by M. S. Parker
“Mom?” Mom spoke from behind me, and I turned in time to catch my mother’s arm to steady her. All the color had drained from her face, and her eyes were wide.
“Hey there, little bee.” The man had a creaky voice with the same accent as his wife.
“Dad?”
My grandparents?
“Aren’t you going to invite us in, Bobbi, or are you too good for that?” The younger woman had the sort of expression that made me wonder if she ever smiled.
“Come in.” Mom stepped back, taking me with her. “Have a seat. Can I get anyone something to drink?”
“Sweet tea all around,” Granny answered for all three.
Granny?
My life over the past month had been strange, but this was definitely going at the top of my ‘weird shit’ list.
“Of course. Ashlee, would you mind helping me?”
I nodded dumbly and followed my mom into the kitchen, wondering how this conversation was about to go. Honestly, I wouldn’t have been entirely surprised by any explanation at this point. Body snatchers. Aliens. Clones. All of those seemed as likely as the family who’d disowned my mother for how she’d been born suddenly showing up on her front stoop.
“Did they say…who did they…what…” Mom sighed and closed her eyes, leaning against the counter as she tried to gather her thoughts.
“Are those your parents?” I pitched my voice low as I opened a cabinet to retrieve five glasses. Even if Mom and I weren’t thirsty, it seemed like a good idea to have something for us to hold.
“They are.” Mom opened her eyes, that bewildered look still on her face. “And my little sister, Janette.”
I didn’t ask if Janette was always so unpleasant. It didn’t seem like the most important thing at the moment.
“They didn’t tell you they were coming?” I opened the fridge and pulled out the large glass pitcher of sweet tea.
Mom shook her head. “I haven’t talked to them since they told me I wasn’t welcome in the family as long as I insisted on ‘bringing that kind of shame to the family.’”
I handed her the first glass. “Any idea why they showed up here? Or how they found you?”
“None. Not either one.” Mom took a sip of her drink. The color was starting to come back to her cheeks, and she’d lost that dazed expression. “Maybe something happened to my brother. He’s not here.”
I hadn’t known she had a brother. Or a sister. She never talked about them except to say that they disowned her when she’d come out and started dating Mona her junior year of college. There’d been no birthday or Christmas presents or cards. Absolutely nothing.
Something popped into my mind. “They called me Ashlee.”
“What?” Mom looked at me.
“When I opened the door, Gra…your…” I shook my head. What the hell was I supposed to call them? “She said, ‘you must be Ashlee.’”
Mom frowned. “I didn’t know they knew I had a kid. I didn’t bother sending them an invitation to the shower or an announcement when you were born. I assumed they’d be as close-minded as before. A baby wouldn’t fix that.”
“All right,” I said as I finished with the last glass. “That’s where we’ll start. I’ll ask how they knew about me.”
Mom nodded and followed me into the living room. My grandparents were on the couch while my aunt had taken my favorite chair. That was fine. I wasn’t planning on sitting. Too much nervous energy. I took the tray of glasses around, managing a tight smile for each stranger.
“You know, I didn’t get the chance to ask how you knew who I was.” I set the tray aside and picked up my own glass.
“It was just obvious, honey,” my grandmother said with a smile I didn’t quite trust. “You’re the spittin’ image of our Bobbi.”
I glanced at Mom. I’d never heard anyone call her Bobbi.
“I go by Roberta, Mom. And I think what Ashlee wants to know, what we both want to know, is how you knew my daughter’s name is Ashlee.”
I’d never heard my mother’s usually gentle voice come out so hard.
“We saw that picture,” Aunt Janette spoke up.
If she smiled, she and Mom would resemble each other, I realized with a start. Her hair was more auburn than a true red, and she was slender where Mom had curves, but the features were there.
“What picture?” Mom asked.
Oh. I had a feeling I knew which one.
“The one with her and her friend or whatever he is,” Janette continued. “I thought she looked a lot like you, but there wasn’t a name, so I started looking. Tennessee isn’t New York City, but we know how to use the internet.”
Tennessee explained the accent. I’d never caught it from Mom, and now I wondered how long it’d taken her to get rid of it.
“Seems my niece found herself a man.”
Maybe Janette just made bad first impressions, but I really didn’t like her.
“Janette, you hush now.” Granny – the name still spun me – took a long draught of her tea and then smiled at me. “We never knew Bobbi had a child, and once we realized she did, why, we had to come find her. We wanted to meet our grandbaby.”
“It’s not like you don’t already have grandkids,” Janette muttered.
“Yours or Chester’s?” Mom asked.
Janette glared at her and held out her left hand. A ring shone on her finger. “Larry and I’ve been married for twenty-eight years. Got four kids. Three girls and a boy.”
“You remember Larry Morrisey, don’t you, little bee?” Gramps spoke up. “Graduated a year or two before you.”
Mom nodded. “Quiet guy. I remember.”
“Ashlee, you’re what, twenty-one?” Granny asked.
“Twenty-three.”
She nodded. “Same age as Janette’s middle girl, Yvette. Estella’s three years older; Pauline’s three younger.”
