Desperate Paths

by E. C. Diskin

“He got it before graduation. He found us an apartment in Brooklyn.”

  She looked at Ginny, barely able to get air past the lump in her throat.

  “I sat on my bed, staring at that poster, trying to come to terms with what happened, what I thought was my future. And I’d never get there. You changed everything.”

  “So you named me Brooklyn. As what, a reminder of what you lost?”

  “No. I don’t know. It sounds awful. I was trying to cope and embrace the future, and you, but . . . I failed.”

  Suddenly, it all made sense, but it meant everyone was a liar.

  And Darius Woods was her father.

  Ginny tried to smile as she wiped away tears. “So now you know where you got that acting bug.”

  It was a terrifying brew of emotions, too many, too much information to process. She began to hyperventilate. Her dad, John Anderson, was her grandfather. Her mom was her grandmother. Her sister was her mother. Her idol was her father. Martin Woods—he was her grandfather too. It was like a Jerry Springer show. She stood to leave, to storm out, but her vision filled with black fuzzy dots and she lost her balance.

  Ginny jumped up and grabbed her. “Sit,” she said, pulling her back down to the floor. “Just breathe. It’s a lot. I know. Focus on the breathing.”

  Brooklyn closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at her.

  “Does he know?” she whispered. “Darius?”

  “No.” Ginny began to cry. “After you were born, I had to break it off. I told him the baby was gone.”

  Brooklyn collapsed onto the floor, her eyes closed.

  “He started calling the house. He was heartbroken. But I never answered the phone. Mom and Dad answered and brushed him off. By then they realized it wasn’t some assault, that he was the father. I heard Dad on the phone telling him to stay away, that he’d done enough to their girl.”

  “So he has no idea about me?”

  Ginny shook her head. “He sent me some letters after the breakup, but I never answered. He came back from New York in August and tried to talk to me at the house. You were still in the NICU. Dad answered the door. When Darius asked for me, Dad left him on the porch and returned with a gun. He told Darius if he ever saw him at his house again, he’d have him arrested.”

  “You didn’t say anything?”

  Ginny shook her head as the tears continued to fall. “I know I should have done more. I have replayed that day so many times. But Dad was crazed. I was standing at the top of the stairs, listening. Darius told him we were in love, and it only made Dad angrier. He began asking how long Darius had known me and then said he’d get him on statutory rape—my consent was irrelevant. Said he’d better walk away and never look back or he’d make sure Darius ended up in prison. I knew what he was capable of. And his best friend was the sheriff. I went to my bedroom window and watched Darius leave. He looked up and saw me in the window. It was the last time we saw each other.”

  “So that was the gun Darius referred to in his story. This was the racism he meant, the threat to his life, the reason he left Eden all those years ago.”

  Ginny nodded. “I fell apart. I couldn’t forgive myself for what I’d done to Darius, for the secrets, for letting Mom and Dad just take over and determine everyone’s future. It took years before I started getting myself out of that darkness. But I finally got through nursing school and tried to see that everything worked out for the best. Mom was so happy. You were her baby. I met Simon and tried to start over.”

  “Why couldn’t you all just tell me the truth?”

  “I wanted to,” Ginny said. “Just before Simon and I were going to be married, I came to Mom and begged her to let me tell the truth. I knew it was wrong to start a life with Simon that way. She fell apart, saying I’d destroy everything. She said Simon wouldn’t want me. She said I’d be making her a liar.”

  “Simon doesn’t know?”

  Ginny shook her head. “After a while, it felt like the truth would only be about easing my own guilt. You were happy. Mom was happy.”

  “But Darius—”

  “I’ve never forgiven myself for what I did to him, to either of you. And then he reached out through Facebook to reconnect. You were eleven. He was acting—making a living, it looked like—and living his dream. He was in New York. I didn’t know what he’d do if he knew. Mom would have died if Darius came back and suddenly insisted on some sort of parental rights.

