The Girl Made of Clay

by Nicole Meier

  But the woman had a fierceness about her that the son—TR’s son—lacked. A sort of razor’s edge. Sara had no doubt this woman could easily bring someone to her knees if she wanted. It was written all over her disapproving face.

  “You said you are TR’s daughter?” Bo began. His expression was one of genuine confusion.

  Did TR have another family hidden out here all this time? She and Joanne hadn’t been enough, so he went and started over with someone else? The bitter taste of old rejection surfaced. Her father’s betrayals ran much deeper than she’d known.

  “Merda,” the woman uttered under her breath. Both hands flew up and then smacked back down at her sides. Her proud shoulders sagged into what Sara detected as defeat.

  “English, Mamma!” Bo cast a watchful glance at his mother.

  “We’ve already been visited many times by the police. Too much spying around. We don’t need more of this from you! You cannot just show up now. It isn’t right!”

  “Mamma!”

  The woman looked away.

  Bo studied her. “Why do you say that?”

  Anger flashed in the downturned corners of her mouth. “Because this girl shows up only to cause trouble. That’s why. She has no business here. Don’t you see?”

  Sara flinched. Had her father told this woman something about her?

  “She says she’s TR’s daughter, Mamma. But something tells me you already knew that.”

  Dark eyes raked over Sara’s still-wobbly frame. “Yes, I know who she is. Just look at her. She’s the image of her father.” The woman’s large knuckles dug into her wool cardigan, yanking it tightly across her floral dress. Both arms locked over her large bosom.

  Under such scrutiny, Sara had the urge to cover herself.

  “And you still want to run her off?” Bo asked.

  His mother jutted out her chin and glared. Sara recoiled. She planted her feet, however, and held her ground. She had a few burning questions of her own, namely why this woman thought she had dibs on TR and his place when his own daughter did not. Who was she to run Sara off?

  “Oh my God, Mamma!” Bo let out a heavy exhale and stomped in a circle. Puffs of gravelly dust kicked up. “What the hell?”

  My sentiments exactly, Sara thought.

  She did the math. If what he said was true, that he belonged to TR, then he would have been born when Sara was in her late teens—roughly around the same time as her catastrophic encounter with TR at the Los Angeles art studio. Had this feral woman been in the picture way back then? Had she been standing in the room all those years ago when Sara’s mother thrust her into the crowd of partygoers? A recollection of her teenage humiliation crept in.

  The night she’d agreed to go see TR, it was solely because her mother led her to believe he’d asked for her. But when they arrived at the gallery party, they’d taken him totally by surprise. Her father had been celebrating with a roomful of strangers, and Sara instantly sensed that their entrance was being treated like some kind of unplanned entertainment. People pointed and whispered at Joanne’s garish dress and exaggerated antics, while all Sara wanted to do was melt into the walls. TR acted as if he’d been thrown off balance, tripping over himself and his words, like he didn’t know what to do with her. Of course, this sent her mother into a bigger fit. Sara had run from the room with her mother in tow, the night and her memory of her father ruined.

  As she stood on TR’s property now, once again feeling unexpected and unwanted, Sara began to shake. Had this always been the case with her father? Had TR not been interested in getting his old family together because he was busy playing house with this woman and her son?

  The realization was a hard blow. Sara’s anguish quickly shifted into rage.

  “This isn’t right!” Repulsion for her father’s callous actions overwhelmed her. Adrenaline coursed, and she very badly wanted to hit something. Wildly glancing around, she threw up her arms. “I came here to check on my father’s house. He never mentioned details about other people living here . . . nothing about a family!”

  Her throat burned as she said the words. TR had this whole other family, including a grown son. And he’d kept it from her, his only daughter.

  If I am his only daughter, Sara wondered. The idea served as a fresh dagger plunging into the deepest parts of her.

  TR didn’t really like children, nor did he care to be tied down to convention. So why—or rather how—was it possible a woman and her child were standing there, claiming TR and his house as their own?

