by Lisa Suzanne
Her dark brows dip down, and I think I spot a little bit of recognition in her expression. When her eyes dart over to Will, I spot more recognition.
“Oh my gosh,” she says quietly, and then she yells, “Mom!”
She stares between Will and me for a few beats, and then her eyes zero in on me. She opens the door a little wider. “You must be Amber. I’m Amanda.” She smiles nervously. “And you’re Rascal.” She shakes her head with a bit of shock. “I can’t believe someone from MFB is standing on my front porch.” She giggles a little. “Oh! Silly me. Come on in.” She sweeps her arm out to indicate that we should walk through the door.
I step tentatively in what’s a small family room to my immediate right. A television is perched on an old stand with a single couch pointing at it, and that’s the whole room. Straight ahead of me is a modest kitchen, and I assume the bedrooms are behind that. This place can’t be much larger than seven or eight hundred square feet—nearly a third of the size of the first floor of my house.
“Mom!” she yells again, and then to us she says, “Have a seat. Can I get you anything? Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you’re actually here.” She leans in for a hug, but I recoil.
We’re not there yet.
“I’m, uh, sorry,” I say. “I’m just...I wasn’t...”
“It’s okay,” she says. “I know this is so weird. Let me grab some more chairs. You two can take the couch.” She hurries into the kitchen to take the two chairs from the kitchen table, and I stand dumbly beside the door like I’m ready to bolt at any second.
Just as she brings the second chair into the room, a woman walks slowly into the room with the help of a cane. Her face absolutely lights up when her eyes land on me. “Amber,” she says warmly. “You could’ve called, but you came.”
I clear my throat. “Yeah.” The word comes out on a grunt. “I came.”
“I’m Karen,” she says, and she holds out a hand for me to shake. I cautiously set my hand briefly in hers, and then she sits gingerly in one of the chairs. I’m still standing by the door. “Please, take a seat,” she says. I don’t really want to get cozy on their couch, but it looks like I don’t have much choice if I want my answers. Will and I both sit, and I hold up the letter.
“How do I know this is real?” I ask, and Will squeezes my knee.
“Well, for starters, Amanda looks an awful lot like your brother, doesn’t she? But beyond that, we’d be happy to have her take a DNA test and match it with yours to determine if you’re really sisters.”
“Tell me what’s going on,” I say, waving the letter around. “And maybe include this time why I never heard about you until this letter came in the mail.”
She nods with a slight smile. “Yes, of course.”
Amanda sits beside her and takes her mother’s hand in hers, and Karen heaves out a breath before she begins. “I’ll start with some background. I’m originally from Ogunquit, just a few miles south of here. It was thirty-three years ago, and I met your father when he was here on vacation with his family one summer. I worked at one of the motels, and we fell for each other hard and fast. It should’ve been a summer fling, but I got pregnant.” She looks lovingly at her daughter, and clearly she was the product of that fling, and the whole idea of my dad having a fling with some lady is gross.
“He invited me to Michigan,” she continues. She brings a hand up to wipe her brow, and the movement seems to take a lot out of her. She sighs. “We were both young. He was in his last year of law school, working hard at school and harder as an intern in between studying. He’d already signed a contract to work with a firm when he graduated, so he wasn’t prepared to just pick up and move to Maine. Instead, I moved to Michigan with my mother. My father had died a year earlier, and I couldn’t leave my mom here alone.”
Amanda seems to tear up at that, and I start to wonder how much she’s given up so that her mother never felt alone. She’s pretty, and she’s still fairly young, and she seems to have a nice personality in the five seconds I’ve known her. I wonder if she gave up the chance at a relationship with someone so that she could be there for her mother. I eye her for a beat as Karen continues her story, and Will’s hand rests softly on my knee, a reminder that he’s close.
“I got a job at a hotel, and Gary, your grandfather, helped finance the apartment where my mother and I lived.” Amanda squeezes her mom’s hand at the mention of my grandfather—our grandfather. He passed away when Adam and I were very young, so I don’t remember him. I don’t even know if I ever met him. From what my mom has told me, though, he and my dad weren’t very close.
“Your father and I dated, and then he proposed when I was seven months pregnant. We married at the city hall later that same day, and he surprised me with a house. My mother stayed in the apartment, and Amanda came a month after that, a whole month early and the same week your father was starting his new job. He had to go to California for training shortly after, and that left me alone with a three month old in my big, new house. Gary stopped by to make sure I was doing okay.” She clears her throat and glances at Amanda, and it’s clear there’s some secret there that they share.
And when she tells me the secret, all the breath squeezes out of me.
“Gary was this larger than life presence. An attractive, powerful man with a lot of money in the bank.” She pauses for a beat, and my heart feels like it stops beating while I wait for her to finish. “He came onto me. I was terrified of what would happen if I said no to him. He was paying for our house and my mom’s apartment, so I thought I had to say yes. I thought it was the only way to keep the life that had suddenly become mine. And so I did the worst thing I could have done to my husband.”
I gasp a little, and Will squeezes my knee while Amanda seems to bury herself in closer to her mother’s side.
