“It’s been eleven years, Kindra. I want to know whether or not my baby is a boy or a girl?” I ask firmly. “And where is the kid while you’re at the hospital?”
“Just bear with me. I need you to know that night was the worst night of my life. I made a monumental, no two monumental mistakes that night that haunt me. And I regret how I left, but I was run out of here. I know that’s not an excuse and definitely not fair to you. I should have talked to you and told you what happened, but I was so angry, so upset and I just didn’t know how to deal. I left, because he told me to and you know how I was then, I reacted without thinking that consequences would touch me. After everything that happened, the blood, the smoke, the machines.”
“Boy or a girl, Kindra?” I ask again.
“I shouldn’t have smoked weed that night. I should have remained sober. If that was the case, we wouldn’t have ended up in that car accident. We wouldn’t have ended up in the hospital. And I wouldn’t have left. That night took me away from everything and everyone that I loved.”
“Quit beating around the bush and just get to the point.” I grit out.
“The hospital did a tox-screen that night and they knew that I was impaired. Another car hit us, we ran over a fire hydrant, our car rolled, and we hit a pole. When I woke up, we were upside down, there was smoke, and I was bleeding. There was so much blood. So, so much.” Tears are streaming from her eyes.
“Wait, what do you mean?” I ask, uncrossing my arms and leaning forward.
“I lost the baby.” She averts her eyes and looks at the condiment basket. “That night, during the accident.”
Nessa, our server, places our meals in front of us and smiles. Not knowing that I feel like throwing up.
“And you couldn’t stick around to tell me this? You let me think for the last eleven years that I have a kid.”
“I thought that my parents would tell you. I didn’t think.”
“Your parents shut me out and didn’t tell me a damn thing. It was your responsibility to tell me.” I feel my blood boiling and know that I need a minute.
I stand up and rub my palms on my pants.
“Ro?” She begins, but I hold up my hand to stop her from continuing.
“I wasn’t expecting that. I was hoping that you would tell me that we had a moody pre-teen that I would finally get to meet. I’m going to need a minute.” I walk out the front door, and begin pacing in front of the diner.
I push my hands through my hair and pull at the ends in frustration.
All this time I thought that my kid was out there. I have been pissed off at the world for not being able to be a part of his or her life, and even more angry at Kindra for taking the experience of being a father away from me. However, now things are different. How do I react to this news?
I walk back inside and take a seat in front of her again.
“Do you know if we had a girl or a boy, Kindra?” I request.
“I never asked.” She replies while shaking her head.
“I don’t even know what to say right now.” I lower my head and say.
“You don’t have to say anything, I know this was a little more information than you were expecting. And we can just leave it at this. Let’s just eat in peace. When and if you want to discuss the past, then we can.”
And that’s what we do.
“I have to tell you something and I really don’t want you to get mad,” Kindra walks up to me and places her hands on both sides of my face.
I reach up and grab her wrists, pulling them down and smiling.
“K. When you start things like that, you make it sound terrible. C’mon babe, I’m sure that there’s nothing that will get me mad that you did unless it was really, really bad. What happened? Did you run over another mailbox when you were practicing driving?”
“No.” She laughs.
“Did you burn something down?” I ask.
“Not today. But I think that it would be smart if you were to sit down and prepare yourself. This is information you should be sitting for.”
“You’re breaking up with me, aren’t you? Your parents finally did it. I knew that they would get inside your head. We are good together; they know that deep down. They can’t control who you love and that’s me!” I step away from her and begin to pace, my all time go to nervous habit.
I knew this day would come. Her parents always thought I was trash because my mom lived on the wrong side of town and I didn’t have a dad to guide me through life. Because I don’t have a clue as to what I want to do after high school. I knew that there would be something that they would do or say to her to get us to split up, and they finally succeeded.
“What did they offer you? Money? All expenses trip around the world? What did it take for them to get us to break up?” I turn to her and ask her angrily.
The scared look on her face tells me that I’m right.
“What? No. It’s not that.” She rushes to stand in front of me and pulls my hands into hers. “They can’t tear us apart. There’s nothing that they can do to do that, never, Ro.”
“So, we’re not breaking up?” I ask.
“I’m yours, Ro. There is no one that can dictate what I do, you know that.”
“Well, it is hard to contain you sometimes.” I smirk.
“You better believe it. Now, will you please sit down?”
“What kind of news can be so bad that I need to sit down for?”
“Fuck it, fine—you stubborn jackass. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Just give it to me, Mason.”
She stands up and wrings her hands in front of her. She looks at me every few seconds with an unsure look in her eyes. She finally lets her hands relax and places them by her sides.
“Please don’t be mad,” she asks with a tremble of her chin.
“You’re worrying me over here. Can you please tell me what’s going on?”
“Fine. Just pull the band-aid off, I can do this.” She bounces on her feet and shakes her hands out, amping herself up, and I can’t help but to stifle a laugh behind my hand.
