Ugly

by Margaret McHeyzer

  “She offered to set it up for next weekend.”

  “Did she? You have a day off next Friday, and the following Monday,” he says with certainty.

  “No I don’t.” I shake my head while mentally thinking about my schedule. But my days are set, Monday to Friday.

  “I’m giving them to you. You have next Friday and the following Monday off. You can’t let this opportunity go. It may be what you want, it may not, but you have to go and discover that for yourself.”

  “But, what about my job here?”

  “Are you kidding me, Lily? You’ve been, hands down, the best personal assistant I’ve ever had, but this place isn’t for you. It never has been. You need to do what you love.”

  “But I owe Dale money.”

  “Yes, and from what he’s told me, you’re barreling along paying your car off. You’ll still pay it off, you won’t abandon your responsibilities. And besides, Dale will kick your ass out of the office next Friday once he finds out you’ve been offered this opportunity.”

  “What if I don’t like what they have to say?”

  Peter stands from behind his desk, and comes over to me. He places his big, wrinkly hand on my shoulder and smiles. “Then you say ‘thank you, but no thank you’ and come back here. But don’t not do it for fear of what may happen. Because you’ll always look back and say ‘what if’. Your job is secure here, it’s not going anywhere. But truthfully, Lily, it’s time you do what you love.”

  I feel a tear flow down my cheek, and I simply nod. “Thank you, Peter.”

  “You’re welcome. Now go home and I’ll see you on Monday, when you’ll come in here with the prettiest smile you’ve ever had, because your work-week will be short, and you’ll be going to New York.”

  My whole life I’ve been surrounded by men who never cared about me for anything more than their own benefit. Now I’m in a sea of gentlemen. They not only care, but they push me to be the best version of myself I can be, without any worry of the consequences for them.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Max says as he sweeps me up and spins me around once I tell him about my phone call. “You’re going to go, right?” He places me on my feet and rubs his hands up and down my arms.

  “Peter says I need to, if anything, just to hear them out.”

  “Smart man your boss. Hang on, I’ve ordered Thai for dinner.”

  “Thank you. I don’t know, what do you think, should I go?” I walk over to the sofa with my water bottle and curl up on the edge with my feet tucked under my body.

  “Of course I think you should go. It may be the opportunity of a lifetime, it may be a stepping stone to something bigger, or it may just end up being a weekend trip to New York. But in any event, you shouldn’t let this chance pass.”

  I take a deep breath and look out over the city. We’re in Max’s apartment and the view is nothing short of breathtaking. I huff, still unsure what to do.

  “What’s the problem? What’s stopping you?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I suppose it’s the unknown. What if it ends up being something I can’t do?”

  “That’s a logical feeling. But look at it this way. You’ve been doing this since when? December? We’re in April, and four of your authors have made both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. Four. And one of them hit with their debut novel. If publishers are taking note of them, then they’ll see your name attached to their books. And that makes them sit up and take note, because they believe you’ll improve the manuscripts you work on and make them money. You’re obviously already doing something right.”

  I open my water bottle and take a sip. “That’s logical.” Can’t argue with that.

  “What’s the worst thing which can happen? You’ll take a job with them, it won’t work out, and you’ll need to go back to the supermarket. You’ll still have the authors who aren’t with a publishing company, and you’ll still be doing what you love. So really, I don’t see a risk.”

  “Will you come with me?” I ask.

  Max’s jaw twitches and I can tell he’s holding in a smile. “Oh yeah, I can come,” he says casually. I know he’s playing me and wants me to ask him again.

  “You don’t have to. I can go on my own,” I tease him.

  He leaps up off the sofa, and scoops me up hugging me tightly. “I’d love to go, Snowflake. Thank you for asking me.” His phone starts ringing, and he lets me go to get it. “Oh,” he says in a deeper tone as he looks at the phone. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He disappears down the hallway and closes the door.

