“It’s okay, I’m not hungry anyway.” I watch him unpack the groceries as Grandma Winnie starts cleaning up the dishes in the sink. “Dad, I need to talk to you when you’re done.”
“Sure, kiddo, be right there.”
After what seems like forever, he joins me at the table, handing me a cup of my favorite peppermint hot chocolate. He has coffee for himself.
“Where’d Grandma go?” I take a sip of the hot chocolate, keeping my hands wrapped around the cup. I’ve learned over the years that by keeping my hands occupied, effectively preventing any fidgeting, I’m less likely to give away my nervousness.
“She went to bed. What’s up, Evie? I can tell you’ve got something on your mind by that frown on your face,” he says, blowing over the coffee and then taking a timid sip.
“Oh,” I say, and my hand goes to my forehead. Sure enough, my brows are furrowed. Why must everything I’m thinking show on my face? “Listen, Dad. I have something I want to tell you.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“I found my birth certificate.” I blurt out. It’s not exactly how I wanted to start the conversation, but I can’t take it back now.
“Well, you needed it to get your driver’s license, didn’t you? Grandma told me you two were looking for it the other day.”
“Not that one, Dad. I’m talking about the real one. The one you got from the hospital on the day I was born.”
He remains silent, staring into the blackness of the cup of coffee in front of him. Finally, without looking at me, he says, “Why didn’t you come to me, Evie?”
“So it’s true; you’re not my real father?” I know the answer, of course, but I want to hear him say it himself.
“I was going to tell you the truth when the time was right. I’ve been meaning to tell you over this last year, but I just couldn’t come up with the right way to approach it. I didn’t want to see you hurt, especially with your mom gone.”
“That’s another thing I need to tell you. I went to Indiana this week, not to New York.”
“What?” His face is turning red, and I know his temper is trying to get the best of him, but he takes a deep breath instead.
“Because I wanted to find Mom’s family, so they could tell me who my father is.”
“Evie, I can’t believe you lied to my face,” he whispers, and his eyes lift to meet mine. Suddenly, there’s a stab in my heart, and it’s not because of the sorrow I’m feeling for myself or for my mother. It’s because of what I see in my father’s eyes: heartache, regret, and worry. But I can’t let my devotion to Nash, who lovingly raised me, overshadow what’s really going on.
“Really, Dad? You can’t believe I lied to your face?” I’m calm on the outside. On the inside I’m hysterical, but I steady myself as best as I can. I don’t want this to end in a shouting match, mainly because I want answers. “Well, I can’t believe you’re saying that to me after you’ve lied to me and the twins for the last ten years of our lives.”
“What are you talking about, Evie?” Dad sighs.
“I found Mamaw Grayce in Indiana. She told me what you did to Mom. I want to hear your side.”
“What did she tell you?”
“She said you sent Mom back to Indiana to get medical treatment for her mental illness, and then a few weeks after she was there, you sent divorce papers.” I watch as Dad buries his face in his hands and then rakes his fingers through his thinning, blond hair. “What I don’t understand is why you decided to tell us she was dead, instead of the truth—that you’d abandoned her in some God-forsaken place without any means of taking care of herself.”
“Did you see her? Did you see your mother?” he asks, and I’m surprised by the desperate, hopeful look in his eyes.
“No. She doesn’t live there anymore. Mamaw Grayce hasn’t heard from her in over five years. She left a note saying she was going to DC to find us.” My voice cracks when I say this, and my bottom lip trembles. I don’t want to cry, so I bite my lip and clear my throat.
Dad looks at me, nods, then drops his eyes back to his coffee. “Evie, I never told you kids that she was dead.”
I’m glaring at him now with my jaw slacked in disbelief. Am I really hearing what I’m hearing?
“Dad, I don’t remember everything from that day, but I distinctly remember you coming home and telling me that Mom was in a car wreck and that she wouldn’t be coming back.”
“That’s right, that’s exactly what I said. Notice the words ‘death’ or ‘dead’ are nowhere in that statement?”
“Moot point. You knew what I’d think. I can’t believe you’re saying this.” I shake my head and clasp my hands to my ears.
“Evie, listen to me,” he says, pulling my hands down. He looks into my eyes, and the strangest expression crosses on his face. It takes me a minute, but I realize what it is—it’s vulnerability, and I’ve never seen that in my father’s eyes, ever. “I want to tell you everything that happened with your mother. I think it’s time you knew. I know you’re mature enough to handle it. I just hope you can understand why I did it—why I had to put you kids first and send her away.” His voice trembles.
I place my hand on his hand because I want him to know that he can tell me anything. I want him to know that I am ready to hear the truth. At least, I think I am.
I nod and hold his eyes with mine. I try to give him a reassuring smile as I say, “Go ahead, Dad.”
He takes a deep breath and begins the story of Nash and Mia Sweeney. True to what Mamaw Grayce has told me, they’d met in Indianapolis. Mom was single, had a baby at home, and was looking for a good-paying job. Dad fell in love with her at first sight. She was tall, golden-skinned, and had the biggest, blackest eyes he’d ever seen.
