“I have bone to pick with you,” Justin said.
There was no need to keep wondering why, now she was more interested in how; the man was standing in her house and she didn’t have any idea how. The explanation for his sudden appearance walked in right behind him. “It’s the bossy principal again,” she said.
“Sophia, I’ve told you before about opening the door to strangers,” she said, pointedly staring at the man who had smoke coming from his ears.
“Sophia, wait upstairs in your room please,” Justin said. “I need to talk to your mother.”
His voice was deep and measured. After opening her mouth to argue, Sophia walked backwards towards the stairs, glaring at him. When she was at a safe distance, she stuck her hands on her hips. “You can’t tell me what to do,” she said cautiously. “I’m only going to my room because I want to.” Then she ran.
“You don’t have the right to tell my daughter what to do,” she hissed.
“Would you rather she sat in on our conversation?” he hissed back.
There was silence until Sophia’s door banged shut. “Did you lie to me?” he asked.
Destiny gulped. Which exact lie was he talking about? Let’s go with the homeschooling lie, that would be the easiest to explain. “You caught me off guard okay, I shouldn’t have let you think that I had already enrolled Sophia. That’s no reason for you to nearly batter my door down. I’ll register her tomorrow.”
“That’s the next thing to deal with but for the moment we have more pressing, personal issues.” He stood there, hands on his hips and stared at her; through her.
Destiny blinked. Did he mean what she thought he meant? She had never uttered a word to anyone in this town. It was debatable that her parents would have said anything, that was the reason they sent her away in the first place; so there would be no pointed fingers or judgment. They sent her money and they came to visit, but she had never been back to this house until her dad’s death. “I-I don’t know what you mean,” she said finally.
“Don’t make this worse by continuing it, I know,” he said.
“I don’t know what you think you’ve found out but you’re wrong. You know nothing, you’re just jumping to conclusions.” She couldn’t look at him, not directly. “I have to make Sophia’s dinner so I’d like it if you left. All these kinds of conversations are very unsettling for my little girl.”
Justin took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. “I can understand if you don’t want to have this discussion around Sophia, so we’ll wait until she’s asleep. Mark my words though, Destiny, I am not just going to go away. You don’t have to feed me, I don’t even think I could swallow anything but I’ll just sit here quietly and wait until Sophia is asleep.”
“Sit if you want to but it could take a while, I have to cook and then I don’t know what time Sophia will be asleep, she’s a bit of a night owl.” Destiny went to the kitchen and started to bang and bash some pots. She got chicken out of the fridge and slapped the container on the counter.
“What time is Sophia’s bedtime?”
Sophia had crept down the stairs again and she went in the kitchen to watch her mom cook. She glared at Justin and gave him a look that dared him to say something. “I don’t need a bedtime,” she said with sass. “Bedtimes are for babies. Mommy and me are a team. We go to bed when we’re tired.”
“As we have a lot to talk about later, would it be all right if join you two for dinner after all?” Justin asked. His eyes followed Sophia as she walked across the room and hopped on a stool at the kitchen island.
“I don’t suppose anything I said would stop you anyway, you may as well,” Destiny answered. She wanted to tell him to get out but she knew he wouldn’t go. If she were honest with herself it was more than a little interesting to see the two of them so close together; her old love and her everything now, sitting side by side. There were quite a few likenesses between the two but the thing that stood out the most was their hair. That tinge of auburn was unmistakable.
“Thank you for the gracious invitation.” He narrowed his eyes at her to stem her snark in front of Sophia.
The usual response when someone thanked you for something was to say ‘you’re welcome.’ Destiny refused to say that. He wasn’t welcome to worm his way into their lives. She wasn’t fooled by his sudden change of mood; she knew that it was purely because Sophia was in the room. He was watching the little girl like a hawk; he was either trying to catch her out on something, some flaw that he could then blame on her mothering skills or he simply wanted to get to know a little person that he believed to be his child. Even if he had found out about Sophia—too bad. This was her daughter, she had her on her own and she had raised her on her own. No man, not even this bossy man who had only gotten more handsome in the nearly ten years since she’d seen him last, was going to stick his nose in to their lives. “Here, you may as well make yourself useful,” she said, passing him a few potatoes and a peeler.
“No problem,” he said. He picked up the kitchen tool and deftly stripped the potatoes of their skin. “What are we doing with these, mashed potatoes?”
That’s what she was going to do. “I’m going to wrap them with foil and bake them,” she said. So it was a little childish but there wasn’t a person alive that would blame her for trying to wrestle back some control.
“Won’t that take ages?” he asked.
“Fine, I’ll do the mashed potatoes,” she said. Destiny picked up a rather large knife and proceeded to hack at the potatoes.
“Watch your fingers, Desi,” Justin said, directing an exaggerated scared expression towards Sophia. “Mom is a bit crazy with a knife.”
The little girl almost smiled, but not quite.
“So, busy day Soph?” Justin asked. “Did you get any school work done?”
“My name is Sophia,” she said.
Destiny tried to communicate with her eyes; she did her best to make Sophia not say anything about the school work. Major fail.
“Sophia, did you do some school work when you got home from brunch?” he asked.