Karen tears up as she continues. “When your father came home, Gary told him what we did. Your father was understandably angry, and he just...took off. He went to his office and put in for a transfer to California right away. He needed to be as far away from me as possible, and then he walked out of our life—mine, Amanda’s, and your grandfather’s. He didn’t talk to your grandfather ever again as far as I know, and I never spoke to him again even though I tried.” She heaves out a sad breath as if she’s a little lost in the memory of the years of trying to get in contact with someone who didn’t want to be reached. “And that’s the whole story.”
I’m quiet for a minute as I process all that.
So what this woman is telling me is that if she hadn’t slept with her father-in-law, my dad might never have met my mom, and Adam and I might never have been born?
My mind is blown as I try to make sense of everything she just told me.
If she’s telling me the truth, that is.
A lot of the facts here could be found through a simple online search. It’s a little scary how much information is readily available these days.
But the picture.
That’s where I seem to get stopped up every time...and that’s what causes me to believe that what she’s telling me is true.
It’s what causes me to believe that my own father has been lying to me my entire life.
The room is filled with an awkward tension as I take the time to process the full story. Will’s hand squeezes mine, and it’s a gentle reminder that I’m supposed to say something here.
“Oh.” That’s the single word that comes out, the response to her unloading everything that happened in her life involving my father, the response to the fact that I have a half-sister who is sitting in this room.
Are we supposed to have a relationship now? Do each other’s hair? Go shopping?
Because...well, part of me wants that, and the other part of me doesn’t.
Was my dad’s response appropriate in the moment? The fact that he left her and his child behind because she slept with his father?
I blow out a shaky breath.
This is beyond confusing, and I have no idea how
to actually process everything I just learned.
Thank God I have Will by my side. He squeezes my hand again, and then he jumps in to save the day. “So why, after all these years, did you choose now to contact Amber?”
Karen’s eyes briefly lock with Amanda’s, and a frisson of fear lances through my chest because this is it. This is why we’re here, isn’t it? In spite of everything I just learned, truth or not, somehow this is the singular moment I’ve been dreading for two weeks.
“So these girls can build a relationship,” Karen says. She turns to her daughter. “Can you give us a minute?”
I glance at Amanda, who shoots me a hopeful look before she stands. “Of course.” She leaves the room.
“I had a stroke a few months ago,” Karen continues, her voice a little lower like she doesn’t want Amanda to overhear. “Things aren’t getting better. I won’t be getting better. My mother died several years ago, and I’m all Amanda has left. I can’t leave her with nobody, not when I know she has family.”
“A relationship,” Will says. “That’s all you want?”
I turn toward him with a look that clearly says that was rude without a single word leaving my mouth.
Karen clears her throat, and it’s almost like she’s putting on an act as she brings shaky hands to her mouth to cover a cough. “I’ll be honest. My medical bills have been mounting. When I go, I don’t want to leave my daughter with my debts.”
“So you want money,” he says flatly, and that’s when it all comes crashing down on me.
This was never really about a new familial connection.
This was always about money.
Did she really even have a stroke? Is any of the shit she said about medical bills true?
God, I don’t even have money. My bank account is depleted. Does she think I can just cut her a check to give her whatever she needs?
Her eyes shift from Will to me. “Is it so bad to want both? A secure future for my daughter paired with the family she never knew? How is it fair that Amber and Adam get to live the lives they do when my daughter and I have barely gotten by for the last fifteen years?”
I stand and I point a finger at this vile woman. “You don’t know anything about my life.”
“I know your brother bought your condo for you.” Her eyes edge over to Will. “I know you’re dating a member of a pretty big band.” She looks at me again. “I know you’re an emergency room nurse who makes a decent wage.” She doesn’t look scared by the fact that I’m standing over her and pointing at her, but then I think about what she just told me she’s been through. She got pregnant, got married, slept with her father-in-law, and ended up a divorced single mother left to raise a little girl all on her own.
A dart of sympathy runs through me, but it’s not a big enough dart to warrant anything more than a fleeting feeling.
She cheated on her husband. She did all this to herself.
I don’t know why my dad ran and never talked to his kid again and never told us about her. But that’s a separate issue from what’s going on here.
“All that’s been published in gossip rags. That doesn’t mean you know me, and to contact me after all this time to ask for money—after my father wanted to leave you in the past...it’s disgusting.” I turn back to Will. “Let’s go.”
He stands and we walk together the few feet it takes to get to the door.
I turn and leave with a final parting shot, the words cutting into my heart with guilt before they even leave my mouth, but I can’t stop them from leaving anyway. “Now I see why my dad left.”
Will closes the yellow door behind me, and I turn into his chest and cry right there on the front porch.
CHAPTER 33: WILL
I hold her in my arms as I try to imagine what it feels like to hear what she just heard. She sobs into my chest and I tighten my hold on her. I kiss the top of her head and I feel the anger and resolve I’ve been holding onto for the last few days slip completely away.
So she broke up with me.