  I go to the kitchen and get a couple of bowls, and forks and spoons out, ready for dinner.

  When I finish, Max emerges from where he was, looking quite distraught. “Are you okay?” I ask and go over to him.

  “That was the private investigator. She’s on her way over. She says she’s got a packet for you to read.”

  “A packet?”

  “She didn’t sound great, Lily. Like something’s up. I called down to security and told them to send her up. She’ll be here soon.”

  Suddenly my appetite disappears and I feel like I have fingers tightening around my throat, preventing me from breathing properly. “Okay,” I say to no question asked.

  I go to sit on the sofa again, and stare out at nothing. No words, no pictures. Absolutely nothing is making sense.

  “Lily, are you okay?” I shrug my shoulders slowly. I’m not sure. “She’ll be here soon.”

  “Okay,” I say aimlessly.

  “I can stay here while you open whatever she gives you, or I can leave.”

  “No,” I say too enthusiastically. “I need you here. Please, don’t go.”

  “Then I won’t.” He comforts me by sitting beside me and drawing me protectively into his side.

  We don’t have to wait for long before the elevator doors open and a woman is standing inside his foyer. I take her in, and I’m surprised by her appearance. She’s wearing gothic clothes, has a lot of piercings on her face, and tattoos everywhere. We both get up, and walk over to her.

  “Max, here you go.” She hands him a thick yellow envelope and she looks at me and smiles, “You’re really pretty,” she says. I’m not sure if she’s saying that to lessen the impact of what’s in the thick yellow envelope, or if she actually thinks I’m pretty.

  I stare at the envelope, my eyes are fixated on it. I can feel my blood turning to ice as it rushes around my body, and my skin is covered in tiny goosebumps. Every hair on my body is standing at attention, and part of me wants to tear the envelope up and never look inside it.

  “Thank you,” I finally manage to say, acknowledging her compliment. I hear Max thank her and the elevator ding, indicating she’s left. I’m not sure what will happen next, all I know is I’m being led by Max to sit on his sofa.

  “Are you ready?” he asks. He places the innocent-looking, though I’m sure life-altering envelope down on the coffee table.

  “I’m ready,” I whisper. I pull my shoulders back and sit tall. Max hands me the envelope, and I tear it open.

  Sliding the stack of papers out, I flip through it and try to read as much as I can. But all I’m seeing is newspaper clippings, headings of “accident” and “overdose” and “family mourns”. There’s a lot of paper, but nothing makes sense.

  I look up at Max, close my eyes and take several deep breaths. If I’m going to know, I need to begin at the start and go to the end. It’s the only way I’ll be able to understand.

  “I’m ready,” I say aloud, maybe it was for Max’s benefit, or maybe for my own. Opening my eyes I look at the first piece of paper.

  It’s a copy of my dad’s death certificate. He died from severe liver disease; caused by chronic alcohol abuse. Dad died four years ago. He didn’t show up to work for five days, and they went to his house to see what was happening. They found him decomposing in his favorite chair.

  It goes on to show Dad’s employment record, his complete medical history, everything about Da
d. Once I’ve sifted through many papers on Dad, all held together with a paperclip, I get to another stack of papers. This one is all about Mom.

  Her coroner’s report shows she died from a massive overdose of sleeping pills. There were many drugs in her system, but the sleeping pills were essentially the cause of her death. And it was deemed ‘accidental’. The papers on my mom reached back to high school, it even showed Dad and Mom were high school sweethearts.

  I keep flicking through her stack, and find she had a love for English like I do. She wanted to be an elementary school teacher and had completed two and a half years of college when she became pregnant with her first child, Lily Anderson – me.

  But my eyes keep looking over the line, ‘first child.’

  If I was her ‘first’ child, then there must have been a second. But I don’t remember anyone else. In my dreams, I have a brother whose name is Wade, but growing up there was never any mention of him, or even any pictures of him. So I always thought he was merely a dream, a fantasy I’d created to help me cope with all the bad times.

