Part 29 (1/2)
”I said that isn't it at all.”
”No, Mom, after that.” She closed her eyes and tried to think of nothing at all. That seemed logical. Taddy wanted to hear her mother say it again, just one more time. Please, Mom, just say it like you mean it, please.
Silence. There was nothing but Warner's heavy breathing to be heard among them. He squeezed her hand tight for her to open her eyes and so she did.
”Sorry, Tabitha Adelaide. I don't know what else I can say or do to make it up to you.” Her mother glared at her. Irma's loss for words and frozen face confirmed Taddy's suspicion. The thing that ticked Taddy off the most was that Irma didn't have a clue as to how ruthless she sounded.
The chill between them grew.
Taddy let go of Warner and slipped her hands under her legs and sat on them, thanking her lucky stars Lex and Vive hadn't come with her. If her best friends had heard Irma, Lex would've grabbed Irma's freshwater-pearl-adorned neck and snapped her in half. Lex had one thing in common with Birdie, the girl loved to throw a good punch. And vile, terse words would've spewed from Vive.
Speechless, Warner sat in silence. Taddy doubted he'd be familiar with parental extortion. But from what he'd told her about his ex-fiancee, maybe he understood that some people put money first.
She wanted to maintain composure, but she needed to ask. She had to find out why. ”Were you there when I needed you?”
”When you were a child, yes I was.”
”I was a child when you dropped me off.” Her words nearly choked her.
”Avon Porter kept you fed and educated,” her mother defended. ”You were in the top private boarding school in the country! I wouldn't call that neglected.”
A heaviness centered in her chest. Her mother would never see it Taddy's way. Irma mothered in a different style, one where nannies breastfed someone else's children. ”You left me, Mother. You never came back.” Taddy promised herself she wouldn't cry. But it was too late. The tears fell down her cheeks as she relived the pain.
For a moment, she was back in the study on the blue chair being told she'd be sent away. A pulsing knot inside her made it impossible to hold the hurt inside. She had to let it go. Her lips had waited too long to relieve her of this rejection. ”Do you have any clue how much you and Dad f.u.c.ked with my head?” Anger spurted through her. Lifting her fingers, she wiped back her tears and choked on a sob. ”I've never been the same since.”
Warner held her tight, letting Taddy know he was there. He didn't stop her from speaking her mind.
For years, Taddy had imagined what it would be like to have parents who loved her. The only example she had of that was Blake's family who'd accepted him and his h.o.m.os.e.xuality as a teen. They were the closest thing to normal she'd known.
The Morgans did simple things, which Blake would share with her. Sending him homemade sugar cookies with notes telling him how much they missed him. Taddy hated the pastries' cardboard taste, but she ate the dessert knowing Mrs. Morgan had stood in her kitchen, decorating those treats for her son. Mrs. Morgan was often seen crying when she'd drop Blake back off at his dorm room after a holiday away. And when Blake was sick, Mr. Morgan came and picked him up.
”In the tenth grade, a bunch of us in cla.s.s got mononucleosis. I was ill for two months. I felt like I was going to die. The nurse called you.” She swallowed and continued, ”You never rang her back to see how I was doing.”
”We were in Sylt that summer.” Irma didn't even blink. ”I couldn't get back to the States in time. We saw to it that you had great medical care. You didn't die. It was just the flu.”
”Bulls.h.i.+t, Mother.” I did too die. I died inside. That was the catalyst that propelled Taddy into emanc.i.p.ation. Alone night after night for eight weeks, she was the only child left in the infirmary. ”Everyone else's parents had come to get their sick child.” She grabbed at her neck remembering. ”I had lymph glands the size of grapefruits...and my enlarged spleen caused a constant abdominal pain. My skin had gone jaundiced.” So yellow she could've pa.s.sed for Laa-Laa the yellow Teletubby. That was what the nurse had nicknamed her that semester, Laa-Laa, the unwanted teenager.
Irma leaned forward. ”The first year you boarded at school I tried to visit you. I did. Mr. Constance was going to drive me out there to see you. But your father-”
”Did he prevent you from coming?”
”He broke my arm.”