“Everything will be fine,” I promise her, hoping that I can keep my promise.
“Okay. Okay. Phew. I can… okay. I’m… I’m pregnant!” She blurts out and freezes all her movements.
And I’m not mad. Not one bit.
10
Kindra
After eleven years, I finally told Rogan the truth.
Something that I should have done before I left town. Something that I’ve had plenty of time to do every day since.
But I haven’t. All this time, I have refused to acknowledge that my decisions could affect another person. But I was young and selfish.
So selfish.
And over the years, continued to be, because it terrified me to talk to him. I just assumed that all this time, my parents told him the bad news. Boy, was I wrong. He’s been wondering all these years about his unborn child. I feel like a complete dick. There are so many things that I could have done different over the years.
I know that our small conversation at the diner will lead to more conversations, at least, I hope. I know that the past cannot be erased, but now I know that I need to be honest and prove to those that I’ve wronged—that I’ve changed and amounted to something, to everything that I was ever led to believe that I was not.
I raise my fist and knock on the front door.
I shift my weight from one foot to the other with my arms awkwardly hanging. There’s no way to stand with your arms that would look normal. The wait for someone to open the door is unnerving.
I pull my phone out of my back pocket. This is the agreed upon time that we discussed over the phone. Where are they?
I press the doorbell again, and anxiously wait, again.
“Oh my God. I knew that was you when you walked up here!” A voice from behind me says.
I whirl around and come face to face with the neighbor’s daughter.
“Hi,” I reply just as
the front door to my parents’ house opens.
“Oh Geri, how nice to see you. How is your mother doing?” My mother steps out of the house and beside me.
“Hello Mrs. Mason, mom is doing fine. She’s progressing in her physical therapy and is able to walk down the driveway and back without help.”
“Oh, that’s splendid. Please tell her I said ‘hello’, will you?”
“Of course. Good to see you, Kindra. I hope we can catch up sometime, now that you’re back in town.”
I nod, not knowing what else to say.
“Bye now.” My mother says.
I give Geri a wave before turning back to my mother in the entryway of her home, my childhood home.
“Please come in, let’s not let out the cool air.” My mother says waving me inside.
I slowly walk inside and look at the photos on the walls. There are years of happy images of my father and my mother. Travels, occasions, and triumphs. There are no images of their only daughter that I can see. It’s as if they’ve erased me from their lives.
A twinge of hurt fills me as I walk further inside and see that on the fireplace mantel is a single photo, a school photo from when I was in kindergarten surrounded by prayer candles.
I point at it and turn toward my mother.
“Why, out of all the photos from my childhood, this one?” I ask.
“Your father is the one who chose it,” she replies solemnly.
“Why my kindergarten photo?” I ask again.
I look at the photo again. I’m missing my front tooth, my hair is in pigtails, I’m wearing overalls with a pink, yellow, and white striped shirt, and freckles dot across my nose and cheeks. I was a cute kid, your typical child of the early nineties and full of spunk, even at the age of five.
“Honestly honey, I’m not sure why your father does a lot of the things that he does.” She shakes her head. “Would you like something to drink? Maybe some tea?”
“I don’t drink tea, never have. I’ll take some ice water though.” I tell her, following her into the kitchen that still looks like I remember.
Brown and yellow flooring, brown wooden cabinets, and light yellow walls. This kitchen has always been so hideous.
She hands me the water and motions to sit in the living room.
It's surreal being here, and it shouldn’t be. I should feel at home here, however there is nothing about this house anymore that reminds me of those types of comforts. This home is theirs; it’s not and never has been mine.
“So, tell me what have you been doing since you … well, since you left?” My mother asks.
“Shouldn’t we wait for dad to come home?”
“He mentioned that you spoke with him,” she says, shaking her head.
“I did. I went there out of impulse and with no plan. It wasn’t the best of a welcoming,” I explain.
“He mentioned that you weren’t making the most sense. That you were saying something about a hospital and that you’re better now.”
“I was nervous to see him.”
“He wants nothing to do with this meeting.” She says before taking a sip of her beverage.
“This meeting?” I ask.
“His words, sweetie. You know how he gets when he’s made up his mind about things, he hasn’t changed. So, what have you been up to all this time? Why haven’t you called, or even visited?”
“I left here, as you know, and well, I went to the city. I stayed low key, got a job and put myself through school, nursing school to be exact. I worked at a hospital in the city and felt that a change of scenery from the city was a good idea and I saw that the hospital here was hiring, and now I’m working at the hospital here.”
“Really? And you did all this how?” she asks with a hint of surprise in her tone.
“I had a few odd jobs here and there. I was a personal assistant to a financial manager in the city. I also did some nannying while I did nighttime rotations.”
She looks at me skeptically.
“And why come back here?” She asks.