“There was a sadness in those eyes that made me want to take care of her. I wanted to hold her and fix whatever it was that had broken her. Those eyes haunted me when we weren’t together. I had to be with her for my own sake, if not hers.”
He tells me that he continued to call mom, asking to see her on weekends or on her days off. She finally agreed to go out with him after a couple weeks of calling. A month after their first date, he met me. He came to Mamaw Grayce’s trailer, bringing flowers for both women. Mom had completely surprised him on that visit when she asked if he wanted to hold me.
“You were only nine months old, Evie, but you held my pinky and looked right into my eyes. Then you smiled at me—I was a-goner after that. I’ve loved you with all my heart since that very day. I was bound and determined to marry your mother after that night, because I knew I absolutely had to have both of you in my life.” A single tear escapes his right eye and slides down his cheek. He smiles at me, but his Irish-green eyes are sad.
He tightens his grip on my hand and continues, “Evie, I swear to you, your mother never told me who your biological father is. It was just something we never discussed. I never asked her, and she never volunteered the information. I’ve always thought of you as my own, so it was never an issue with me, and she never brought it up. I’m sorry that I can’t help you with that.”
I press my lips together and nod, because I believe him. For some reason, my mother did not want anyone to know who my father is. I’m having a hard time understanding why, but it’s no fault of Nash’s.
“Go ahead, Dad,” I say and squeeze his hand, trying my best to be encouraging and understanding. My conflicting emotions and loyalties are tearing me up inside.
“She was always a little distant,” he says, and I can tell by the tension in his voice and body language that he’s choosing his words carefully. “It took weeks for her to trust me enough to go on a date with me, but she finally did. She was always staring off into space, but I just assumed that she was a daydreamer. Her Grandma Grayce did warn me before we moved away. She pulled me aside and told me that Mia had been behaving oddly, and she didn’t think it was just her being eccentric. I ignored Grayce, though, because I thought she was just trying to keep me from taking you to Ja
pan. She made me promise to make Mia see doctors, and I said I would, but I just couldn’t bear to think there was something wrong with my delicate, beautiful wife. Especially when I saw how she was with you. She loved you so much, Evie. She was so good with you when you were a baby.” His voice chokes when he says this, and I know by the distant look in his eyes that his mind is taking him back to some cherished memory, to some precious time long ago.
I have to look away to keep my own emotions in check. Seeing him like this is killing me. It’s not the stoic, astute Captain Sweeney sitting in front of me; it’s my heartbroken, destroyed Daddy. The dutiful child buried somewhere deep inside of me is blaming herself for doing this to him. But, the logical adult inside of me knows that it’s not my fault. This conversation was going to happen sometime, he’d said so himself. At least, that’s what I tell myself to feel better about breaking my Dad’s heart all over again. I try to give him the time he needs to collect himself, but we seem to sit in silence forever.
Finally, I interrupt his thoughts. “Dad? What changed?” His sad eyes move back to mine, and I swallow hard to steady my voice. “What happened that made you decide to send her away?”
“Your mother was so beautiful when we got married. She seemed happy, especially that I’d bonded so quickly with you. After the wedding, I immediately petitioned to adopt you.” He smiles at me and strokes my hand. “You were officially a Sweeney five months later. Adopting you was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life, bar none.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I say and give him a sincere smile.
“I knew your mom had her demons. She liked to drink at night—a scotch or two. She said it helped to take the edge off, but really she was self-medicating. I didn’t know how serious her illness was, Evie. She looked so normal on the outside—in the beginning, anyway. No one could guess that she was ill. I believe that was the problem in the end, because I didn’t stay on top of it. I knew she was going to see the Navy psychiatrist, but I didn’t ever ask about it. I know now that I was in denial. Shortly after we moved to Italy, she got pregnant with the twins. She was over the moon. So was I. What I didn’t realize is that she’d stopped taking her medications, because the pharmacist told her that the pills could cause birth defects. The doctors hadn’t told her about that danger because they knew she’d likely stop taking the pills. By the time her symptoms started to show, the twins were born.”
“Symptoms? What kind of symptoms?” I ask, prodding him along.
“She started saying strange things. She’d ask, ‘Did you hear that, Nash?’ and when I asked her what she was talking about, she’d say ‘Oh, nothing’ and change the subject. I’d overhear her talking to herself. When I’d ask her if she said something, she’d just say she was thinking out loud.” He paused, thinking back. “But by the time the twins were a year old, she was having paranoid delusions. She decided that someone or something was trying to take you kids away. She believed you had powers that these entities wanted.”
“What kind of powers?”
“She believed that you kids had alien DNA that made you telepathic and psychic,” he says, shaking his head in exasperation. “She thought the aliens would come back to collect you.”
“Oh wow,” I exclaimed.
“There was no reasoning with her. She believed it wholeheartedly. She took you all away to a convent in France, hoping to hide you there. I was frantic because I had no idea where she’d gone with you kids. I found you because the sisters there had gotten information off her driver’s license and notified the US embassy in France, who then notified the naval base in Italy. I drove all the way up to Normandy to retrieve you. Your mom was hysterical, convinced that I was in on the conspiracy. I knew something had to be done. I couldn’t stay with her all the time and work, too. Her delusions were making her violent, especially toward me. In her mind, she was doing what she had to do to protect her kids.”
