“Your half nephew,” he said. “So drop the lecture.”
My head jerked back. “What did you say?”
“Oh, my God. Mom still hasn’t told you? Seriously?” His eyes were cold. “Daddy Dearest isn’t your real father. I thought he would’ve said something, since the two of you are so close.”
There was a sudden whooshing feeling in my stomach. My mouth opened, but no words came out.
That couldn’t be true.
But all of a sudden, I knew it was.
And then, the words did come. This was not the time for me and my issues. This was about Mason.
“That boy isn’t just your son, Hunter Sloane,” I said, ignoring his bombshell. “He’s Leah’s, too. Remember her? How gentle and kind she was? How much she loved you? That’s her boy over there, and while you’re trying to make him over in your image, keep in mind that he’s a lot like her.”
His face flickered before the familiar bitterness dropped back into place. “Yeah, well, she’s not around to help, is she?”
“And Mason almost killed himself. Remember that?”
“That was an accident,” he spat. “A stupid accident.”
“Or a boy so lost and miserable and sad he overdosed.”
He stepped closer to me. “Don’t tell me about my son. I know him best.”
“No, you don’t, Hunter! You have no idea who he is. Leah would rip you to shreds if she knew how you treat her son. She would hate the person you’ve become.”
His head jerked back as my words hit their mark.
“Now, you go over there,” I said, a fire raging in my chest—not my stomach. “You tell him how proud you are of him and how much you love him. You start counseling for your anger issues because you are bordering on emotional abuse. And if you cross that line, I will be up your ass so hard and fast I will shred your intestines, and I won’t stop till I have custody.”
People were giving us a wide berth. Good. I didn’t care if they heard.
“I’m sorry Leah died,” I said a little more quietly. “I loved her, too. She was a great person, and I’m sorry it’s hard for you. But if you don’t do better by my nephew and Leah’s son, you will lose him. Do you understand me, you bitter little man? I will take your son away from you.”
“He has to be strong,” he repeated, but his voice was less certain.
“He already is, putting up with a father like you.”
Hunter looked at me a long minute. Then he went to the mob of kids, found his son and hugged him. It was awkward, and Mason looked a little stunned, but it was, nevertheless, a hug.
* * *
• • •
A few hours later, my father and I sat in my living room across from each other. He’d come straight from LaGuardia after getting my text: Please come see me as soon as possible. I’m fine, but it’s important.
We both had glasses of scotch. Big glasses.
“What was so important, sugarplum?” he asked.
“Right,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Hunter mentioned something today about my parentage.”
My father’s face went white. Admiral, sensing a tremor in the Force, leaped up next to him on the couch.
“It doesn’t matter, Daddy,” I said. “I don’t care.”
His eyes filled with tears. “You are absolutely my daughter,” he said, his voice shaking. “I don’t care what Hunter said.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? We’re not biologically related, are we?”
“It doesn’t matter how you started out. You’re mine. You’re my daughter.”
“Oh, Daddy,” I said. “Of course I am. Of course I am.”
“The second I saw you . . .” he said. “There in the delivery room, your face all red . . .” He wiped his eyes. “It was love at first sight.”
I slid into his chair next to him, surprised that I fit. “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Why would I? In my heart, you’re completely my child. Even more than Hunter.” He leaned forward, drained half his drink, then settled back, his arm snug around me, even if it was shaking. “I didn’t think Hunter knew.”
“Well, he does. Told me at Mason’s cross-country meet.”
“Such a class act,” Dad muttered.
“Is this why you couldn’t take me when you got a divorce?” I asked.
His face crumpled. “I wanted full custody, or at least half. But your mother said she’d tell you, and I . . . well, I didn’t want you to feel any worse than you already did. I guess I thought you’d be . . . unsettled if you knew. You weren’t the happiest girl as it was.”
“No. I wasn’t.”
“So I took what she gave me. I’m sorry, honey. I’ve wondered a million times if I should’ve risked calling her bluff.”
I was quiet for a minute, trying to process everything. “So what happened? Did she have an affair?”
“You should ask her.”
I took that as a yes. An affair, then. She cheated on my father.
She cheated on my father. Whatever small affection I had for my mother shriveled. “Does Cherish know?”
“Yes.”
That made sense. She knew everything, really.
So I was a bastard. That almost had a cool ring to it, a pirate feel.
Somewhere out there was a man who looked like me, I imagined. Maybe he was fat. Maybe he had green eyes. Maybe I even crossed his mind sometimes. Maybe I had half siblings, even.
But who really cared?
The man sitting next to me, trying not to cry, was the man who’d looked under my bed for monsters, read me bedtime stories, told me I was his princess. The man who’d never once missed an appointed dinner or weekend with me, not once. The man who had a room for me in his apartment, fresh sheets always on the bed, wooden letters that spelled my name. He’d given me two sisters, and he’d given me a stepmother who loved me ten times more than my actual mother did.