She’s clearly expressed regret for that and she told me she loves me.
She also apologized, and she held my hand in the waiting room at the urgent care after our accident this morning when she made me go, and she puts up with my childish behavior, and she puts up with me, and she wants to be with me—or at least she says she does.
And now she’s hurting. She needs me.
This is where I step up to be the man she deserves—where I prove that I’m not just an emotionally immature boy, but I’m a man truly worthy of her.
“Come on,” I say softly, and I usher her to the truck with my arm laced tightly around her waist.
Once I’ve started the engine and turned up the heat so it’s blasting out at us, I turn toward her. “You okay?”
She swipes away a tear and draws in a shaky breath. “Yes. No. I just have a lot of questions, and I don’t want to cry over them,” she says.
“Good thing I’m here to cheer you up, then.” I nearly reach over to grab her hand when I remember that I can’t use my left hand at the moment since it’s currently wrapped in one of those elastic bandage things and is starting to hurt like a motherfucker. I wish I would’ve just taken the damn pain pills, but I had to go all macho in front of my girl.
My girl.
The thought doesn’t feel as out of place as it should, all things considered.
In fact, it sort of sounds right even in my own head.
Maybe she doesn’t need to do anything to earn back my trust. It’s possible there was never anything she could really do, and it’s also possible I’ll always have questions or doubts.
Seeing her in this vulnerable place and seeing her hurting like this is propelling my feelings to a new place. I will do anything to put a smile back on her face and to make her feel loved again. Because her trust was broken today, too—not by me, though. The man who she should’ve been able to trust most in the world was keeping a secret from her that she never expected, and my gut tells me that’s what hurts so much about this whole thing.
It’s not the sister or the sort of ex-stepmother or the way they hit her up for money.
It’s the fact that her dad lied to her for her entire life.
And if the man she should be able to trust the most let her down, well, I won’t be another man in her life who lets her down.
I want to prove to her that I’m someone she can trust. I’m someone she can come to when times are hard, or when they’re easy, or when they’re just times.
And so I drive.
I pull into the same parking lot where my truck slept last night.
“What are we doing here?” Amber asks me, and I just give her a small smile as I cut the engine. I hold out a hand even though it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to since she’s in the passenger seat and I’m in the driver’s seat and we can’t get out of the car on the same side. Well, we could, but one of us would have to climb over the console. She folds her hand into mine.
“Come with me,” I say, and she nods once and opens the door on her side.
I walk around the truck and stick my elbow out for her to take. We walk arm-in-arm around the shitty motel toward the snow-covered beach, and we pause at the end of the walkway and stare out at the still pristine snow. No one has walked here today.
It’s just a symbol of the fact that so much has changed for the two of us today even though the rest of the world has remained the same.
“I looked at this snow from the window this morning,” she begins. “It was so pure and untouched and I wanted to stare at it forever. It was just a perfect representation of how I was feeling before. I was at peace even though I had questions. Looking back, even though I was nervous and scared, that feeling was better than this.”
“What is this?” I ask.
“Confused. Angry. It’s just a messy mix of shit feelings all swirling together.”
I take a step down onto the beach, and I kick at the snow, sending a spray of the whi
te stuff in every direction and messing up that untouched look. “Does it feel sort of like that?” I ask softly.
Her eyes meet mine. Her nose and cheeks are pink from the cold, her blonde hair pretty waves coming out of her beanie and I don’t think I’ve ever loved anybody as much as I love her in this moment.
She nods slowly. “It feels exactly like that.” She takes a step down onto the beach with me and kicks wildly at the snow.
And then she does it again. And again. And a few more times.
Soon the two of us are racing through the drifts, ruining the untouched beauty and creating our own mess. I reach down and pack a snowball when she’s racing along ahead of me, my wrist sending signals of pain to my brain but I don’t give a fuck because I’m here to make her smile and forget about the pain she’s carrying with her even if it’s just for a few brief moments. Besides, the temperature of this white shit is basically like a free ice pack.
I throw it and nail her right in the ass with my snowball, and she whips around with a glare.
“Oh no you didn’t,” she says, pointing a finger in my direction, and it’s reminiscent of the way she spoke to Karen before we walked out of their place.
The only difference is that this is a joke. This is fun and lighthearted and it’s making her forget, which is exactly what I came here to do.
I hold my arms out like she can take a free shot, and she gathers up some snow, forms a ball, and tosses it at me. It smacks me in the dead center of my chest, and I fall backward partly out of dramatics and partly out of real pain.
“Damn, woman, did you play ball or something?”
“I was a pitcher back in high school.” She walks over to help me up, but I’m already busy making snow angels as I move my arms up and down and my legs in and out.
“Well you have quite an arm on you.”
She lies down close to me and makes snow angels of her own, and I sit up a little, brushing the snow out of my hair. I watch her make hers, and I can’t help but think that she looks like an angel.
And I can’t seem to stop myself from crawling over in her direction. I swing one leg over and hover over her, all my weight on my good arm. I stare down into her eyes and finally finish the conversation she started yesterday in the car.