  “And then he got in touch again last weekend about that screenplay. He’d written our story. But he didn’t even know the truth. And I knew if that movie was made, it was all going to come out.”

  “Oh my God,” Brooklyn interrupted. “You did it, didn’t you? You shot him?”

  “No! I swear, Brooklyn. I read the script and I knew the truth would come out. I was going to tell Darius about you, but I chickened out. I got drunk. First time since before Mikey. And then Sunday was Mother’s Day, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Everything the kids did for me, everything they said, their notes about me being a good mother, it was all a lie. I’d abandoned you. I’d lied to Darius. I’d lived a whole life built on lies.

  “I told Simon I was going to check on Dad to see how he was handling the day. But the truth was that I came to tell him that I was going to come clean and tell you the truth. But when I got to the house, his muddy shoes were at the front door and he was sitting in the living room ranting about ‘that boy’ destroying his family with his story. I couldn’t imagine how he knew, but I could tell he was talking about Darius.”

  Martin, Brooklyn realized. He’d come to the store that day. That’s why her dad had turned on him.

  “John was talking to me as if I were Mom. He told me he was sorry. He said it would be over soon. And then I looked into the study and noticed the gun safe was open. The gun was on the desk and when I turned back and looked at him, he said nothing. I ran out the door, terrified of what he might have done. When I got to Darius’s house, he was being put in the ambulance.”

  “Dad shot Darius Woods?” It seemed incomprehensible. “He could never do that.”

  “You don’t know him like I do. He’s done it before.”

  “What?”

  “Senior year. At the women’s clinic. It was Dad.”

  She was lying. She had to be lying. John Anderson was not some outlaw who went around shooting people.

  “It’s not like I could tell Sheriff Wilson and the FBI that it was John Anderson, the local war hero and the sheriff’s poker buddy, driving off in his truck after shooting that doctor. It would have destroyed our family whether the sheriff believed me or not—and I figured there was a good chance he wouldn’t believe me anyway. And then Pastor Gary came in with that alibi for me. It was an impossible situation.”

  “This is beyond crazy,” Brooklyn said. “You’re making Dad sound evil. He’s not like that. Why would he shoot that doctor?”

  “Come on. You know our parents. Dad’s never had an issue with killing for a cause.”

  Brooklyn winced. He was righteous and judgmental, but he was a man of . . . She stopped herself, recalling those dinner conversations of years ago, and his cavalier attitude about certain crimes. “You’re saying that Dad shot Darius because the screenplay would expose him as the shooter at the clinic?”

  “No. The screenplay doesn’t spell out who did it. But people would realize you were mine and Darius’s. That you’re not adopted. That I, all of us, lied for all these years.”

  Brooklyn thought back to her dad’s comment in the hospital, about how he would always protect his family.

  “He was ashamed?” Brooklyn whispered. He’d proudly been her father and protector. “Brooklyn’s my girl,” he’d said to Tommy Waters all those years ago. It didn’t make sense.

  “I think he was afraid of losing you.”

  Brooklyn didn’t know what to feel. She recalled her dad’s final warning to Tommy that day on the playground. He’d said people who messed with his family tended to regret it. And then she thou
ght of his constant reminders to lock up the house, his insistence at having armed weapons on both floors. “Gotta protect what’s ours,” he’d say. She didn’t know him at all.

  “How could you hold on to all this? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “I didn’t know what to do. You just lost the only mother you’d ever known. Was I supposed to tell you the story of your life? That your dad, the man you loved and admired, may have just killed your real father? What if Darius died and John went to prison? You would lose everything, everyone.”

  Brooklyn’s mind was racing. She looked at Ginny. “Oh my God, did you?”

  “What?”

  “Did you hurt Dad? Is that why he said he forgave you? Did you come back and attack him?”

  “No, no! I’ve barely spoken to Dad since that summer twenty years ago. I found him on the floor when I got back to the house. His head was bleeding, and he was unconscious. I swear. I think he hit his head on that stupid doorstop.”

