All the Things We Never Knew

by Liara Tamani

  Judge Reed bites the inside of her left rouged cheek. “Are there other reasons? Besides basketball? It’s really important you tell me all the reasons you want to live with your mom. It’ll help me make a decision based on what I think is in your best interest.”

  “But I’m already telling you what’s in my best interest,” I say with more attitude than I want to.

  She walks over and sits down beside me in the other leather armchair. “And I’ll definitely take that into consideration,” she says, and moves the vase of wildflowers from the round table between us to the floor. Judge Reed puts her pen and legal pad down on the table. The lined yellow pages are still blank. Then she props her elbow up on the table, rests her chin in the palm of her hand, and fixes her blue eyes on me. As if to say, If you wanna stay with your mom, you’d better give up the goods.

  And I do. About everything that happened Saturday. About Sunday for as long as I can remember. About his lies. His double life. Let me tell you, the fear of the judge ordering me to live with that man has me spilling all the beans.

  Judge Reed lifts her head. “Yeah, that’s hard. I found out about my other siblings around your age, too.” She leans back in her chair and puts her cowboy boots up on her desk. “That’s when my mama died.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, surprised the judge has family drama like mine.

  “Don’t be, sweetie. We weren’t close. You see, she left when I was a little baby . . . like four or five months old. Supposedly one of those big-time oil execs came into the IHOP where she worked, and she ran off with him. Left me and my daddy behind in Plainview and never came back. Never heard from her again,” she says, and runs her fingers through her hair.

  “Then one day,” she continues, “I get this letter in the mail saying she died and left me and my siblings a whole bunch of money. My mama had three kids from her marriage with that rich man, you see. I didn’t even know they existed. But now we’ve all been getting together for Christmas Eve dinner for some forty-plus years.”

  I picture myself having dinner with Shannon. Nope. Not happening. “But weren’t you mad? I mean, your mom abandoned you and then went and raised all those other kids.”

  “I guess I could’ve been, but there’s no use being mad at a dead woman. No use being mad at my siblings, either. They didn’t do anything. Besides, all that money I got from my mama put me through college and law school. In a way, I probably wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for her running off.”

  The judge telling me all of her business has me feeling comfortable. So comfortable I think about putting my Blazers up on the desk to join her boots, but I don’t. “True, true. But how can you still call her Mama?”

  “Well, that’s what she is, isn’t she? What about your mama? You don’t have grievances against her?”

  The question throws me off. In all the sharing, I’d almost forgotten what we were here for. “I guess she works a lot,” I answer, trying not to say too much. I need the judge to decide it’s best for me to live with her.

  “And that’s okay with you?”

  No one’s ever asked me how I feel about Mom working so much, and now my words are trying to rush up and out, like someone just handed them a permission slip. “Well, I used to feel like her work was more important than me. Like she loved it more than me or something. When I was younger, I used to hate staying in aftercare at school. And on top of that, I always saw other moms volunteering in the classrooms or organizing bake sales and stuff. My mom was never there. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I was always proud of my mom. But I was also jealous of how much time her work took away from me.”

  “I understand. My kids felt the same way. When—”

  “But now that I’m older I know she loves me more, no question about it,” I interrupt, trying to turn my answer around before the judge goes on another talking spree. “But I also understand her work gives her something I can’t give to her. And that’s okay. I want something like that for my life, too. Basketball definitely isn’t it. I’m still looking for it.”

  She takes her boots down off the desk, stands up, picks up her legal pad, and puts the flowers back on the table. “And you’ll find it. I know you will.”

  Wait, is the interview over? I thought we were just getting started. I need to say more good things about Mom.

  “Well, it was very nice talking to you. I have another appointment waiting, but I assure you I have everything I need to make a decision.”

  I look at the wild cat with the bird in its mouth and a strange pressure squeezes my throat. This lady wasn’t being sweet and open. She was getting what she wanted—chewing me up. And now she’s spitting me out.