“Trenton’s sixteen,” Gramps said. “Didn’t think we were gonna get a boy after all those girls, but Larry had it in him for one at least.”
This was the most bizarre conversation I’d ever been a part of, but judging by the look on Mom’s face, it wasn’t anything new for her. What would it have been like, I wondered, growing up with this sort of uncomfortable, stilted conversation where no one said anything real?
“Chester doesn’t have any kids?” Mom asked.
Granny’s mouth flattened, and Janette scowled. It was Gramps who answered, “He went and got converted by those Jehovah’s Witnesses. Married one of ‘em and they moved to Pennsylvania. We get Christmas cards, but that’s about it.”
So, Mom wasn’t the only one of her siblings who’d turned out differently than their parents had expected. Maybe seeing my picture in the paper had prompted them to rethink how harsh they’d been. They could fix things between them and Mom, get back some of what they’d lost. I wasn’t naïve enough to think that things would be all rainbows and unicorns with a single visit, but maybe, just maybe, I could have the bigger family I’d always wanted.
Thirty-Seven
Nate
I didn’t call Ashlee.
I thought about it. A lot. After I left Finley’s, I went home with every intention of calling her and asking if I could see her. It felt like the sort of conversation we needed to have face-to-face. Except, when I settled in my favorite library chair and picked up my phone, I didn’t call.
In my defense, she didn’t call me either, but I knew that wasn’t really a defense at all. She’d put the ball in my court, so to speak, and it was up to me where things went from here.
After talking to Finley, I was more certain than ever that she was worth fighting for, but I still was at a loss for how to do it. He said I’d need to be vulnerable, to trust her with the truth, but I couldn’t imagine a world where any woman would be able to look past a man sleeping with his brother’s girlfriend. If what I’d done didn’t scream betrayal and mistrust, then I didn’t know what would.
I’d never before considered myself a coward,
but when Sunday slipped into Monday, and I hadn’t reached out to Ashlee, I had to accept that I had abandoned my spine somewhere.
I winced when I saw the dark circles under my eyes when I shaved before work, but nothing short of makeup would do anything about them. I’d barely slept over the weekend, and it showed. It was all I could do not to snap at anyone who got in my way. Only knowing how disappointed Ashlee would be if I bit someone’s head off kept my tongue in check.
Maybe this was what Finley had meant. I’d certainly never cared before about what anyone else thought of my behavior. My desire for my business to succeed usually overrode any poor decision making in that area of my life, but everywhere else, I did as I pleased and fuck off to anyone who didn’t like it.
She wasn’t at her desk when I passed it on the way to my office, and I couldn’t decide if I was happy about that or not. If I saw her, I’d talk to her, and while that was technically what I wanted, the thought also frightened me.
I’d gone skydiving, scuba diving, rock climbing on some fairly terrifying cliffs…but having a real conversation with a redhead a foot shorter than me scared the shit out of me.
While I was ashamed to admit that I was relieved to have yet another reprieve, I couldn’t stop myself from feeling that way. Even when I been at my lowest point, I’d never been this indecisive or unsure of myself. In the past, I’d fucked up any number of ways, but I’d always just gotten right back into the mix, working on fixing whatever it was I’d broken. Why couldn’t I do that with Ashlee?
Somehow, I managed to get through the morning even though I kept wondering if Ashlee was going to come talk to me, but by the time I was ready for lunch, I’d made up my mind. I would ask Ashlee to have lunch with me and tell her about my conversation with Finley, what it’d made me realize…and what had happened with my brother. If I was too afraid of losing her to tell her the truth, I’d lose her by closing myself off. At least talking to her would mean I’d tried.
I’d just sent off the last email I’d needed to respond to when someone knocked on my door. I was already anticipating it being Ashlee when I raised my head, a greeting halfway out of my mouth when I realized the person standing in front of me wasn’t Ashlee at all.
“Catherine?”
“Hi, Uncle Nate!” She beamed at me and practically bounced into my office.
“Shouldn’t you be in school?” The question was out of my mouth before I realized the more important thing to ask was how she got here.
She shook her head. “I’m on spring break this week.”
I stood up and walked over to the door. A quick glance around told me that no one from my family was lurking around. I turned back to see a sheepish but slightly defiant expression on her face.
“Who dropped you off?” I came back over to stand in front of her.
“Nobody,” she admitted as she stared down at her feet. “I wanted to see you, but I knew Mom and Dad wouldn’t bring me, so I came myself.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, reminding myself that losing my temper would be the worst thing to do right now. When I opened my eyes, I found her watching me with eyes the same shade of brown as her father’s.
“You came from the Bronx by yourself?”
She nodded. “It wasn’t that hard. I looked up how to do it on the computer at home and memorized which lines I had to take. It was a short walk to the stations from home and to here.”
I wasn’t sure if it was better or worse that she’d taken the subway instead of calling a cab. On the one hand, anyone could’ve grabbed her or hurt her at any point along the way, and a cab driver would have most likely refused to take a passenger that young, but there was always the chance of an unscrupulous driver taking advantage of her age. A best-case scenario would be to take more money than was owed, but it wasn’t too far-fetched to imagine a driver kidnapping her for all sorts of things I didn’t want to even think about.
