by Heidi Lowe
My heart was breaking into pieces as I pulled on my jacket, as the tears rolled down my cheeks. I stopped on my way down the stairs, overcome with grief, and unable to go any farther.
"Lissa, honey, what's wrong?" Sandra appeared from the kitchen.
I wiped my face quickly, but she'd already seen and heard enough.
"Nothing. I need...I need to see it with my own eyes."
"See what?"
I rushed past her, grabbed my keys, then dashed out of the house. I hailed a cab within seconds, thankfully, just as one of the street's residents was getting out.
The driver did the journey in twenty minutes. He'd been in the mood for conversation, but I made it very clear at the start that I wasn't, so he turned up the radio and we drove without exchanging words.
When we pulled into the motel's parking lot, I stuffed a bunch of notes into his hand without counting, and jumped out. They seemed to suffice, because he thanked me and drove off quickly.
A yellow Ferrari flashed its headlights, and I ran over, saw Oliver in the driver's seat, then climbed in.
"Did you see who she's in there with?"
"Nope. I bet it's a man." His grin almost reached his ears. "All that lady-loving just wasn't doing the trick."
I cut him a murderous look. "Whoever it is, I'm going to tear their throat out!"
"That's the spirit," he said, punching me playfully on the arm. "So, are we going in now, to catch them in the act, or waiting until they resurface, after they've finished doing their business?"
He thrived on my suffering. Reiterating that my girlfriend was cheating on me made his night. For someone to be this callous about lost love, he must have loved hard once, and lost even harder, and thus hated the idea of it. Had stopped believing in it altogether. That was my conclusion. Maybe, after tonight, I would join him in his sentiments. Who could recover from a betrayal like this?
I put my hand on the car door handle. "Okay, I better get this over with."
He followed me up to the second floor, but hung back. He gestured to the door he'd seen them enter. I pressed my ear to it and heard Jean's smoky laugh. The blood rushed to my head.
I would kill them both! That was all I could think about, standing outside the room. Hearing her laugh like that with another person was too much to bear. It wasn't forced or false, but genuine. She was having fun with someone who wasn't me.
It was the second voice, however, that made me go cold all over. My memory recalled it immediately, unable to forget. I'd liked the voice and accent the first time I'd heard them, and then promptly despised them when I realized the person to whom they belonged was making a play for Jean. That French accent sounded like nails on a chalkboard now.
I suddenly remembered that she'd been waiting outside our house the night Petr, Sam and I went to Oliver's place.
"Oh my God," I said, clapping a hand to my mouth, horrified. Had she waited until I left to come to my house and screw my girlfriend? Had they done it in our bed? "Oh my God."
What happened next hadn't been a part of the plan, but in that moment, lacking rational thought, it seemed like the only recourse.
There was no polite knock, no demanding to be let inside, no screaming for Jean to come out and face me. No, nothing that reasonable. Instead, I began slamming my full weight against the door, trying to break it off its hinges.
Inside, the woman screamed. Beside me, Oliver chortled.
The door flew open, lock busted, and the two women stood before me. I'd fully expected to catch them in flagrante, but they were both fully clothed, and the bed was still made. In Jean's eyes there was pure horror, as though the angel of death had come for her.
"L–Lissa, w–what are you–"
"Shut up!" I screamed. "Don't you fucking talk."
Miss France was shaking with terror. She knew I was there for blood.
"This bitch? You're cheating on me with her? What was it, her ability to fuck you while talking dirty in French?"
"That's disgusting," Jean spat, looking sickened by my words. "You've got it all wrong."
Was she really trying to pull a "this isn't what it looks like" on me? Was she really going to insult my intelligence like that?
"I'm going to rip her apart in front of you," I said, and my fangs sprung forth.
Jean jumped in front of her. "No," she screamed, louder than I'd ever heard her scream.
I just blinked at her, dumbfounded. I wasn't actually going to hurt the woman, as much as I wanted to. I just wanted to frighten her into fleeing and never coming back.
"You're not going to touch her," Jean said, and I saw tears in her eyes. "I wasn't sleeping with her, and she isn't my mistress." She took a deep breath as tears rolled down her face. Then she said, to a room full of silence, "She's my daughter."
TWENTY-FOUR
Lissa stood motionless on the spot, her mouth hanging open, her eyes flicking between Jean and Clara. It was as if she was searching for some likeness in order to assess the verity of what she'd just heard. Did she see how much they resembled each other? How their lips were the same, how their dark eyes had the same shape?
No one but the boy Jean didn't like made a sound, and it was to cackle demonically, while pointing out that this was better than any soap opera.
Then, after what seemed like a century, she spoke. "You have a daughter?" She didn't wait for the reply, because in her eyes Jean saw that she believed her. She simply turned and ran from the room.
"Lissa, wait," Jean called after her, but the girl didn't stop.
Oliver went after her, and from the balcony, Jean watched them get into his car and drive away.
"I'm sorry about that," Clara said behind her. Several people had come out of their rooms to see what the commotion was all about, and trained dubious, curious eyes on them.
Jean was so shaken up that it took all her might not to yell for everyone to crawl back into their caves and mind their own goddamn business.