  Judge Reed walks toward the door and opens it. “Your parents should receive my ruling by the end of the week.”

  I want to beg her to let me live with Mom, tell her my whole life depends on it. But I stand up, say, “Okay, thanks,” and walk out.

  In the hallway Mom is sitting on a wooden bench on one side of the hall, Daddy (I guess I can call him that since that’s what he is) is sitting on a bench on the other side of the hall, and Cole is standing in between. He met with the judge right before me.

  And now Daddy is walking toward me. “You hungry?” he asks.

  I shake my head and go try to sit beside Mom, like I’ve been doing all morning, but she stands up and walks closer to him.

  I head toward my next safe place.

  “How’d it go?” Cole asks, and gives me a hug.

  “Okay, I guess,” I say. “I don’t really know.”

  “Yeah, same. Glad it’s over, though.”

  “Me, too.”

  “You hungry? Because I’m starving.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  Daddy appears over Cole’s right shoulder. “Your mom and I thought it would be a good idea if you came to eat dinner with me and Cole went to eat with her.”

  Who thought what? I think, and shoot Mom an alarmed look.

  Standing right beside him, she looks at me calmly and says, “It’s for the best. Your dad can drop you back off at my house when y’all finish up.”

  She can’t be serious. Why would she make me go with him?

  “You ready, Angel-face?” he asks with a weak smile.

  A bright flash of panic runs through me, and I think about taking off down the empty hall, about trying to get away from it all like that duck on Judge Reed’s wall. But let’s be real, the duck can’t escape, and neither can I. I may not be stuffed with rags and cotton, but I’m stuck with Daddy for now.

  REX

  After my father leaves, I grab my phone off my desk, push the camera app, and flip it around to selfie mode. There’s a bad crack traveling diagonally across the screen from when I threw it across the room, but I can mostly see myself.

  Still holding the picture of Mom, I bring our faces side by side. I can’t believe I never saw it. Our strong cheekbones, our many moles, our hooded eyes—alike. Satisfaction quickly fills me up. But I keep staring, eyes floating back and forth between us until I’m in straight-up awe.

  You see, I used to think of my moles as tiny sins, little reminders of what I did. But looking at Mom’s moles is making them feel like tiny marks of sainthood or something. I know nobody’s about to erect a statue of me in a sanctuary or anything, but looking at her face is making mine feel holy and bright. Like it’s been washed clean.

  But when I look up at the gray sky outside my window and back down at the big crack across the screen, I remember Mom’s beetles belly up among broken glass. Man, I don’t even want to think about that. But that doesn’t stop my mind from going back to how heated I was when I hurled my phone. Or flashing to my tight fists dreaming of going upside my father’s head.

  Underneath the jagged line on the screen, the same angry face I saw on that video stares back at me. Is this really me? I swear to God that’s why I don’t even like looking at myself. All the stuff I try to keep buried is always trying to come up and make me feel som
ething.

  Why does everything have to keep coming up? Like what every coach and scout must think of me. I know! I know! And Carli. But I’ve already apologized to her. And the dream I lost—hurts so bad it’s sickening! The anger that won’t quit until everything I love is either broken or gone.

  It has to stop.

  I put Mom’s picture down on my desk and lock eyes with myself. Man, I don’t want to do this. I swear looking at myself makes my head and heart hurt. For a second I almost look away. Ready to get up and continue on with life like I always do, like everything is cool. But I can’t even front like that’s working anymore.

  So I take a deep breath, blow it out slow, and force myself to keep staring at myself.

  Until I can see past the crack in the screen into the face I always saw as my father’s. Into the hate I always thought he had for me. The hate I always had for myself. I swear it’s like a million wrecking balls swinging around, destroying everything inside of me. Feeling it is the absolute worst, but I’m not about to keep ignoring it and let it ruin me.

  Tears rush down my face, and I wipe them and keep staring.