  The hot flare of fury that had started in the base of her gut continued to build. Her father had been keeping monumental secrets. She’d cared for him, and he’d lied to her. He’d gone out and made another family to replace her. And here she’d been, all this time since his accident, assuming they might be getting closer. But it was all a sham. The people standing in front of her were proof of that.

  Bo had backed up a few inches after her outburst. He looked unsure of what she might do next. “The fact he didn’t tell you about us is pretty messed up,” he said to Sara. His hand went to the back of his neck and rubbed. “But my dad can be messed up. Like, a lot of the time.”

  “You can say that again.” She balled her fists and glared into the distance, blinking back her lament.

  How many more times would her father break her heart? How many times would she let him? TR had sunk to a new low and pulled Sara’s faith right down with him.

  “He never mentioned me? Like ever?” Sara noticed Bo’s gaze drop to the ground. She recognized the awful feeling of dejection in his face. For a brief instant she empathized with him.

  “Humph!” Bo’s mother spit forcefully into the dust near her feet. Sara flinched. It felt oddly as if it were some kind of curse. Only whom was the woman cursing? Sara hoped it wasn’t her. But by the way the woman’s eyes landed softly back on her son, Sara understood TR was to blame.

  “Are you his wife?” Sara was almost afraid to ask, but a hundred questions were pushing their way forward.

  “Ha!” The woman’s face tightened, and she folded her arms. “No. I’m not married to that idiot!”

  Bo shook his head. Sara wasn’t sure what to make of it.

  “Oh. Well, then how long have you two been living here?” she asked.

  “Four years,” Bo answered. “Four long years.” His mother nodded once and then looked as if she might spit again.

  Why only four years? She was on the verge of asking when Bo continued.

  “I don’t know where to go from here,” Bo announced. “Obviously, TR didn’t want you to know about us, or he would have told you. I’m not sure why.” He swallowed. Sara returned his gaze and detected a hint of grief.

  “I guess so.” Sara felt the hollowness of her own voice. Her father had played them all for fools.

  Bo’s mother huffed out audible exasperation in the background, as if she were growing weary of the conversation. It angered Sara that she’d kept silent, even though she knew Sara existed. Had she discouraged TR from attempting to reconnect with his daughter, or had he made that decision all on his own?

  “So, you say he’s living with you?” Bo asked. “We thought he’d come back by now. But then again . . .” Bo’s words drifted off. He bit down on his lower lip, looking as if he were afraid he’d said too much.

  Sara’s ears pricked. “Then again what?”

  Bo shook his head. “Never mind. It’s a long story. Maybe you could come inside, and we can talk for a minute.”

  Sara hesitated. A big part of her yearned to sit down and ply Bo with all her burning questions, and to process what it all meant. She wanted to find out as much as she could about this other family that had been hidden from her. But another part of her simply needed to go. Unearthing TR’s massive well of secrets had set something off inside her. Something irate and powerful. She had an urgent desire to confront her father—with everything.

  “I’d better go,” she blurted.

  “Goodbye, then,”
the woman said. She clapped her hands together as if to say that’s that.

  “Ma!” Bo glared. He turned to Sara, his face crumpled. “Go where?”

  “I just have to go. I need to be somewhere.” She had no intention of telling them her plan. Sara wanted TR to know her fury, to demand answers. These people would have to wait.

  She glanced beyond Bo to the remains of the charred house. Blackened ash stood like pillars of the past. And TR had left it all behind. Just as he’d left her. She was going to find out why.

  “I have to go!” Sara turned on her heel and sprinted to the car. No one was going to stop her this time.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  SARA

  Sara wrapped a pair of trembling hands around the steering wheel and tried not to hyperventilate. Hot tears of rejection streamed down her cheeks as she drove back to the hospital, clouding her vision, but she didn’t bother wiping them away.