  I scan the rest of Mom’s papers, looking for anything to tell me about any other child she had.

  The next bundle is me, but I’m not interested in me, I need to find what else there is.

  The last bundle has a newspaper article attached to the front with the heading, “Toddler dies in tragic accident.” I drop the rest of the papers and focus on this one article.

  ‘A heartbreaking accident has left a family in mourning when three-year-old Wade Anderson was hit by a car outside his family home. In a catastrophic turn of events, his father, Stanley Anderson, was the one who killed his son. He was driving home from work and Wade ran out the front of the car. Mr. Anderson, unable to stop the vehicle in time, collided with and instantly killed his son.’

  I look up from the newspaper article and search for something, anything. “Are you okay?” Max asks as he sits beside me. I can hear him and I know he’s asked a question, but my brain can’t interpret what he’s asked, nor can I respond.

  I look down at the newspaper article. ‘Liliana Anderson, Wade’s mother had ducked inside to check on the family’s older daughter, Lily, who had fallen and was calling out for her mother.’

  “Oh my God.” I drop the paper and bring my hand to my mouth. “I remember. I remember everything.”

  A movie is playing around in my mind, and I remember every moment; every sound, every smell, as if I’m living it right now. I stand from the sofa and absentmindedly walk over to the window overlooking the city. The lights of the city below twinkle beautifully as the harsh reality of the recovered memory plays in my head.

  “Mom was outside with Wade and me, but I had to go to the toilet. We were playing in the backyard. Dad had made us a sandpit, and Wade, Mom and I were in it building sand castles.” I smile, remembering how cranky I got when Wade kept knocking my castles over. The warm sun was on my face, and Mom was laughing every time he’d put his little hand or foot through my castle.

  “I went inside and went to the toilet while mom stayed outside with Wade. When I finished washing my hands, I slipped in the bathroom because I had splashed and there was water on the floor. I yelled out for Mom, because I’d hurt my elbow. She came rushing inside and while she was cleaning the cut, we heard a screeching of a car’s brakes.” Absentmindedly I begin rubbing my elbow, remembering the pain.

  “Oh shit,” Max says. I look at him in surprise, momentarily stunned he’s still here with me.

  Then I look back out over the city lights. “Mom went running out the front, and I was right behind her. Wade was lying under the car and Dad was on his knees, crying. Mom started screaming and crying, and I just stood there, not sure what was happening. The neighbors came out of their houses, looking to see what all the commotion was about. Before I even knew it, there were police and an ambulance there.”

  “How did he go from the back to the front?”

  “The side gate had a latch, if you moved it just right, it would open. Dad was always supposed to fix it, but he never did. That night was the worst night of my life. They told me Wade had died. A few days later we buried Wade with his favorite teddy bear, and I gave him my favorite socks. He always wanted to wear them. That was the night everything changed at home.”

  “How old were you, Lily?”

  “I was six years old.”

  “How did it change?”

  “We were sitting at the table having dinner, and Mom was a mess. I remember her eyes were always red from the tears. But Mom said to me that night, ‘if you hadn’t screamed for me, he’d still be alive. It should’ve been you who died. From now on, we’ll feed you, but don’t think we’ll ever love you.’ She stopped crying when she said that to me, and from that day on, I was never talked to again.”

  “Oh my God.”

  The next thing I feel is Max’s warm body against mine. He’s holding me, giving me support in any way he can. “From the time I was six, until only very recently, I’ve never been part of a family. I’ve never been loved; I’ve never been wanted.”

  “That’s because they weren’t worthy of your love. It was a heartbreaking accident, they shouldn’t have treated you the way they did. You were only a child, and none of that was your fault.”

  “I know,” I cry into his chest. “But how do I handle this now that I remember what happened?” I look up at Max and his sympathetic brown eyes look deep into my soul.

