“With the old windows—”
“—and don’t forget she’s never had the same ambitions my Amy has.”
My Amy. How often had I heard those words? My sister, the golden child, the girl wonder, the rising star actor living in LA who’d been blessed multiple times over by the Good Gene Fairy and had fallen into the Unlimited Pool of Talent. Me, the dispensable forethought, the unnecessary prologue to my mother’s childbearing life. I’d always known I was the tubby one. The dowdy one. The disappointment. Now, as the toxic green-eyed monster inside me snarled, I pulled its leash tight. Bitterness, jealousy and resentment had to be some of the most unattractive traits bestowed on mankind, and—in my case at least—the hardest ones to change.
“I don’t know why you’re insisting on giving Eleanor anything at all.” My mother’s voice had filled with her special blend of acrid determination that brought the fiercest of opponents to their knees, accepting their fate with bowed heads as she readied her proverbial sword.
Not this time, I decided, not with a sick man, my dad, as her victim, but before I could take a step forward, she spoke again, her next words changing my life forever.
“You’re forgetting one thing, Bruce,” she said. “Eleanor isn’t your daughter.”
CHAPTER THREE
ELEANOR ISN’T YOUR DAUGHTER.
I felt my face contort itself into a bizarre grimace as my breath caught in my throat. I put a hand against the doorframe to steady myself, tried to stop the hallway from closing in on me. For a few seconds I worked hard to dislodge my mother’s words from my brain. Shook my head to rattle them around my skull long enough for her sentence to make sense. Any sense. The attempt didn’t work and I remained in the hallway with my mouth open, brow furrowed.
“Of course she’s my girl.” My father’s voice broke the deafening silence, sounding stronger than he had in days. A rush of relief flooded my body. I’d misheard. Misinterpreted what she’d meant. But Dad coughed and continued, his voice strained once more. “I’ve always treated Eleanor as if she were mine. How many times have you said I love her enough for the both of us?”
My hand flew to my mouth as I tried to stop the cry from escaping between my fingers. It couldn’t be true. Dad was exactly that. My dad. There had to be some mistake, they had to be talking about someone else.
“You’re missing the point,” my mother snapped. “You can’t—”
“We should tell her.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me, Sylvia. She should—”
I’ll never know what he was about to say next because as I leaned in to hear more clearly, my heavy bag swung off my shoulder. It banged against the door with a loud thud, forcing it open with a croaky creak.
Dad’s head turned. “Eleanor. You’re here.”
My mother spun around, following Dad’s cancer-patient-in-the-headlights gaze until her eyes landed squarely on mine. She didn’t waver, but lifted her chin, signaling her acute annoyance at my presence as she observed me in the way a spider might watch a fly trapped in its sticky web.
“How are you, Freckles?” Dad’s use of the nickname my nose and cheeks earned me one blistering summer two decades ago was an obvious but unsuccessful attempt at masking the tremble in his voice. “I was hoping you’d come. Did you—”
“Is it true?” I took a step and put a hand on the soft, sky blue armchair—the one I’d spent three nights in during the past week alone—to make sure I didn’t stumble. My bag felt as if the weight of the sketchbook and camera had multiplied tenfold, and it slipped farther down my arm. I let it drop to the floor with a dull clunk, put one foot in front of the other despite my brain screaming at me to turn and run. “You’re not my dad?”
My mother spoke first. “Look, Nellie—”
“Eleanor,” I said, teeth clenched. “Didn’t you hear what Dad said about your stupid nickname? Why don’t you ever listen to him?”
“That’s quite enough, Eleanor,” she said. “There’s no need to make a scene.”
“A scene?”
Her shiny red lips pursed as she exhaled through her nose, nostrils flaring. I prepared for another of her pointed rebukes, wrapped myself up in the imaginary armor I’d developed as a child, held up an invisible shield to deflect her attack, vowing I wouldn’t let it hurt me this time. One thing I’d mastered while living with a dragon for years was the ability to recognize when it was about to open wide and incinerate me.