“Not today,” she said. “I’ll catch up tomorrow.”
“Why was that?” Justin asked, slipping Destiny a disapproving look.
“Cos after brunch and our nails, we went shopping.” Sophie said with enthusiasm.
“Did you just and did you buy something nice?”
“Mommy bought me a camera, and it’s really cool. It spits the photos straight out; you don't have to put them onto your computer or anything.”
“Is that so?” Justin said, again glancing at Destiny. “Would you like to show me?”
“Sure!” Sophia said. She jumped down from the stool and ran up the stairs.
“Tell me her birthday is coming up,” he said, “or maybe she saved some allowance?”
“She doesn’t get an allowance,” Destiny said, slinging the seasoned chicken onto a tray and tossing it in the oven with a little more gusto than was necessary. “This really is none of your business!”
“Or maybe it is,” Justin said.
Sophia darted back into the room with camera in hand. “If you take a picture it slides right out here,” she said.
“Why don’t you show me how to use it, Sophia? You could take a picture of your mommy’s pretty pink face.”
“Wow, it is pink,” Sophia said, clicking the button and taking a photograph.
“You know what? I think you should put that one on the fridge,” he said.
* * *
Justin watched as Sophia forked piece after piece of all the vegetables on her plate and popped them into her mouth. It was impressive and he found himself over the moon at what would seem to anyone else a small achievement. It was a big thing to him because so far he had only found negative things about this child and that wasn’t really fair. She was a beautiful child, and now that he had taken the time to actually look at her features, he was surprised that it hadn’t occurred to him on their first meeting just how much like
Lily-Grace she was.
“Why are you staring at me?” she asked.
“I was just amazed at how much you like your vegetables,” he said. He almost said, “my little girl has to be coaxed” but then he realized when this all came out, that might hurt her feelings. There would be no my little girl and your little girl. If Sophia was his, she would have his whole heart, just as Lily-Grace did.
“You’re amazed pretty easily aren’t you?” she asked.
“Sophia,” Destiny cautioned with a wide smile.
“Huh? What? The principal doesn’t care about food,” she said.
“Who’s for dessert?” Destiny asked.
“Depends on what it is,” Sophia asked. “Do we have strawberry ice cream?”
“I thought this wasn’t a strawberry type of a day.”
“That was this morning,” Sophia said. “Do we have it or not?”
Justin didn’t exactly find this exchange amusing. He may have done if he was watching a stranger’s child and if he hadn’t read all the school complaints about her. This sassy side of her nature had gone past being cute and was having an impact on her life outside the bubble of this house. If Lily-Grace spoke to him like that, she would be straight to bed and wouldn’t taste ice-cream until she couldn’t remember what strawberry tasted like. Destiny glanced at him and he could tell she was embarrassed. No one wanted to be caught with their kids talking to them like that. He purposely said nothing. His time would come but that time wasn’t now. It was all so confusing. One minute he wanted to hug this little girl tight and tell her that he was her daddy and the next we wanted to tell her to watch her tongue. More than anything, he wanted to hear the truth. There were other, much slower routes, but he was sure of one thing, that it wouldn’t be necessary to wait that long. He didn’t want to waste time and money or clinical tests. If Destiny didn’t want to tell him the truth and the whole truth as soon as Sophia was asleep, then she would be telling it anyway while nursing a very sore rear. “Did anyone ever tell you that ice cream was a reward for good behavior?” Justin found himself asking. He couldn’t help himself, it just slipped out.
“No,” Sophia said sassily.
“Stay out of it,” Destiny blurted at the same time. “This is not your affair.”
“It doesn’t seem to be anyone’s affair,” he said. “He tapped his watch.”
“Okay, okay, we’ll all have strawberry ice-cream,” she said. “Seems to me some people need sweetening up.”
“She means you,” Sophia said.
“Oh? What makes you think that?”
“Because I’m already sweet and you’re a bit of a sour puss.”
* * *
Destiny crept down the stairs for the third time in an hour. “She’s finally asleep,” she said.
“Are you sure she won’t wake up?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m positive she won’t wake up. She isn’t easy to get to sleep but, once she’s nodded off, she’s out for the count. I won’t hear from her until probably eight-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“Great, sit and talk to me,” Justin said. “I just have to know.”
Destiny couldn’t look him in the eye so she got up and wiped the island counter and moved items around that didn’t need to be moved. She didn’t want to risk putting herself in it, if he, in fact, was referring to something else and not Sophia’s parentage. “About the homeschooling?” It was worth a try wasn’t it?
Justin was behind her in a second. He snatched a wooden spoon from the crock holder, grabbed her hand and towed her back to the sofa. “Let’s call this the talking stick,” he said. “Now start talking or I’m sure you can guess what happens next.”
Destiny just didn’t know where to start or what to say. “I don’t know what you want from me,” she said, “and I don’t know what you mean by what happens next—” her eyes drifted back to the wooden spoon in his hand and it suddenly dawned on her what he meant to do with his talking stick. “No, there’s no way you’re going to smack me with that thing.”
