn’t we go back for her?” Ethan turned on them instantly.
“Ethan!” I scolded, surprised by the harshness of his tone.
He ignored me and turned to Veronica. “When her mom died, why didn’t we go and get her? We could have taken her to London with us.”
“Ethan, calm down,” she said in a no-nonsense voice. “We couldn’t just take her away from her father, her brothers…”
“Her father and Aaron hated her. Adam… he was next to fucking useless.”
Both Veronica and I recoiled at his words. “I didn’t know—” she whispered, lowering her woeful gaze to the floor.
Suddenly, I felt responsible for this poor woman’s distress. She’d probably been having a perfectly good day until I showed up with my junk and blighted it with gloom.
“It’s not your mom’s fault, E. I wasn’t her responsibility. And I certainly wasn’t yours. You were just a boy,” I said gently, my hand rubbing calming circles into his back.
“No, Angel, he’s right.” Veronica tilted her head back up to look at us, her gaze warming with affection as she glanced from one to the other. “It’s obvious the two of you are very much in love; it simply radiates from you both. And so he’s right to ask questions. You both are. It sounds as if you’ve been kept in the dark for long enough, and if I can help to make things clearer, then I will. Why don’t you tell us your story, Angel? And when you’re done, we’ll do our best to fill in the blanks.”
Veronica and Richard listened attentively as I relayed my story, their expressions a constant varying cycle of sadness and anger and understanding. I told them about my battle with guilt over my mom’s death, and how my father’s determination to blame me had turned into a life-enduring punishment. The form that retribution took—the seclusion, the rejection, the silence, the closet—I left to Ethan. He conveyed those details with the contempt I knew he felt. Finally, I told them that with no photos and no one to talk about her with, I’d had very little chance of keeping any memories of my mom alive.
“What about the accident?” Richard asked when I finished. “What do you remember about that day?”
I glance
d at Ethan, recalling the one and only time he’d asked me this question, and the hurt and confusion in his eyes when I’d been unable to answer. Instead, I’d simply handed him the newspaper cutting that had reported my mom’s accident.
“Nothing.” Suddenly a fragment of a memory flashed before my eyes, but it was gone before it could take any real form. I shook my head in exasperation. “Well, nothing solid, anyway.” I paused, watching Ethan’s brow furrow in question. “Obviously, I know what happened—the accident was reported in the newspaper. But… I don’t know if what I recall is a memory or something gleaned from what I’ve read.”
Now all three pairs of eyes were filled with confusion, the same unspoken question lingering on their lips.
Veronica spoke first. “Are you saying that you don’t remember anything about what happened that day?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think so. Everything about the time of the accident is so flimsy, so vague; I can’t decipher what’s real or what I’ve imagined.”
“And your father didn’t explain it to you?”
“No. I remember knowing something bad had happened, but I couldn’t understand why she wasn’t there anymore. I just knew she was gone and that I was to blame. Whenever I asked him—my dad—he just replied with the same answer. ‘You killed her.’ Eventually, he just gave me the clipping from the newspaper report. I remember him reading it to me and saying, ‘Maybe now you’ll stop asking stupid questions.’”
Ethan closed his eyes against his anger while Richard muttered some expletive under his breath. Veronica simply blinked, a solitary tear trickling on to her cheek.
“After that, I quit trying to remember, it seemed easier just to shut it out altogether—or so I thought.” I looked at Ethan. “And then you asked me about it that day, and I felt so ashamed. The last day of my mom’s life and I can’t remember it.”