  How could TR keep something so big from her? There was another woman and a son. Living with him. Existing this whole time just hours from Sara’s world. And yet they’d been hidden. Sara had been ignorantly caregiving for TR as if he had no other options. They’d spent hours alone, she and her father. There’d been so many quiet times when confessions could have been made. When they should have been made. She’d started each morning by intimately tending to his wounds, for God’s sake.

  And TR chose to cruelly withhold the truth.

  Another child existed. In place of her. Had TR been a great and present father for this Bo person? Had he held this boy in his arms and invited him to be his muse? Had he been there, steadfast during the difficult adolescent years, offering the guidance and consoling she so desperately could have used but never received? The very image sickened her.

  Accompanying her anguish was the intensifying wrath that came from being duped. Despite all of Sara’s reservations, she’d brought TR into her life anyway. He had been invited into her home, and yet he’d violated her trust. He’d been absent from Sara’s life not because he was too proud to admit his mistakes and return, but because he’d been playing house with a new family. Her sorrow and fury were almost crippling.

  There was a whole bevy of reasons to be livid with TR, deceit being high up on the list. But she was also furious with herself.

  She’d been such a fool. For beginning to soften toward her father, for trusting him, and for never considering he might have another family.

  Cranking the radio dial to “Off,” she navigated through pelting rain. The day had morphed into a depressing shade of gloom, with dense coastal fog and heavy precipitation assaulting the tiny town. It was as if the onslaught of dreadful weather were somehow trying to run her out of town.

  She squinted at the road ahead. A slick layer of rain flooded the pavement, causing her to grip the wheel even tighter for fear of hydroplaning. The last thing Sara wanted to do was lose control. But she feared that had pretty much happened anyway.

  What she would do when she got to TR, she wasn’t quite sure. Tossing him out of her life came to mind.

  So far, Sara had uncovered far too many questions and not enough answers.

  What on earth had TR been thinking? That he’d get away with so much deception? He was back in his hometown for the day, just minutes from where people were evidently awaiting his return, and he’d chosen to say nothing. He’d let Sara believe that without her, he was utterly alone. That he had nowhere to turn, nobody to help out in his hour of need. And she’d stupidly bought it. Hook, line, and sinker.

  Sara groaned.

  At that moment, she could almost sense Joanne’s ghostly spirit hovering over her shoulder, clucking her tongue in disapproval. Her mother would have known better. And her daughter should have too.

  Arriving back in the hospital parking lot, Sara aimed her car for the farthest spot and parked. She pulled in a couple of deep breaths, steeling herself. Dropping her hands into her lap, she noticed they were still shaky. Her reflection in the rearview mirror revealed an inky stream of mascara had marked her face. She crouched low in her seat, hiding from passersby. She wasn’t in any shape to go inside.

  Maybe the best thing to do would be to leave. To turn the car for home and desert TR altogether. The idea was tempting. But then a second thought followed. If she left now, she’d rob herself of the opportunity to confront him. And she wanted to see the look on his face when that happened.

  Snatching her cell, she dialed hospital reception. As it rang, she blotted her cheeks and attempted to mask the emotion in her voice. After a minute, she was patched through to the office of TR’s doctor.

  “Hi, I’m looking for Thomas Harlow. Do you know if he’s left yet?”

  Clicks of a computer keyboard could be heard through the line. The receptionist emitted a couple of “hmms” as Sara waited. Finally, the girl informed her TR was just recently taken back. There’d been some kind of mix-up with his appointment, and he’d probably be another thirty minutes or so before he was finished.

  “Thank you.” She hit “End.” One more thing to add to the list of screw-ups for the day. No doubt TR would be in a foul mood because of it.

  Let him stew, she thought. He deserved a little discomfort. And then some.

  Sara deliberated all the ways to go after her father. God, did she really have a brother out there this whole time and didn’t know it? Someone who’d gotten the fatherly parts of TR that were never offered to her?

  She absorbed the thought with a fresh dose of resentment.