  “Why’d you say he was in the study? And the living room? Why all the lies? Why did you even call me home if you were just going to keep this from me all week?”

  Ginny wiped at her face one last time, as if she was done falling apart. “I was such a wreck, Brooklyn. The doctors at the hospital were concerned about his head—they weren’t even sure they could operate. Then I heard that Darius was probably not going to survive. I left the hospital and practically drowned myself in vodka. I barely even remember sending you that text, but I was sure Darius was going to die and I didn’t know what would happen to Dad. I had to tell you something. We’d just lost Mom, and you were so angry that no one had told you she was sick. I didn’t know what the right thing was anymore.”

  “Do you really think he has dementia? Was that another lie?”

  “I wasn’t lying . . . but I found a bunch of his medications yesterday. There were some dangerous combinations. It might explain some of his issues. I don’t know for sure. I brought them to the hospital yesterday and showed the doctor. He agreed that we have to carefully monitor and reevaluate all of it. It’s been a week, and now with anesthesia wearing off, we’ll finally see what’s really happening with him.”

  Brooklyn didn’t know what to believe. “Dad said you weren’t there yesterday.”

  “I was there. But I didn’t see him. I only talked to the doctor. The kids were with me, and I didn’t want them to see him confused. It would have scared them.”

  Brooklyn let her head fall back against the wall and closed her eyes. She couldn’t take anymore.

  “I swear to you, I didn’t hurt Dad. I took the gun and called an ambulance. All I knew in that moment was that I couldn’t say anything. Not until I knew if he’d survive. And if Darius would survive.”

  Brooklyn had nothing to say.

  “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I’ve done a lot of terrible things. I’m so sorry.”

  Brooklyn remained still, eyes closed, as tears pushed their way out, trailing down her cheeks.

  Ginny got off the floor and walked out.

  “Where are you going?” Brooklyn finally called after her.

  “I need to see Darius.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  BROOKLYN SAT ON THE FLOOR for what felt like hours after Ginny left. But when she looked at her watch, it was four thirty. Her dad would be released from the hospital soon. Her dad. But Darius Woods was her father. In one day, in one conversation with Ginny, her entire life had become unmoored. A lifetime of feeling like an outsider, someone who belonged somewhere else. But there was nowhere else.

  Ginny was probably with Darius right now. Brooklyn had known his name for years, followed his career, stared at his photo—he was her father.

  The edge of a smile rose and fell an instant later as she imagined his reaction. What if he rejected her? If anger over Ginny’s betrayal and her dad’s threats superseded every other emotion? What if he went straight to the police and told them her dad was the one who’d shot him? What if her dad went to prison?

  John Anderson was the only dad she’d ever known. He had been good to her. He loved her. Even in the hospital, when he recognized her, his face relaxed, a smile emerged. He was sick. He had to be. She couldn’t believe he would shoot Darius. And even if he had, could she watch him go to prison?

  She couldn’t place her allegiance. She’d never even met Darius. Every emotion was coming with such speed it was like an assault. Pain began behind her eyes, overtaking everything else. She searched the kitchen for some ibuprofen and went to the hospital.

  The nurse at the station said the doctor hadn’t been by yet. It might be another thirty minutes. Brooklyn looked into the room. Her dad was lying in the bed, eyes closed, looking peaceful—innocent and needy as a child—but he was a stranger. She couldn’t go in.

  She sat in a chair in the hall and pulled up the screenplay on her phone. She had to know the rest—to at least understand Darius’s perspective. She’d left off reading about Darius’s character, Anthony, finding Margaret with the pastor and getting her out of there. The scene ended with the narrator’s voice: I had no idea at the time how much my life would change after that day.

  Anthony saw Margaret at lunch the next week. He sat with her and struck up a conversation. Margaret barely looked at him. When he asked if she wanted to tell anyone, she said, “It was a test. I failed. It was my fault.”

  Brooklyn’s heart broke a little for Ginny, imagining the young, shy, straight-A student she’d once been. Was this how it really happened?

