Part 31 (1/2)
chapter twenty.
14. Dear old Dad ditched the family before I was born.
#thingsIthoughtweretrue A my drops me off on the sidewalk in front of my house. ”You can do this,” she calls out the window. ”Good luck.”
There's a humming in my head. I'm home. And I still haven't heard from Bob. Does that make my mom right? He didn't want kids. And that's all I get from him? Tea?
Instead of facing that or her, I turn back to the sidewalk and walk, but my knees are stiff and my gait lopsided. Mrs. Phillips from next door is working on her garden and waves and stares a little too long at my bare legs. I walk on, trying to figure out what to say to my mom. My fear bothers me. Should I really be the one who's worried? She knows that I know. But no matter how irra- tional it is, I can't stomp the feeling that I'm the one who messed things up.
All my life, I believed that my dad left because of me, that he wanted to have nothing to do with me- that I was too flawed to love. I clench my hands into a fist and my fingernails press into my skin.
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J a n e t G u r t l e r This is my life.
It's time to deal.
Mom is perched on the couch in her pink robe, her head in her hands as I yell. She hasn't said a word since I launched into my tirade.
”How could you have made that choice for him?” I pace in front of her. ”And for me? You had no right to do that.”
She says nothing. Her silence is worse than shouting. ”Talk to me,” I beg. ”Tell me why.”
She lifts her head and presses her knuckles against her mouth and stares at me. I stare back, and then her gaze darts back to the carpeted floor.
”Mom? Say something! How did you keep this up?” I shout.
”How do you not talk about it for eighteen years? That takes a lot of dedication.” I narrow my eyes. ”And alcohol.”
I've crossed the line and I know it, and she glances up then, her quivering chin and watery eyes showing I finally hit a mark.
Jake and Josh hurry in from where they've been hiding out in the kitchen, proving they've been hovering and waiting to swoop in to her rescue. The synchronicity in their steps and the expression on their faces irks me. It's not fair.
”All right, Morgan. Stop yelling. She just got out of the hospital,”
Josh says. His face is still clean- shaven; it appears his '70s phase was cured by mom's heart condition. He walks over and sits beside her on the couch. It makes me crazy, and my head pounds with resent- ment. Always her over me. Always.
”She got out of the hospital over a week ago. I think the discovery 214.
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1 6 t h i n g s i t h o u g h t w e r e t r u e she lied to me about my father for eighteen years deserves a little yelling. I've been holding in my shouting for eighteen years.” The ugliness inside me is turning inside out. ”Why don't you go run off with one of your little groupies, Josh? Stay out of it!”
”Morgan,” she snaps, because heaven forbid I insult her precious Josh.
”What?” I snap back.
”Morgan,” Jake says in a lower and calmer voice. ”Settle down, okay? It's not helping either one of you to be screeching.” He sits on the loveseat across from Mom and Josh and leans forward, run- ning his hand over his closely cropped hair.
”She was trying to protect you,” Josh says. ”She wanted to warn you after you went running off on your trip, but you wouldn't answer her texts.”
”That was too late.” I shake my head. I'd known in my gut that she had something to say when she kept texting. But it was too late. ”How would you feel if some girl appeared in your life eighteen years from now saying she was your daughter and her mother didn't want you to know?” Heat flushes my face.
”Let her explain,” Josh says.
”I'm waiting! I've been waiting but she won't say anything.”
”That's because you're not talking; you're yelling,” Josh says.
”I've been holding things in for a long time. You guys, you precious twins, you were allowed to make noise and complain but not me. I've grown up feeling not good enough, that if I did something wrong, I'd be sent away.” And then my body deflates.
It's the closest I've ever come to understanding the truth about myself. I sink down on the chair closest to me and drop my head.
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J a n e t G u r t l e r ”I wanted to protect you from being hurt,” my mom says, repeating Josh's excuse quietly, and then she sniffles loudly. For effect. For the boys. It's not for me. Or for my dad. Or what she did.
I glance up and she's wiping under her eyes. ”You were protecting yourself,” I say.
Part of me feels like I'm inside my body watching myself. I've read all the books about how hard it is for girls to grow up without fathers. I checked half of them out of the library.
Josh still has his arm protectively around her. ”Morgan,” Jake says, and he glances at Mom. ”She had to have good intentions.”
He stares at her as if he's waiting.
Mom doesn't say a thing.
”You did what you thought was right,” Jake tells her. ”Right?”
”Lying about something so major?” My head swims in the understatement.
”She didn't lie,” Josh says, but the expression on his face doesn't match his words, and he takes his arm away from around her shoulder.
”Lying by omission is still lying. That, I believe, is a direct quote.”
We all know it.
Mom jumps to her feet. ”You have no idea what it was like for me,” she cries.
Her robe opens at the waist, revealing pajamas underneath. She looks tiny and vulnerable. I think of her heart and want to get up and re- tie her belt for her, tell her to calm down. But I don't. ”So tell me,” I say instead, ”why you never told him about me.”
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