“There’s no need for you to be so dramatic,” she said evenly, eyes ablaze.
My hands went to my hips, ordering me to stand my ground, make myself larger to scare off the enemy I knew so well, yet had never come close to understanding.
“But there’s always drama with you, isn’t there?” she continued. “You thrive on it—”
I snorted. “How rich. You’re the one who always—”
“Stop it, both of you. Please.”
The pain in Dad’s voice tore my gaze from my mother’s face and made me look at his instead. He must have pushed himself up before realizing it was too much effort, and slumped down again. His pillow had slipped, too, so he now lay lopsided, resembling a skinny rag doll, left on the bed in an abandoned heap.
I lunged, slipped my hands under his arms, tried to ignore how the only thing I could feel was skin and bone, not the bulky biceps he used to bear-hug me with. Once he was upright again, the pillow set firmly behind him, I offered him a drink of water but he waved his skeletal hands.
“No,” he said. “Thanks, but not now.”
I lowered my voice to a whisper, pretended my mother wasn’t there. “Dad...you have to tell me the truth. Are you... Are you my dad?”
He stared at me. One second. Two. Three. I wanted him to smile and say, Yes, of course I am, silly. Needed him to tell me this was all a terrible mistake. The silence grew, stretching out between us. After another long moment, he slowly shook his head and I swallowed hard, felt my legs tremble.
“But...but...then, who is?”
“He—”
“Bruce.” The word was a sharp warning from my mother. “We agreed. It’s in the past.”
“But it’s my past,” I said, doing my best to ignore her death stares, a thousand tiny needles piercing my skin. “And it’s my present. Can’t you see? Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why didn’t either of you think I should know?”
“I’m sorry, Eleanor,” Dad said gently before turning to my mother. “Sylvia, isn’t it time we told her the truth? She—”
“No.” My mother looked me up and down. “You know what you’re implying, don’t you, Eleanor? You’re saying your father hasn’t been enough for you.”
“No, I never—”
“Hasn’t he always treated you well?”
“Yes, but—”
“Hasn’t he always done everything for you?”
“Of course he has.” I raised my voice again as I stared back at her. “I never said—”
“Then why does it matter, Nellie?” my mother snapped. “This is exactly why I insisted we never tell you. I knew you wouldn’t be mature about it. I said you’d overreact and—”
“No.” I shook my head, held up my hands, palms facing her. “No. I won’t let you turn this around and blame me. Not today.” I looked at Dad, who lay in his bed with a pained expression on his face. He seemed so small, so sick and defeated, and yet all I could think of was I needed to leave, that I had to get out of there. Now. “I’ll come back tomorrow, Dad, okay? We can talk then, and—”
“You don’t have to go,” he said.
I looked at him, and then at my mother, trying to come to grips with the fact they’d lied for my entire life, both of them complicit. That my mother had withheld the truth didn’t surprise me, but my father’s betrayal, that he had—yet again—been unable to stand up to her, made me want to scream. My
heart thumped, blood whooshing in my ears as I understood he was never going to tell me unless she agreed. If I hadn’t overheard their conversation, he’d have taken this secret to his early grave. I couldn’t believe what he’d almost done. Couldn’t accept he was going to die. It was unfair. All of it was so unfair. The cancer. The fact it was taking him instead of her. The lies. Everything.
Decades of hatred and suppressed anger I felt for my mother—coupled with the last two months of grief, despair and sleepless nights—all billowed and surged inside me. The feelings strained against the shackles I’d tried to tame them with, snapping their chains one by one with their pointed teeth. When the last one broke, red-hot fury shot from my belly and raced up to my mouth, where it transformed itself into twisted words of disgust, spewing forth like lava.
“How could you do this?” I said to Dad. “That she—” I pointed at my mother but kept my eyes firmly on him “—would treat me like utter shit is nothing new. But you? I trusted you. You were supposed to be on my side. You lied to me.”