He’d never said anything about my weight, either. Maybe he should have; maybe a loving conversation from him would’ve helped in a way that my mother’s endless criticism never did. But maybe I needed at least one person who didn’t seem to notice. At any rate, the past was the past. He wasn’t perfect, but he was my dad.
“You’re the best father in the world,” I said. “I’m so proud to be your daughter.”
Then my father did cry, and I did, too, but they were happy tears. The very best kind.
* * *
• • •
The next day, I went to Big Kitty’s house and let myself in without knocking. I found her lying on the white couch, an ice pack over her eyes. “Is someone there?” she asked.
“It’s your illegitimate daughter,” I said.
She lurched up, the ice pack falling.
Ugh. She didn’t look good, her eyes swollen and bruised—another eyelid lift, I guessed, in addition to her fillers. Her lips were comically inflated into an unnatural trout-pout.
“Did your father say something?” she asked.
“Which father? Daddy, or the sperm donor?” I had to admit, I was enjoying the look on her fairly immobile face. “Hunter told me,” I said. “In his usual diplomatic way, at yesterday’s track meet. I’m sure he was overheard.” That would bug her. Let it.
“I need a drink,” she said.
“Let’s have you sober instead. It would be a nice change.”
“Fine. Be cruel. I’m sure you’re enjoying this.”
I looked at her strange face and felt my hardened heart soften a little bit. Knock it off, I told it. She’s toxic. She’s made you feel like shit your entire life.
“I take it you had an affair, Mother.”
She let out a huffy breath. “Fine. You’re right. I had an affair. Your father was constantly working, I was bored, I met someone.” Something flickered across h
er face.
“Did you love him?”
She cut me a look, her swollen eyes making her resemble an offended lizard. “I loved your father, Georgia. Joseph Sloane, that is. I loved him, he loved me, we got married, were happy, had Hunter, who was a handful, I admit. Your father was more critical of him. He thought Hunter needed therapy or some such nonsense.”
“He does need therapy.”
“Says Little Miss Judgment. Do you want to hear this story or not?” she asked.
“By all means.”
Mother sat back against the couch. “Joseph loved me a great deal once, Georgia. When we were dating.” She was quiet for a minute. “It’s not easy, you know, to be in love with your husband and watch him slowly grow disappointed with who you actually are.”
Her words hit me by surprise. Hadn’t that been my exact fear with Rafe?
“And your father was disappointed in me,” she continued. “It was painfully obvious. You know the saying: The honeymoon’s over. Somehow, I wasn’t enough for him. There I’d be, every day, waiting for him to come home, dinner ready, trying to be interesting, trying to be what I thought he wanted, and he got tired of me. I don’t know what he expected.”
“Did you have a job? Before Hunter?”
“No,” she said defiantly. “I didn’t need to work, Georgia. I had the house and . . .”
“And what?” Even someone as self-centered as my mother had to have something other than her reflection to fill her hours.
“I was on some committees,” she said. “We had social obligations. Don’t make that face. It was forty years ago.” She pressed the ice pack to the side of her face and looked away. “Then we had Hunter, and he was everything to me.”
“He gave you purpose.”
Her head snapped back to me. “Yes. Exactly. Your father didn’t love him the way I did. We starting fighting all the time. Your father worked ten hours a day in the city, traveled twice a month, and then he’d come home and criticize me for letting Hunter run wild. As if it was easy keeping that child happy. Joseph thought I was spoiling him.”
“You were.”
“It’s easy to preach about how to raise children, Georgia, when you don’t have any.”
“Point taken.”
“Oh, and listen to this. Your father even criticized how I looked. You’ll love this one, Georgia. He thought I should eat more.”
“So you ate less.”
She gave me an oddly triumphant look. “Yes. And then I met Don, and he was very different. He sympathized. He listened. He told me all the time how beautiful and delicate I was.”
God. My poor mother. Her size and her beauty were the only attributes she cared about, and hearing that would’ve reassured her that she had value. “What did he look like, this Don person?”
“He was very handsome. A . . . a big man.”
“Do you mean fat?”
“A big man.” She cut me a look. “He was so confident. Also married, also had a son. That’s how we met. At Hunter’s school. We had an affair, I fell in love, and when I told him I was pregnant, I thought we’d both get divorces and be together. Instead, he offered to pay for the abortion.”
Good God.
“I . . . I hadn’t expected that,” she said quietly. “I hadn’t expected that at all. I thought he loved me. And, not to toot my own horn, but I was very beautiful, Georgia.”
“I remember.”
She gave me another lizard look—I guessed I was supposed to reassure her that she still was—but continued. “So I told your father. He and I hadn’t slept together in months, so there was no pretending you were his.”
“Did you think about getting an abortion?” It was a hard question to ask.
“Georgia. I would never do that. You were my . . .” Her voice shook a little. “My baby.”
She touched a purple, swollen eyelid—was she crying?—then flinched at the pain it must’ve caused.
It dawned on me that my mother hated how she looked. That all these procedures and surgeries were a pathetic attempt to go back to the way she was the last time she’d been happy. That her obsessive thinness was a way to feel superior, because, in her heart of hearts, she felt the opposite.