She ran her fingers through her hair, her breathing heavy and erratic.
"I didn't want her to find out this way," she kept mumbling, stepping past Clara and back into the room to get her things. "I should have told her the moment I knew who you were."
She'd thought long and hard about it, and the fear of what Lissa would think of her had made her put it off. There never was a right time to tell your partner about a secret love child, no matter how long ago she was conceived.
"It will be fine, I'm sure. She thought you were having an affair." Clara tried to offer her a smile in support, a smile, Jean thought, that looked identical to her own. Seeing it did soothe her. Knowing that she was there made the whole thing worth it.
But the feeling of tranquility didn't last very long. Her girlfriend had fled and she had no idea where she was headed. Especially with that foul boy by her side. There was something insidious about him that she couldn't quite put her finger on. In Lissa's state, who knew what trouble he could coax her into?
The manager – a short, overweight man with a receding hairline and more than one chin – appeared at the door. Apologetic and humble, through fear, he looked at the door and swallowed a couple of times.
"Hi, uh, I just came to see if everything was all right in here. We had a couple of compl– uh, concerns about an argument..." Sweat particles appeared on his forehead, though that was likely due to his trip up the stairs. Or it could have been because there was a pissed off vampire standing before him.
"Yes, I'm sorry. We're fine, just a misunderstanding," Jean said. She took a business card from her bag and handed it to him. "My...uh, friend will require another room. Please send me the bill for the door." She turned back to Clara. "I have to go and find her. Will you be all right here?"
Clara nodded. "Of course. Don't worry about me."
That wasn't possible now, despite Clara being a grown woman who had managed to take care of herself just fine for thirty-four years. How quickly she'd slipped into mother bear mode in coming to her defense. She'd
never known that side of her existed until then.
She kissed her on the cheek and hugged her before rushing off into the night to find Lissa.
She'd driven around for two hours looking for the yellow Ferrari, which would have been easy enough to spot had it been on the road. With every minute that passed, her anxiety increased. It didn't help matters that, after her first attempt at calling Lissa's phone, her calls went straight to voicemail.
"Dammit!" she cursed, hitting the steering wheel once she'd pulled into her driveway. There was no use searching for her when she didn't want to be found. She would simply wait for her at home. Eventually she would have to come back.
She twisted the key in the door, shoulders weighed down by her despondence, inwardly scolding herself for not coming clean sooner. When she looked up, Lissa was sitting on the stairs.
"Lissa," she said, and hurried to her. "Thank God you're here."
Jean didn't see any hint of the anger she was expecting from Lissa. But in those expressive green eyes she loved so much, she saw only melancholy. Anger would have hurt far less to see.
"Did you know who she was when we were at the gallery?"
Jean shook her head emphatically. "No. She showed up twice after that, at Island Delight, and here. I realized shortly after."
"So it was her I saw outside the house." She shook her head, a troubled look in her eyes. "I thought she wanted to sleep with you. How wrong I was." She got up, somewhat zombie-like and deflated, then headed upstairs.
Jean followed her, uncertain of how this would play out. She knew she had an explanation for her, a thousand apologies, and an eternity of grovelling. Where would she even begin?
Lissa slumped onto the bed, a distant look in her eyes. Jean stood by the door, saying nothing, just waiting for her to speak.
"When were you going to tell me about her?"
"I don't know. I wanted to tell you every day. I hated keeping it from you. But I felt so ashamed." And here she burst into tears, no longer able to control them. "I couldn't bear the thought of you knowing that I failed her, that I walked away from my duties as a mother. Not after everything I put you through with yours."
"How old were you?"
"Sixteen. A child myself."
"And her father?"
Jean fished some tissue out of her purse and wiped her nose and face. "A French boy I met and fell in love with while I was at school in Switzerland. He was just a couple of years older than me. Working class. He worked as a skiing instructor in the summer. My family would never have approved of him, which made him all the more intriguing."
She remembered him well. His symmetrical face, long eyelashes, long rock star hair. She'd been besotted with him, and couldn't believe that he was even interested in her – the plain English girl. Little had she known, though, that he was interested in a lot of girls. Foolishly, she'd been the only one to fall pregnant.
"You gave her up for adoption?"
"No. When my parents found out, that was their idea. But her father's family wouldn't hear of it. So they raised her. I went back to my life of privilege, while someone else raised my child."
This started the tears flowing again, though at the time they hadn't. She'd given Clara up willingly, and hadn't regretted it. As a human, the only time she'd really thought about her daughter was in her final moments, as the life and blood were being drained from her.
"Didn't you want her?" Lissa's expression had a hint of repulsion to it.
Jean shook her head. "I wasn't ready to be a mother. Not at sixteen, not at twenty-six, not even at thirty-six. My upbringing was filled with bitterness, my parents were cold. I was afraid I would be just like them. I thought giving her up was the best thing for her. They wouldn't have let me keep her anyway."
She'd spent a mere two days with Clara – her first two days in the world – though not out of choice. The hospital had kept them both for a forty-eight hour observation before releasing them.