“I’m sorry, Eleanor, I—”
“I don’t care you’re sorry,” I shouted, hating—detesting—myself all the more, but unable to make myself stop, to regain control.
“Freckles, please.” He held out his hand but I stepped back, shook my head.
“Who’s my real father?” I said, and watched Dad wince at the word real. Still, both he and my mother stayed silent, making me back away toward the door, because, I realized, I was terrified they might answer. My next words came out a trembling whisper. “I can’t deal with this. I need to get my head straight. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
Dad pushed himself up with his elbows and opened his mouth to reply, but the only thing coming from his lips was a string of deep, chesty coughs, like sounds of gunfire bouncing off the walls. His chest rose and fell at an alarming pace as his face turned more ashen. Before I got to him, a machine went off, beeping loudly, adding to the noise and confusion. Dad opened his eyes wider, transforming them into sunken black holes.
“Dad!” I shouted as two people rushed into the room. “Dad!”
“You need to step outside,” Nurse Jelani said, shooing me and my mother in no uncertain terms into the corridor while continuing to talk to her colleague in medical terms I didn’t recognize, let alone understand.
“But I have to—”
“Let us take care of him, Eleanor. I’ll come and find you when he’s settled, okay? It’ll be all right.” She gave me a final push and pulled the door shut.
If we’d been anything resembling a normal family, my mother and I would’ve hugged each other, offered support, whispered words of reassurance and comfort. Instead we stood ten feet apart, eyes locked on each other, waiting for the other to attack. We were about as far away from normal as you could get.
She adjusted the perfect creases in the sleeves of her deep red silk blouse and looked at me, her eyes lethal daggers. “This is your fault. Yours and yours alone.”
“I didn’t—”
“Your father, because that’s exactly who he is and don’t you forget it, is sick.”
“I know, I—”
“You pushed him. You upset him.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Tears pricked the backs of my eyes and I swiped at them with my hand. How many times had this woman, my mother, made me cry? A thousand? Ten thousand?
“Go home,” she said. “Leave.”
“I want to see Dad and—”
“Why?” she snapped. “So you can upset him again? No, Nellie, you’ve done quite enough for one evening, don’t you think?”
I wanted to answer back. Willed myself to put her in her place once and for all. As I looked at her fury-filled face, my determination dissolved like honey in hot tea. My mother had always come out on top as far as the two of us were concerned. She’d always won. I was weak, pathetic, unworthy of the love and attention she bestowed on Amy, unworthy of being loved by anybody else, too. I wasn’t deserving. Wasn’t good enough. Had never been good enough.
And so, clutching to Nurse Jelani’s reassuring words about Dad going to be all right, I fled. Down the corridor, where I flung the stairwell door open, making the handle bounce off the wall before I flew down the steps as fast as my feet would allow. When I stumbled past Brenda at reception and out of the hospice’s main entrance, I grabbed hold of the steel trash can with shaking arms and bent over, trying not to throw up.
As I gulped in the cool, misty air, and with it the faint smell of garbage and stale cigarette butts, I vowed I’d call Dad when I got home. Surely he’d be settled by then, and, with any luck, my mother would have left, too. The trip back would give me a bit of time to figure out how to apologize to the man who’d always taken care of me, who’d been the best father a girl could wish for. I owed him that, and so much more.
If I hurried, I decided, taking quicker steps, I’d soon be making amends.
CHAPTER FOUR
I DIDN’T GET MUCH FARTHER before remembering I’d left my bag in Dad’s room. For a few seconds I debated whether to go back and get it, but decided to make my way home without. The keys to my apartment were in my jacket pocket, and as it was six thirty on a Friday, I could get by without my phone and wallet for the night. It was the weekend. Most of my clients wouldn’t expect answers before Monday, and my social life had been on hiatus for years. Besides, I could check email and social media on my laptop when I got home. I had some emergency cash in a coffee jar at the apartment, something Dad always insisted I do.