I felt an unwelcome surge of pity.
No, no. Nope. She had cheated on my dad, had been the other woman, had placed no importance on the vows of marriage for either of them. She had gambled and lost big.
But she didn’t abort me, either. She could have, and she didn’t.
“What happened to your lover?” Had I ever met him at the Lawn Club? Playing tennis? At St. Luke’s?
“They moved shortly after I told him I was keeping you,” she said, and my shoulders dropped an inch or two. “Florida, I think. I don’t know where they are now. I suppose you could look him up, but I never have. If you want his name, that is.”
“I don’t.”
She paused. “You look like him.”
“I gathered. It explains a lot.” I took a slow, deep breath. “Why didn’t you let Dad have joint custody when you guys got divorced?”
Her swollen eyes narrowed. “Isn’t it obvious?” she said. “You loved him best. If I let you live with him, I’d barely exist as far as you were concerned.”
There was a long pause. I let it sit there.
“Why did you get a divorce, anyway?” I finally asked.
Her puffy lips tightened. “Your father and I had no real relationship after I got pregnant with you. He said he’d stay and raise you as his own, but he wanted nothing to do with me. He also told me if I had another affair, that would be it.” She sat back against the couch cushions and fiddled with her ring.
“Ah. So you had another affair.”
“I thought it would get his attention, and I was wrong. I’m sorry, Georgia. Obviously, I’m not perfect.”
Suddenly, my whole childhood needed some rethinking. “I’m going now,” I said, getting up and heading for the door. “I’ll see you around.”
“Georgia.” There was an accusatory note in her voice. “I did my best, you know.”
I paused. Maybe she had. My mother was not a brave, big-hearted woman with surprising insights and gentle humor.
But I was.
I was.
“Take care of that face, Mom. I’ll see you soon.”
Then I left, feeling stronger and brighter than I had in a long, long time.
CHAPTER 36
Marley
Meet his parents. (Nope.)
Be in a photo shoot. (Check.)
On Sunday afternoon, I went over to Will’s a little early. Fine. An hour and a half early. I missed him, even though I’d seen him last night, and the feeling filled my chest with happiness.
As usual, his shades were pulled, and from the curb, his house looked utterly unremarkable, the plainest house on the block. I smiled a little. If people only knew about Eden in the back. Maybe in the spring, he’d start working on the front. Maybe I could help him, since I knew a thing or two about gardening myself. Or I could just watch him, and ask him to take his shirt off, and he’d laugh again, that low, unexpected, gravelly laugh.
I was making dinner here for the two of us, and the plan was to invite him to my birthday. It would be hard, yes, but he’d been making progress. A small family dinner . . . I mean, hey. My family was nothing if not accepting. He didn’t even have to come to the restaurant (though I hoped he would). He could just show up at Mom and Dad’s afterward for cake.
The truth was, I needed him there. My birthday—mine and Frankie’s—would be the last night I would ever be inside my parents’ house, the place I’d lived almost my entire life. We’d had so many fantastic meals there, so many laughs, so many tears, so many perfectly wonderful mundane days and nights that blurred together. There was an overlying sadness to our family, of course. But my God,
we loved each other! Our house, where my twin had spent her short life, had held all that love in its humble rooms and tidy yard. Never again would I smell that unique perfume of home—tomato sauce and minestrone, Ivory soap and cellar must, Clorox Clean-Up and wax from Frankie’s candles.
Georgia would come to my birthday dinner if I asked. But I never had; my family and I celebrated on our own, the ghost of Frankie a little too present on our birthday.
No, I wanted it to be Will, because I loved him. It had crept up in inches on me, that love, but now that it was here, I couldn’t see it leaving anytime soon.
The other night, when I was cleaning up after dinner—a firm believer in They Who Cook Shall Not Do KP—Will had come up behind me at the sink, put his arms around me and rested his head on my shoulder. “You’re beautiful,” he said. Just that. But he stayed like that a long minute, then kissed my neck, making a tingling warmth spread down my side. I even felt him smile, just because he was glad I was there.
Wasn’t that what love was? Happiness just because you were with your person? Not having to try to convince and fake it till you make it . . . all you had to do was be.
Well, well. Here I was, sitting in my car, getting all moony over a guy I’d once called a serial killer. I got out, went up to his door and was just about to knock when I heard voices. I froze, fist raised.
He had company. Now that was unexpected.
“It’s been wonderful seeing you, baby,” came a woman’s voice. Will always kept a few windows open an inch, so I could hear them easily. “You look wonderful.”
“Thanks, Mom. Dad, it’s fine. Leave it.”
His parents! His parents were over. How nice! I knew they lived upstate, but he hadn’t talked about them much. This was great.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t that great . . . from where I stood, anyway, which was literally and figuratively outside. I hadn’t been invited. Even if it was a spontaneous visit, I only lived six blocks away. He could’ve called me. And I really, really wanted him to introduce me to his parents.
Shit. It was on the list and everything.
“I hate to pry,” said the mom, “but are you seeing anyone?”
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