When he tells me this, I think of the dreams I’ve been having about my mother and wonder if they’re dreams or if they’re really repressed memories. I don’t want to say anything to Dad about them, because if the dreams are real, I don’t want him to know that I remember.
“There was a car wreck, Evie,” he says and looks at me as if he’s trying to decipher my thoughts. “It was the final straw for me. Things couldn’t get any worse than what they’d become, because all of you kids were in the car with her when it happened.”
I rack my brain, trying to remember the incident he’s speaking of, but nothing comes to me.
“You are all lucky to be alive after that, including your mother. She ran off an embankment and flipped the car. When the Italian police arrived, she was talking gibberish and telling them that someone was trying to kill her and take the kids. We’re lucky the police didn’t take you kids away on a charge of child endangerment. I had her admitted to the naval hospital and immediately arranged for her to be sent back to the States to be treated in a mental hospital here. Sending her back to Indiana was what the Navy doctors recommended, because it was a place familiar to her, and her grandmother would be there for her. I couldn’t just leave the Navy, Evie. It was our only means of support.”
“Why did you divorce her? If you loved her, then why didn’t you see to it that she got better? I’m having a hard time understanding.”
“I did stay in contact with her doctors in Indiana. After a few weeks of evaluation, they told me that it was unlikely she’d get better. Her disease was so advanced, that with the amount of medications it would require to stop the delusions, she’d essentially be a zombie.”
Dad sighs. He pauses for a minute and then looks back up at me. “I couldn’t risk bringing her back. Her delusions were centered on you kids, so the doctors said it was best to keep you away from her, at least for a while. They needed time to work with her, to teach her how to distinguish delusions from reality.
“Once schizophrenics start feeling better, they believe they don’t need their pills anymore. Because those medications cause some bad side effects, they stop taking them. This was the problem the doctors in Indiana were having with your mother. She would seem to be doing well, but then she’d stop taking the pills. For your safety, I decided to divorce her and risk alienating you kids, rather than endangering you by bringing her back into our home.”
The more he talks, the more I realize that I probably would’ve done the same thing, given the situation, especially because of the twins. They were just babies when all this happened, and they needed to be protected. I’m just thankful that they have no memory of how our mother was. If there’s one good thing to come out of this, it’s that I’ve realized how much those two brats mean to me. They may be my half-siblings, but we share this horrible past, and that means something.
Also, I can see how much that decision has eaten away at my father over the last ten years. Seeing him destroyed like this, I know it couldn’t have been easy for him to keep the secret for so long. It must have been one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do besides sending the woman he loved away and raising three children without their mother.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I say and lean over to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “I understand now why you did it. I know you did what was best for everyone at the time.”
He plants his face in his hands, and his body begins to shudder as a sob escapes between his fingers.
“Dad, are you okay?” I ask, my voice trembling.
“I am so, so sorry,” he says, his whole body now racked with sobs. “I never meant to hurt you, I swear.”
I rise from my chair and move to him, wrapping my arms around his neck. He pulls me down on his lap and hugs me close to him. He rests his tear-soaked cheek against my chest and squeezes me tight around the waist.
“Daddy, it’s okay. Please, don’t cry, Daddy.” I say to him as my own tears begin to tumble down my cheeks.
“I miss her so much,” he cries and wipes at his eyes with his fingers. “Every time I think of her, it’s
as if someone is ripping my heart right out of my chest. I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. I feel like I’m losing my mind.”
Seeing my father reduced to the broken man in front of me makes me realize what I must do. I must find my mother and reunite them. My father has made so many sacrifices for us, including giving up the woman he loves. It’s time to make his pain go away. I dry my tears with the back of my hand.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” I whisper to him, stroking the top of his head as if he were the child in need of comforting. “I’m going to find Mom. I’m going to find her and bring her back to you.”
He looks up at me with red, swollen eyes and nods. “I’m going to help you. We’ll find her. I promise you that, Evie.”
“I know we will. I have faith.”
CHAPTER 16
A few weeks have passed, and we’ve found no signs of my mother in the DC metro area. My father, Xander, and I have combed every known homeless shelter and soup kitchen within a fifty-mile radius. We’ve scoured the local parks, thrusting her picture at everyone and anyone who walks by, hoping that someone will recognize her. Today, Dad and Grandma Winnie are going to hospitals with her picture, while Xander and I go to the police to file a missing persons report. We weren’t sure how long to look for her before seeking help from the police, but with December looming on the calendar, we’re desperate to find her before winter’s bitter blanket descends on us all.
I’m sitting with Xander outside the detective’s office, clutching in one hand the postcard my mom sent to Mamaw Grayce and in the other a picture of her taken after we moved to Italy—when there was still no trace of the disease on her beautiful features. Over the last few weeks, Xander has been there for me like no one in my life ever has. He’s spent evenings driving me all over the tri-state area looking for my mother. He’s held and comforted me when I could no longer be strong—when the stress of the search and the disappointment of going home every night without her finally overtook me. He’s given up his weekends and his lacrosse practice for me. He never asks anything in return.
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