"Didn't you go looking for her when you got older?" The disgust in Lissa's voice was painful to hear. This was precisely the thing Jean had been dreading. Lissa's parents hadn't left her willingly, but she had left Clara. She must have been despicable to Lissa.
"The agreement was that I wouldn't try to contact her before her eighteenth birthday. By then her father had married, was raising her with his wife, and she didn't want anything to do with me when I reached out."
She expected Lissa to drift as far away from her as she could get when she finally sat beside her on the bed. But she didn't move, she just stared at her, a sadness in the look, disappointment.
They sat in silence as Jean once again found herself waiting on Lissa's reaction. That was all that mattered.
"Why now? What made her come find you so suddenly, after so long?"
"Curiosity. She wanted to know where she came from." There was a pause before she added, "For her children to know who they came from..."
Lissa's wide-eyed expression came as no surprise to her. The news about the children was yet another bombshell in a long series of dropped bombshells.
"She has children? You're a grandmother?"
Jean nodded. The news had come as a shock to her, and she'd smiled then just as she smiled now as she thought about them. Though the law would never allow her to officially meet them as children, she fully hoped to get to know them when they came of age.
"She has two, a boy and a girl. She married young."
"Wow," was all Lissa said, and fell silent again. It wasn't like Lissa to have nothing to say, and her uncharacteristic silence worried Jean. She was usually an open book; when Jean didn't know what she was thinking, she felt disconnected from her.
She knew she was pushing her luck by resting a hand on Lissa's, but she did it anyway. She needed to feel her; it always made her feel better to be able to reach out and touch her.
"I know nothing about you," Lissa said. "You know everything about me, but I know nothing about you."
"That's not true. You know me where it matters."
Lissa cut her a sidelong look. "Your whole past is a mystery to me. We're supposed to be spending our lives together and this is the first time you tell me you have a daughter. If you can keep a secret like that from me, what else are you hiding?"
The lie sprang forth automatically, as though she'd managed to convince herself that there were no more secrets. "Nothing else," she said. It amazed her that she was able to say it with such conviction. But she knew how imperative it was to keep this particular secret. They would never survive if Lissa found out the truth about the night she turned.
"Please forgive me for keeping this from you, Lissa. I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I hate that I've disappointed you."
"What is she like?"
"Clara? She's nice. We have a lot in common." The tears had begun to trickle out again. She'd wanted so badly to talk with Lissa about Clara, to share her delight at meeting her and discovering their similarities.
Lissa's laugh was humorless. "Well of course, she's your daughter."
Jean sensed the rancor in her tone. But with so much to take in, Lissa's bitterness was understandable.
"I really want you to meet her properly. I know it's a lot to ask of you, but it would mean everything to me if you got to know each other. You're both so special to me. Will you meet her?" She looked at Lissa with large, hopeful, expectant eyes, even though she knew she had no right to expect anything from her. Certainly not so soon after such a revelation.
Lissa sighed. "Of course I will."
Jean thanked her and covered her face in kisses of gratitude, ignoring how rigid Lissa's body was.
"I really can't do this without you," she said.
TWENTY-FIVE
Her head lay on my stomach while I twisted my fingers through her ebony-colored hair. She was doing most of the talking; I made the necessary noises of agreement, or gave monosyllabic answers, simply to show that I was still listening.
"I can't believe you thought I was chea
ting on you," she said, as if the notion was unfathomable. "That would never happen, Lissa. You're the love of my life."
"I know," I said with little emotion. She didn't seem to notice the lack of enthusiasm in my voice. She was too consumed with her feelings of familial bliss, now that I'd agreed to get to know her daughter.
"I'm glad I don't have to keep it from you anymore. Now we can move on," she said, the vibration of her voice on my stomach.
"Yes," I said.
How was she to know that I was crying inside, working overtime to make sure it didn't manifest on the outside for her to see, destroying her vision of a happy family?
This was far worse than an affair – far more damaging. An affair could be overcome with enough grovelling on her part. But this...this changed everything.
Jean had spent our entire relationship assuring me that I was the most important person or thing in her life, and I'd spent all that time believing her. I never thought anyone could mean more to her than I did. Clara was the only person who could, and I hadn't even known she existed. My natural rival – someone who had more claim to Jean than I ever could. She could have gotten rid of her mistress; she wouldn't do that with her daughter. And the worst thing of all? I had no right to my envy.
As she spoke animatedly about all the things she and Clara had in common, I sank deeper and deeper into a silent depression. I closed my eyes and prayed to wake from this nightmare, which might have been the worst one yet. Only, I couldn't wake from it.
I'd said all the right things to make her feel better, and I would continue to do so, no matter how much it hurt. I'd promised to take care of her, to support her, just like a loving spouse would. I would do my duty, play my role, and for the first time since getting with her, share her, even if my heart broke in the process.
There were many things I held back that night, things I didn't dare voice out loud due to how depraved they would sound. Like, the fact that our relationship dynamic now made a lot more sense. Her whole obsession with protecting me, the motherly vibe she exhibited when it came to me. I'd been looking for a mother figure, and her a daughter. Our union, in that context, would have looked creepy to outsiders.