Taddy gasped.
”Then my leg,” Irma added. ”I had to keep you away from him. He was a dangerous man back then.”
She heard Warner's breath quicken.
”After a while, I quit trying to see you. The school sent me updates with photos. I picked your father over you.”
”Why?”
”He threatened to leave me with nothing. I'd be divorced and gone from New York.”
”I remember you and Dad fought a lot back then.” Taddy didn't buy the busted leg story. With all these years past, she still had failed to come and see her. Irma's legs seemed to be working fine enough for her to greet her at the door moments ago. They'd walked her highfalutin' a.s.s around town to shop yesterday when she'd called. If anything, she'd broken Joseph with her actions.
”When Joseph ordered your paternity test and the results came back negative, he was devastated. He loved you more than-”
”More than you did, Mother,” Taddy finished the sentence for her. Had her mother ever felt anything for her?
Did Irma's own mother treat her the same way when she was growing up? Taddy had never met her grandmother. She'd died a year before Taddy was born. Taddy couldn't help but imagine Irma had learned this behavior from someone else. It didn't seem natural.
”I'm not going to lie to you. You're too smart for that. You always were. Years ago, Joseph's physician diagnosed him as sterile. When your father and I married, we agreed no children. I didn't want a baby. When I became pregnant and gave birth to you, your father took to you. He loved you. More than he loved me, at times. He believed you came as G.o.d's miracle.” Irma paused and continued, ”I understand this information isn't what you wanted to hear.”
”It's nothing new,” she admitted, wiping her tears. ”I've raised myself since I was a kid.”
”You pushed for the emanc.i.p.ation.”
”What choice did I have?”
Warner listened. She could see the interest on Warner's face but he didn't say anything.
”That legal stunt p.i.s.sed Joseph off further.”
During Taddy's junior year, she and Vive had signed up for an elective cla.s.s in legal studies with Mr. Kettle. She'd enrolled in the cla.s.s because, at twenty-three, Mr. Kettle was Avon Porter's youngest male teacher and also the hottest. Once in the cla.s.s, she'd become fascinated with a subject they spent two weeks studying called Family Law. Taddy had yearned to discover how a teenager could divorce his or her parents. Vive, already a journalist for the school paper, wrote revealing celebrity stories on Drew Barrymore, who'd left her parents at thirteen, along with Juliette Lewis and Jaime Pressly, who'd both separated from their parents at fifteen.
”If these child stars can pull this s.h.i.+t off, honey bunny, then so can you,” Vive had encouraged. She even had a potty mouth back then.
Taddy had wanted to try.
In hopes her folks would react and fully come for her, take her home and parent and love her, she'd tested the legal system with Mr. Kettle and filed a pet.i.tion citing reasons for separation from her parents. Taddy had a.s.sumed that would be the end of it. They'd call and flip out and pick her up.
But the Brillfords didn't.
A children's Connecticut law center gave her free legal aid to secure the case. The paperwork was processed and Judge Roderick had approved a hearing. The media had tagged the Brillfords as ”Too Rich to Parent”, pus.h.i.+ng Taddy sympathetically into the spotlight. It drove a sky-high wedge between them, more than she'd antic.i.p.ated. ”Joseph stopped paying for your tuition and boarding costs, saying he'd kill me if I ever spoke to you again.”
”Dad would never kill you. I don't believe you.” Nothing added up. Shocked, she a.s.sumed her parents had done one thing right and made good on her high school education. ”Who paid my tuition after I emanc.i.p.ated?”
”You became an independent then, an adult according to the law.” Irma defended and ignored her question.
”I didn't understand all the ramifications. I went to the lawyers for help, to get your love. The case spun out of control and became more than I imagined.”
”We didn't have any responsibility to you after the verdict.”
The lawyers she'd worked with, who'd won the case, wrote a book on teens emanc.i.p.ating from their parents and never even followed up with Taddy to see how she made out. As an independent, Taddy felt used and ashamed after the case ended. She sure as h.e.l.l didn't get any money from the lawyers who profited with the publicity. ”Tell me who covered my junior- and senior-year expenses.”