Still, I hesitated, right up until a rare taxi drove past. I flagged it down and hopped in, grateful for the shelter and warmth it provided, my cheeks already numb from the wind.
“Good evening, miss,” the driver said as he smiled at me in the rearview mirror, the gap between his front teeth half a finger wide. “Where to?”
“Sherman Street, please,” I said, and, deciding to be up-front and honest about my situation, added, “I don’t have any money—”
“I’m sorry, miss.” His smile faded as he put the car back in Park. “No money, no ride. I’m afraid you have to get out of—”
“But I have some at home. I’ll run up and get it—”
“No.” He shook his head. “I really can’t. I’ve been taken for those rides more than once.”
“But—”
“Look, you seem nice, and so did they. Since then I don’t make any exceptions.”
Despite pleading with him again, it became clear he wouldn’t give in. I fumbled for the handle before stepping out of the car and watching him drive away, my heart sinking straight to my sneakers. These were my two options: walk home or go back to the hospice to get my bag, but I couldn’t face Dad, not after I’d upset him so badly, and I certainly couldn’t face my mother.
I’d call Nurse Jelani from my neighbor’s apartment as soon as I got back to make sure Dad had settled. He needed his rest and I’d return first thing in the morning. Decision made, I set off, heading for Casco Bay Bridge.
The light had long faded, spindly shadow-fingers elongating as they’d inched their way across the streets. I slowed my pace, winded from the effort of walking so fast. No point wondering when I’d become so out of shape. I’d never particularly been in shape, unless pear-shaped counted. Photographic evidence readily demonstrated the soft, pudgy kid I’d been during my elementary years. The ugly duckling fairy tale I’d desperately wished for had never come, and I’d morphed into an equally pasty-looking adolescent in high school. Every year I’d remained the odd one out, unpopular, a misfit, a nerd with teeth too big for my face and puppy fat I’d never got rid of. The other girls had thick, shiny locks, about as diametrically opposed to my curly blond mop as you could get, and their gravity-defying breasts and backsides could’ve given a freshly picked peach an inferiority complex.
I pushed away the memories of being made fun of, called names or
ignored, tried to leave them behind, although they still followed me down the road, snapping at my heels. As much as I insisted it was years ago, that I should get over myself and none of it mattered anymore, the scars were still there, ready to be picked—or quashed with yet another bagel or muffin my mother would have tut-tutted over and told me not to eat.
I focused on the walk home, longing for my crappy little apartment. I’d lived there for a few years now and wouldn’t be upgrading anytime soon, not since I’d started the website business six months prior. Going out on my own had never been a burning desire—my mother was right about my lack of ambition, if little else—but when a former boss’s hands had wandered once too many, I’d semipolitely told him to stop, or I’d report him to HR. The next day I was laid off, told my IT support role had been cut because of “efficiencies,” ironically by the woman who turned out to be my boss’s girlfriend.
In a way it was a relief. I’d been unhappy there for a while but too scared to do anything about it. I’d never been the type to make decisions unless I got some kind of shove.
My business had increased, and I’d acquired a couple of regular maintenance contracts. Quite the contrast from the third month in, when I’d had none and couldn’t make rent. Seeing no alternative, I’d asked Dad for help, which he’d been happy to provide, my promises of paying him back falling on deaf ears.
“Consider it a gift, Freckles, okay?” he’d said. “End of story.”
The thought of my father took my breath away. Although I wanted to cling to it forever, I attempted to rid my mind of the image before it sliced my heart straight through. Instead, I allowed myself to think about Dad not being my real father—no, not real, biological—and debated whether it mattered. Did it make me less upset he was dying? Stop me from caring?
I shook my head. He was my dad, the one person I’d always looked up to, who’d always tried to be there for me. He’d read to me every single night he’d been home, taught me how to fish, how to ride a bike when I’d been terrified I’d fall. He was the one who’d encouraged me to take computer sciences, applauded when I told him about my new business venture. And amid all that, he’d taken the brunt of my mother’s fury whenever he possibly could so I didn’t have to.
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