  She skimmed the pages looking for the name Margaret, for hints of what had happened between Ginny and Darius, her dad and the pastor. She got to a scene of a new school year—a homecoming poster in the background, a WELCOME BACK SENIORS sign hanging on the wall above the bank of lockers, when Anthony found Margaret sitting alone, crying.

  “This is about that man at your church,” he said. She didn’t respond. “Is he . . . ?” Margaret looked at Anthony with a mixture of guilt and fear.

  “It’s not right, Margaret. He’s, like, old, and he’s a minister. I don’t know what’s happening, but it’s not right.”

  “Everyone loves him. And he’s like a mentor. He’s in charge of youth group and I’m the teen leader. I have to spend time with him.” Tears fell to her cheeks. “You don’t understand. There’s no getting away.”

  “You can’t tell your parents?” Anthony asked.

  “No!” the girl shouted. “I’d be in so much trouble.”

  “You haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “That’s not how they’d see it.”

  Anthony finally sat down, leaning against the wall beside Margaret. “What’s so great about that teen group, anyway?” Anthony asked.

  “You don’t know my family. That church is practically our second home.”

  “Well, I’m not suggesting you give up your religion or anything. But you need to get away from that group. Do something fun. It’s our senior year.”

  “What am I gonna do?”

  “What about theater?”

  “I could never do what you do. I can’t even stand singing in the chorus at church. My chest gets all blotchy red when the congregation focuses on us. I just mouth the words.”

  “Then do stage crew. We all hang out together. Come on. You’ll love it. And we rehearse every night, so you won’t have time for much else.”

  “I don’t think my parents would approve.”

  “So don’t tell them.”

  “But Pastor Ed . . . He’d tell . . .”

  “Let me handle it.”

  Margaret smiled, and the scene ended. Ginny had joined stage crew to escape a predator.

  In the following scene, Anthony went to the pastor’s office and opened the door without knocking again.

  “Yes?” the pastor asked. He stood as Anthony walked inside. “You’re that boy from last spring. The actor?”

  “Margaret’s not going to be in the teen group anymore, and you’re not going to
say anything about it.”

  “Excuse me, Anthony, right? You need to adjust your tone. I think you’re making some grave miscalculations.”

  “I think you’re sick.”

  “Anthony. Margaret’s a troubled girl. She lies. This doesn’t concern you.”

  “Why don’t I just talk to your boss and see if he agrees.”

  “You’re talking out of turn, son. Girls like Margaret must admit what they’ve done to the congregation. I’ve forgiven her for her behavior, and I wouldn’t want to put her through that kind of shame. Would you?”

  “She’s not coming back. The law is on my side,” Anthony said.

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” the pastor said.

  Nurse Wanda came up to Brooklyn, apologizing for the delay. “Doctors,” she said with a smile.

  “It’s fine. Is my dad awake yet?”

  “Nope.” Wanda walked away, and Brooklyn kept reading. A montage began after the confrontation with the pastor, showing the two teens discover shared interests, authors, and bands, and laughing, mostly in the company of the entire drama department, but always having private moments, or glances across a room. The montage ended with Anthony offering Margaret a ride home after a long rehearsal. When he neared her house, she had him stop several hundred feet away. “Right here is fine,” she said. “My dad’s a little overprotective. I wouldn’t want him coming out here and giving you the third degree.”

  Anthony pulled over and the girl grabbed the door handle, stopped, turned back, and leaned over. She kissed him. “Thanks,” she said.

  Anthony said, “Anytime,” with a huge grin on his face. The narrator added, I didn’t even remember driving home.

  In the next scene, another friend from the drama group pulled Anthony aside. “I see what’s going on between you two.” Anthony acted as if the friend was mistaken. “Seriously, you need to keep that on the down low,” the friend said before walking away.

  Anthony ran after him. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t want to mess with her father.”

  “Who’s her father?”

  “My dad and he are good friends. They play poker together. We all go to the same church.”