“Where do your parents think you are?”
“My friend Natalie’s house.”
“I see. And does Natalie know where you are?”
“No. I didn’t tell her anything either.”
“So, if your parents call Natalie’s house, she’s not going to know anything about you telling them you were with her today.” I made it a statement rather than a question.
The look of confusion on Catherine’s face would’ve been amusing under different circumstances. I had a feeling that if I’d asked where she’d gotten the idea for her little subterfuge, she’d tell me about having seen it on some tween show where the kids were inevitably caught when the parents contacted each other, and each realized they’d been lied to. Apparently, she hadn’t learned that part of the lesson.
“I wanted to hear about the Golden Words release party,” she said. “But I didn’t want to have to wait until you came over for dinner again because it took my whole life for you to come last time.”
Not for the first time, I wondered what David and Julia had told their kids about me and why I wasn’t around. Joshua was an easy one since, until recently, he’d lived on the other side of the country.
“I’m going to be around more now, I promise.” I didn’t say the words lightly. I’d missed too much already. I would be around as much as my family allowed it.
She gave an excited squeal and threw her arms around my waist, nearly knocking me off balance. I caught her before we both fell, awkwardly patting her back. Kids usually just eyed me warily from a distance, but Catherine clearly didn’t have any issues with me.
“Can I stay here for a while and you tell me all about the party?” she asked, letting me go. “I want to hear everything. Did you talk to Golden Words? I mean, I know you’ve probably talked to them before, but did you talk to them at the party? What are they like? Naoko is my favorite, but I like Peach’s name the best. Is it for real? They all have great names, not a boring name like Catherine.”
I stared at her as she wandered around my office, looking at everything as she talked. How was anyone supposed to get a word in edgewise when she was going like that?
“Catherine. Catherine!” I raised my voice the second time I said her name, and that caught her attention. “You need to call your parents and tell them where you are.”
Her face fell.
“And then I’m going to take you home.”
“But Uncle Nate…”
I shook my head. “I love that you wanted to come talk to me, but you need to talk to your parents about that and have them decide if and when you come to see me. And never alone. You’re a smart girl, so I know you had to know how dangerous this was.”
She looked at her feet, the answer in her lack of verbal response.
“Now, let’s get your mom on the phone.”
Thirty-Eight
Ashlee
I didn’t call Nate.
Granted, I’d told him to contact me if he’d had enough time to decide what it was he wanted, which made me hopeful that he just needed more time. I clung to that hope because the alternative wasn’t something I wanted to think about.
It was fear of that alternative that followed me into work and kept reminding me to avoid him so I never had to admit that he’d decided I was too much work. That voice grew louder with each passing hour until I decided that I needed to spend my lunch finding something to distract me.
That something turned out to be me deciding that my parents needed to meet. I shot off a text to Mom, telling her my great idea, and then spent the ten minutes it took her to reply wondering if this would blow up in my face. Mom said she was okay with me having a relationship with Finley, but it was one thing to talk about it and something else entirely for it to be right there in her face.
I never should have doubted her.
That sounds like a wonderful idea! I have to admit, I’d been hoping to meet the man who gave me the most important person in my life. I’d love to host too, if that’d be all right with you. I’ve been watching a new cooking show, and I have a whole list
of things I’d like to try. Find out if he has any dietary restrictions.
I hadn’t asked Finley anything about family health history, I realized as I read the last line in my mom’s text. Sure, he would’ve included relative things when he’d donated, but that’d been more than two decades ago. Some things had most likely changed. I made a mental note to add that to the growing list of things I was curious about.
After I finished eating my lunch, I decided I had enough time to go talk to Finley before turning my attention back to work. Mr. Hancock and Ms. Lamas had both told me it was going to be an easy day and I could be flexible with breaks and such since I’d put in extra work last week.
There’d been surprisingly little I’d needed to do to wrap things up for the release party. A lot of that, I suspected, had to do with the fact that the young women of Golden Words were all-around decent and considerate. I hadn’t been in the business long, but it’d still been long enough for me to understand how rare it was for four talented and well-mannered people to come together to form a band.
I hummed one of their songs as I made my way down the hall to Finley’s office. He’s stopped at my desk to say hello when he came in today – unlike his business partner.
It was definitely time to start looking elsewhere for employment, I admitted to myself. If I’d been concerned about rumors when Nate was the only one I had a personal relationship with, the thought of what people would say if it came out that Finley was my father bothered me even more.
I loved being able to talk to him whenever it didn’t interfere with work, but I didn’t want a job where people would assume I’d gotten it because of who I knew rather than what I could do.
I knocked on his door, praying that Nate’s door stayed closed. I didn’t want an awkward run-in to be the reason we finally spoke to each other. When I heard Finley call for me to come in, I breathed a sigh of relief and went inside.
“Ashlee, it’s good to see you.” He rose from his seat with a smile. “I wasn’t expecting it to be you.”