  The woman, with her inhospitality toward Sara, was another story. Judging by the looks of her, with crevices bracketing a set mouth and protruding knuckles jutting up from weathered hands, Sara guesstimated the woman to be in the vicinity of sixty years old. This made sense, given that his girlfriends had always been younger. All except Joanne.

  Sara squeezed her eyes at the thought of her mother. Someone else who’d been replaced.

  She checked the time. TR was sure to be finished with his checkup. Turning her key, she set the car into reverse and backed from her hiding spot. The rain had faded. A layer of smokelike mist rose up from the blackened asphalt.

  His familiar shock of bright hair could be seen as she rounded the corner. TR spied her and flagged impatiently. His self-regard made her anger flare all over again. The sleeves of his blue-and-red windbreaker were pushed high above his elbows. A single ball of cotton was taped to the inside of one arm. The doctor had taken a blood sample.

  Surprisingly, TR’s usual swath of bandaging was absent. The doctors must have noted an improvement and removed the protective dressing. Sara lightened slightly with relief. She was over her role of playing nursemaid. Especially now.

  “It’s about damned time!” TR snapped as she opened the car door.

  Her molars ground together. He was lucky she even showed up. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “What a disaster that was!” TR grunted and landed with a thud in his seat. “I was an entire hour too early! Did you know that? And no one in that godforsaken joint knew what to do with me!”

  “Just don’t, TR,” Sara growled. She was ready to unleash. When she was through with him, being late for an appointment was going to be the least of TR’s problems.

  He scowled.

  “Do you have something to tell me?” Sara bored into him with her gaze, barely containing her mounting rage.

  “I’m not sure. Do I?” Something resembling panic flashed across his face.

  “Stop with the lies, TR!”

  Her father’s mouth hung open with bewilderment.

  “I’m waiting.”

  TR needed to start confessing. Fast.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  TR

  It was a test of some sort. He realized that. But TR didn’t know the answer. Whatever it was, he had the distinct feeling that everything was at stake. He searched her face and wondered what to say. What was his daughter after? This was the angriest he’d ever seen her. Her nostrils flared as her breath pushed o
ut through her nose. Her lips disappeared into that familiar thin line of disdain. Oh God, she hadn’t run into Marie or Bo in town, had she? Fear seized him. How would that even be possible? He instantly regretted not telling her about them sooner.

  As he debated over what to say, his daughter fumed. Her expectant gaze hardened, and she threw the car into gear. They began to drive out of town swiftly. Too swiftly. Sara’s anger seemed to double as she waited for him to respond, racing the SUV back along coastal roads and out onto the main highway, cutting through the soggy marine layer on a dangerous course.

  His throat tightened. He might be losing his chance.

  He considered asking her if they could make a stop, to put an end to all the secrets. But he quickly buried the notion. Thrusting an unwitting Sara into meeting a sibling she didn’t even know existed might hurt both of his children. Sara and Bo hadn’t asked to be a part of their father’s mess. Putting them together before they were ready would further fragment his delicate relationships with them. He didn’t know how he’d tell her, but surely Sara would be upset when she learned he’d been keeping something so big from her. And Marie did not like surprises. Showing up unannounced after severed communication would likely send the two of them back into hostile territory. How would it look if he appeared with his long-lost daughter and admitted he had preferred to spend the past weeks living with her and avoiding them? Yes, Marie had talked of leaving, of breaking up. But she’d also tried to reach out while he’d been hospitalized, and TR had stubbornly refused for fear of facing backlash from the fire. Now he realized he’d been wrong. But he wasn’t sure how to fix things.

  There was so much he needed to explain to Sara. Confessions played on his tongue, hiding behind his teeth, yearning to escape. This was it; he just needed to tell her the truth. It’s now or never, he told himself.

  Before he could speak, a high-pitched ringing reverberated from the center console of the car. Both he and Sara jumped. Three more chimes rung out, their urgency echoing from inside the compartment. Sara flung open the cover and thrashed around with a free hand to locate the phone. On instinct, he reached across the seats in case he was required to grab the wheel.