“We’ll see.” He rubbed the spoon up down the side of her leg. “Look at me,” he said. “I want to know if I am Sophia’s father. I can find out anyway, it will just be a matter of a simple court ordered test, but why put us all through all that when you know the answer and can just open up and tell the truth. I’m not putting up with this for much longer, Destiny, I want answers. I deserve answers.”
Tears welled up in the young mother’s eyes. For years, she had dreamed of this very moment. Maybe she hadn’t dreamed of this very moment. In her dreams, Justin had been more the knight in shining armor than pissed off principal with wooden spoon. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she almost whispered. Before she could actually form a proper answer, she found herself tugged across Justin’s hard knees. “Stop, I’ll tell you,” she said. Too little too late apparently because the thick wooden utensil landed on her bottom with a hard thwack and not just once. Thud after miserable thud of the hard wooden spoon came down across her now stinging rear. It was awful; it stung on the outside but left a dull thudding pain deeper down. “How can I tell you if you’re spanking me?” she hissed. Just as quickly, she was once again upright. She sat there on his knee like a naughty two-year-old, her face flaming with embarrassment. How dare he?
“Am I Sophia’s dad?” he asked her, determination sparkling in his green eyes, daring her to go for round two. “Am I?”
“Yes, you are.” A combination of fear and relief whooshed through Destiny and she found herself incapable of even taking a breath while she waited for his response. This had been a conversation ten years in the making and she was starting to wish that she hadn’t left it that long.
“Wow,” was all he said.
“Is that all you’ve got to say?” She was furious now. “You waltz in here, invite yourself to dinner and then demand answers. Then, to top it all off you beat me with a wooden spoon! Then I answer your damn question and all you have to say is wow?”
“What do you expect me to say, Destiny? I’m in shock. I’ve just found out that the girl I thought loved me, lied to me for ten years. I did nothing to you, why would you do such a cruel thing to me and to our child?”
“She isn’t our child. She’s my child! You might have been the sperm donor but that’s all! You have no-one to blame but yourself that you missed out on being a father to Sophia. Anyway, she didn’t need you all those years and she doesn’t need you now.”
“That’s debatable I think.”
Destiny pulled her arm back and went to slap him but he caught her wrist. Once again she found herself face down, staring at her fluffy family room rug. “Stop it! You can’t keep doing this,” she said.
“Apparently I can,” he said.
His fingers were in the waist band of her jeans. Thankfully this particular pair were practically painted on; he wouldn’t get them down easily. When his hand snaked around the front, she squeaked. “Stop,” she said, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. His knuckles were on the bare skin of her belly and it was doing things to her. She hadn’t felt that tingly feeling for a very long time. Did she want Justin to stop what he was doing or not? The decision wasn’t hers apparently because once he had the button undone, his hand moved; it didn’t matter, the fire was well and truly lit.
“Hold still, Destiny, or I’ll make you hold still,” Justin said, yanking the jeans down to her knees. Unfortunately for her but fortunately for him, her panties went with them.
“Justin, I mean it, stop!” She knew he had one thing on his mind, punishment. Unfortunately, her body had other ideas. “It’s not my fault!”
“You never thought anything was ever your fault and I’m not surprised that nothing’s changed.” His hand landed on each of her wriggling cheeks.
“Ow! Stop that!” She didn’t want to yell but she couldn’t help it. The man was relentless; his hand fell heavily over and over. “It wasn’t my fault though, it wasn’t. You cheated on me.” The spanking stopped.
“What do you mean I cheated on you? I have never ever cheated on you. I’ve never cheated on anybody, Destiny. That isn’t me, I wouldn’t do that. You’re the one who wrote me a letter to tell me you found someone else!”
She burst into tears. How could he sound so sincere and yet be so dishonest? She knew what she saw. “You’re lying!” she said. “I saw you!” She tried to scramble off his knee but he wouldn’t let her run, instead he sat her up and held her tight.
“Shh, I can see you think you know what you saw, Desi, but I didn’t cheat I swear,” he said desperately. “Tell me what you saw. No, you better tell me from the beginning, where you think it all went wrong.”
He was holding her to him with one arm and rubbing gentle circles on her back with the other. That was soothing but it was his use of the pet name he always used for her that started to melt the ice. “I did a test and I found out I was pregnant,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t want to tell you on the phone so I went on the bus,” she said with a sniffle.
“To my college?” He frowned.
She could see he was trying to recall a visit from her. “You didn’t see me. I came to your room and when I got there, the door was open. I saw you hugging another girl. You pulled back from her and you held her shoulders. I knew you were going to kiss her; I didn’t want to see, so I ran.”
“I never kissed another girl, Desi, I swear I didn’t. When was it?”
“I don’t remember the exact day. There was some big football match on; kids were all dressed in one color or another.”
“Oh wait!” he said.
“See you did kiss someone didn’t you?”
“I didn’t kiss anyone but I know the day you’re talking about. Ben, my roommate dumped that girl. She came to the dorm looking for him and she started to cry. What you saw was me comforting a friend. I wouldn’t even call her a friend really; she was an ex-girlfriend of a friend.” He made her turn to look at him. “I didn’t cheat on you, ever, I swear.”
A Lie Unraveled Page 4