  “We handle it, together. Call Katherine and make an appointment with her, and I’ll come with you.”

  I lay my head on his chest again, and tighten my arms around his body. “Thank you, Max. For everything.”

  He kisses the top of my head, and tightens his arms around me.

  With dinner long forgotten, we stay knitted together. “Can I sleep here tonight?” I ask.

  “Of course, I have a guest room set up. You can take my bed, and I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

  “No, not tonight, I need you close to me. Can we sleep in the same bed, please?”

  He leans down and chastely kisses me on the lips. “Anything my snowflake needs.”

  “Can we go to bed now? I’m not sure I can be an adult for the rest of the night. I just need to let everything sink in.”

  Max quietly leads me to his room, gets a t-shirt and some boxer shorts for me, and points me in the direction of his bathroom. I strip and just stand under the shower’s stream of hot water. Still in a haze, I get out, dry myself off, and change into the clothes he’s given me.

  Max is in bed with his shirt off, wearing only boxers. His chest has intricate tattoos, but I’m still in a daze. I don’t even bother trying to decipher what they say or mean. I just crawl into bed, into Max’s arms, and simply close my eyes.

  My dreams tonight aren’t happy. They aren’t of a blond-haired little boy. There’s nothing to rejoice about. My nightmare tonight is of me, alive in a see-through casket, trying to scratch my way out. But my mother is throwing spades full of dirt over me while saying, “I’m glad it was you.”

  I haven’t really slept. I’ve dozed, and I’ve tossed and turned, but I haven’t actually slept.

  Finally, after two in the morning, I drag myself out of bed. Max is snoring, quite loudly at that. I go out into the family room and look through the papers that have essentially changed my life. Or maybe they haven’t.

  I pick up the only bundle of papers I know won’t affect me. Mine.

  I take the paper clip off, and go through everything in the papers. My marriage to Trent is there, as is everything from my work history right back to school. At the back of the stack is a sealed white envelope with my name messily scrolled in black ink.

  I take the envelope and place everything else on the sofa next to me. I rip the side and slide out the letter.

  Dear Lily,

  This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. And I hope you find it in your heart to one day forgive me and your mother for the way we treated you.

&nbs
p; Wade’s death was the second worst thing to ever happen to our family. The worst thing, was the way we treated you, our daughter. We held onto our hate toward you, because we were too gutless to lay the fault on who actually deserved it, your mom and me. I should’ve fixed the gate; I knew it would open easily. But I never did.

  Your mom saw you at fault because you called her in, but she knew she shouldn’t have left Wade in the backyard on his own. She started drinking, and popping pills, then started doing harder drugs in order to cope. My choice of addiction was alcohol. You know that because you often were the recipient of the anger unleashed when I’d drink.

  I couldn’t cope with what I did to Wade. I didn’t see him run out, and I hit him. When I got out of the car, he was crying and calling for you. The last words on his lips were “Lily”, and I held him in my arms as he died. I couldn’t cope and I wanted to forget, but every time I’d drink, the only thing I did was remember the way he took his last breath in my arms.

  I’m afraid “sorry” won’t ever be enough for everything I did to you. It’ll never be enough. Because no father should ever treat his daughter the way I treated you. I’m not a man, Lily, I’m not even a monster. I’m lower than that.

  By the time you’ll read this, I’ll be dead. And so I should be.

  I wanted you to know that although I blamed you, it was never your fault. You should never have been subjected to the horrible things I put you through.

  I’ve heard through the grapevine you’re married now and living in a different state. I’m not sure how much of that is true, but I hope it all is, and I hope you are happy. I haven’t tried to find you to beg for your forgiveness, because I’m not worthy of your clemency.

  But I want to tell you this. I am sorry and I love you. You were never stupid and you certainly aren’t ugly. But most importantly, you’re worthy. You’re worthy of love, you’re worthy of respect and you are worthy of happiness.