“Change of scenery.” I repeat.
“Not that you’re here to prove yourself of anything?” she probes.
“Well, yes and no.”
It’s silent for a moment before she speaks again.
“Why haven’t you called?”
“Dad said that I was a disgrace and that you guys wanted nothing to do with me. I messed up that night, in a major way, and I just left figuring you felt the same way. I know that I wasn’t the easiest of teenagers, and I’m sorry about that. But I’ve grown up and I’ve changed.”
She takes a deep breath and places her drink aside.
“Back then, there was a lot of mistakes that were made. Sure, a lot of the things you did were destructive and perhaps negligent of responsibility, but I would never have disowned you. You know that your father has a temper, and when he says things, sometimes he overreacts. You’re thirty now, of course you’ve changed.”
We sit there for several minutes in silence. My knee bounces in anticipation with nerves, and my palms feel so sweaty that I rub them against my jeans.
“What did you think happened? What did he tell you?” I finally ask.
“He said that you checked out of the hospital on your own, against medical orders. I came home from a work meeting, and your stuff was gone, along with your car. He said that you had run away. You were eighteen and there was nothing that I could have done except hope for you to call home.”
“Why are there no photos of me in the house?”
“There’s the one over the mantle.” She points out.
“Surrounded by prayer candles, as if you prayed for me with unlit, never used before candles like I was a dead child. Was it a show? What did you guys tell people?” I press on.
“No one asked. People knew that there was a car accident, they just made their own assumptions.”
“Assumed that I was dead? Why wouldn’t you correct them?” I ask.
“Why would we correct them, your father didn’t want to air all our dirty laundry? It’s not like your youthful activities weren’t known around town.”
“And the reason for no other photos around the house?”
“Lives go on, even with you gone, our lives still went on.” She says.
I can’t tell whether she is happy that I’m here or not.
“I bet it’s going to be pretty weird when Nurse Mason turns up to be your long-lost daughter.”
“So, you’re staying?” She asks slowly.
“I think that accepting a job here would mean that, yes.” I nod.
“Well, I hope that we can let bygones be bygones and start over again.”
11
Rogan
It’s my day off and I’m casually lounging around my house with Duke next to the couch while I work on the crosswords from this week.
My days off consist of doing nothing. I do my best to spend time with Karin, but some days, I just want a break from being around people, since my job takes a lot out of me.
I turn off my cell phone, don’t check my emails, and relax with Duke.
Duke's ears perk up and I hear a huff from him. Not quite a growl, but also not quite a bark. It’s like he’s not even sure what to do. He continues to sort of bark until he fully barks and scares himself at the same time as if he wasn’t expecting his bark to be loud.
Then, a knock sounds on my door. Duke stands and runs to the door, barking as my fierce protector.
I begrudgingly pull myself up from the couch, set aside my crossword, and walk to the door after Duke, who is still barking.
I open the door and on the other side, smiling and looking like she spent an hour or so on straightening her short hair, is Karin.
“I remember you said that you had the day off, and I really wanted to spend it with you. Looks like you still need to shower, you go do that and I’ll wait.” She brushes past me, sets her oversized purse on the counter and turns to me.
“I actually had pl
ans today,” I tell her.
“Oh yeah, and what would that be?” She crosses her arms over her chest.
“I was going to dictate some of my cases, and prep my next lesson for my students,” I lie.
“Oh, come on, all you do is work!” She whines and not so obviously stomps her foot.
“I can spare a few hours, why don’t you and Duke hang out and I’ll get ready? We’ll go to lunch or something?”
“I would love that, maybe add in a wine tasting.” She says to my back as I walk toward my bedroom.
I don’t answer her and instead shake my head as I retreat to the privacy of my own bedroom.
“And so like, it completely devastated me. I thought that I would need to write random posts for him forever, while he played all day in the Maldives. Seriously, why do I need to run his social media? He has an assistant.”
“Aren’t you being paid to do this for him? Isn’t that your job, to do rich peoples social media?” I ask.
“I mean yeah, but he’s just some super rich guy. He’s not like a celebrity or anything.” She shrugs.
There’s no point is justifying anything about her job to her, just like there’s no trying to get her to understand the responsibilities of mine. She doesn’t fully understand responsibility, and I’m tired of trying to explain things like this to her.
I had agreed to go to the winery with her, so I set my eyes on the endgame and I’m feeling a bit relieved when I pull into the driveway of her small cape cod style home on the edge of town. I cut off the engine and get out of the car to open her door.
I offer her my hand to get out of my car and she doesn’t let go of my hand as we walk up the drive-way to her door.
“Would you like to come in?” she asks, turning to me with a smile.
“Honestly, I would like to talk out here on the porch, can we sit?” I motion to the chairs beside her front door and she nods.
I turn toward her, offer a smile.
Heartburn: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World) Page 4