  Until I see a little kid I haven’t seen in years. Alone, playing with all his dead mom’s things. A kid crushed by his father’s absence and silence. A kid who spent all his time out of the house, either balling or under the tree out back talking to his mom and begging for her forgiveness.

  I swear, the weight of it is enough to break me. But I square it up and make myself feel it. Tears dripping from my chin, I scoop up the little kid, squeeze him tight, and tell him what he’s always wanted to hear, It’s not your fault.

  Over and over again.

  It’s not your fault.

  It’s not your fault.

  It’s not your fault.

  Until I can feel the words sink into the innermost part of me.

  Then I turn toward the pile of the injuries I’ve kept buried in me over the years. Every hurt I never wanted to feel. Still here.

  But the closer I look at them, the more I see that most of them have nothing to do with me and everything to do with the people they came from. And after a while, most of them rise up, give me a few head nods (I think they like being seen), and start getting the hell up out of me.

  I keep staring and staring until I’m in awe again. Of this dude with the two puffy eyes, snot-streaked lips, and flat, crooked nose. This dude who’s been through some shit—I’m talking about some major shit—but who’s still here, even after finally having the guts to take a good look at himself.

  I swear I never thought looking at myself could feel like love. But it does.

  CARLI

  Tires crunching over gravel, I open my eyes to see what restaurant was worth the hour drive. But we’re in a graveyard. First of all, I’m hungry. And second of all, really? He’s never brought me here all these years I’ve been asking. All these years he’s been lying about coming. But he wants to bring me now?

  He turns the engine off, his million keys (I wonder if one of them opens the door to Shannon’s house) hanging from the ignition. “I want to show you something,” he says.

  And? I think, but don’t say a word. Hadn’t said a word to him since we left the courthouse. I resume the position I had the whole way here: eyes closed behind dark shades, head against the window, thinking about Rex.

  “Please, Carli,” he says.

  I keep my eyes closed, wishing he would shut up and take me to get something to eat.

  “Come on, Carli,” he says, a crow squawking in the background.

  I wish they would both shut up. “Wake me up when we get to the restaurant.”

  “I’ll take you right after we leave here, promise. It won’t be long,” he says, his voice perking up. I guess because I actually said something. Oooo, I wish I would’ve kept my mouth shut.

  “Shannon told me what happened at the game. And I wanted to—”

  Hearing her name leave his mouth is too real for me, and I quickly open the car door to get away from him, away from her. But as soon as I’m outside, this weird feeling hits me, like I’ve been here before.

  It’s that tree. Boy, would Rex love that tree. The one in the middle of the cemetery that looks like it’s been here since the beginning of time. The live oak whose trunk looks ten feet wide. Whose long, winding, moss-covered branches extend way farther out than up, some dipping close to the ground. I know that tree.

  I walk closer to it.

  “You remember, don’t you,” Daddy says behind me.

  I keep walking, and a picture flashes to the front of my mind of me swinging from a low branch. I was about two or three and Daddy yelled at me to get down.

  “You’re the only person I’ve ever brought here,” he says, still walking behind me.

  Then I see it. A tombstone right under the low branch engraved with Camille Alexander. His mother’s name. But she’s alone. She’s supposed to be buried beside her husband.

  Daddy kneels down in front of the tombstone. Below her name, it reads, You will always be the girl of my heart, Love Randy.

  But that makes no sense. His parents both died in the same car accident.

  I take off my shades so I can see better. The sky is as gray as these tombstones anyway.

  When I look back down, Daddy’s whole back is trembling, his shoulders shaking. I’ve never seen him cry. Sad, yes, all the time. But never crying. And all of a sudden it feels like my heart is opening on all sides, like I’m coming apart. Everything inside me wants to see what’s hurting him. What’s been hurting him my whole life.

  I kneel down with him and put a hand on his back, and he lets more of it out, heaving and weeping. “My father lives twenty minutes outside of Austin in a town called Georgetown,” he says, and briefly turns to me, his face redder than his freckles.

  “What? I thought—”

  “He wasn’t in the car that night. He was with me,” he says, still breathing like he just finished running a race.

  I’m so confused that I don’t know what to say. But I want to hear more. I need to hear more. So I sit down on the ground and grab his arm, encouraging him to do the same. It takes him a second to get his long legs crossed, but he does. And now we’re sitting cross-legged in the grass facing each other.

  “Him and Mommy were never married. He didn’t even live with us,” he says, his voice calming down. “They weren’t even together that long. He couldn’t deal with the disapproval of his family and friends. Couldn’t deal with people staring at him walking down the street with a black woman.”

  What? I knew his dad was white, but I had no idea that his mom being black was a problem. I’d always imagined them living together in their own happy bubble.

  “He used to drive down from Georgetown to see me every Sunday. Mommy would usually cook and do things around the house while he played with me. The night she died, she was making pancakes for dinner. But we were out of syrup. He offered to go get it, but she insisted he stay and have more time with me.” He starts crying again, his face like that of a scared little boy.

  The same little boy I’ve seen glimpses of my whole life. Only now, I know who he is. I touch Daddy’s knee, gently encouraging him to continue.

  “He stayed with me the whole week. When he dropped me off at my grandmother’s house after the funeral, he said he’d be back to get me. Said I’d come live with him. Even left me with a set of keys to what was supposed to be my new house. But he never came back.”

  “Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry,” I say, feeling way down deep in his sadness. The tears that have been gathering in my eyes fall down my cheeks.

  “No, I’m sorry. I’ve ruined everything. But I wanted you to know the truth,” he says, and hangs his head.

  I wipe my face. Wait, does he think bringing me here and telling me all of this will somehow let him off the hook with telling me about Shannon? I know he hurts more than I ever knew, but I still need answers. “What about Shannon? Why did you keep her a secret? Who’s her mothe
r? Where did you meet her? How long was the affair? What do you do when you see Shannon every Sunday? Didn’t you feel bad for lying to us? For keeping her from us? How could you?” All my questions come flying out all at once, scared that if they wait, they won’t get answers.

  He looks up but doesn’t say anything.

  “Sorry, that didn’t come out the way I wanted it to. But I need to know.”

  “Oh, Angel-face,” he says, a big tear falling down his right cheek. “Of course, I feel bad. I hate myself for what I’ve done,” he says, and hangs his head for way too long.

  “Come on, now,” I say, trying not to get mad all over again.

  “Okay. Amanda, Shannon’s mom, was my neighbor and best friend throughout high school. She was the only one who knew the truth about Mommy and my father. I used to connect with her on Facebook. Then one day we met up for lunch. Then we met up again. I don’t even know what happened, and then she got pregnant.”

  Oh, I know what happened, I think, but keep my mouth shut so he keeps talking.

  “After I found out, I told myself I would tell your mom. Then days passed, months passed, and Shannon was born. And every day afterward, I kept begging myself to tell. Then years passed and the lie got so big . . . and you and Cole were getting so big. It killed me to think how much it would disappoint you. I felt so . . . so ashamed. What would people think? And I knew your mom would never forgive me. I didn’t want to lose my family. I couldn’t lose my family,” he says, tears coming down fast and hard.

  I feel sorry for him. Sorry for the part of him who’s still that hurt little boy. Mostly sorry that the little boy is still there, hurting. Sorry that after all these years, Daddy still hasn’t learned how to heal him.

  But I’m still pissed. At all his lies, his betrayal of Mom . . . of our family. Even at how he treated Shannon. I can’t imagine how knowing you’re a secret child must feel. So much of what my dad did is messed up. So much of my dad is messed up.

  How am I his daughter and know better than he does? It’s not normal. I swear it’s like we’re in some kind of twisted world where our roles are reversed, where I must grab his hand and pull him along, even though it’s not my job. “Well, you can’t keep Shannon in hiding anymore. We have to get to know her,” I say, not believing my own words. “And you need to tell Cole.”