16 Things I Thought were True Part 31

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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1 6 t h i n g s i t h o u g h t w e r e t r u e Mom puts her hand to her mouth, and her eyes open wider. Jake and Josh jump to their feet and each one takes an arm, but she shakes them off.

"I loved him, okay?" she says quietly. Her eyes are cold and hard.

"I loved him, but he didn't want a child. The day I found out I was pregnant, he told me he was going back to Canada, to get his MBA, for G.o.d's sake. He never asked me to come. He never invited me and the boys. He certainly wasn't about to go back to school with me and three kids to look after." She grabs each side of her robe and pulls it tight around her and belts it.

"But you never even gave him a chance," I say in a low voice.

"And if I did? He would have done the right thing. And how long until he would have resented me? I would have been the one responsible for ruining his life, his dreams. He would have left eventually, and I couldn't deal with that. I was young, pretty. We had fun. He never wanted my family. He wanted me as I was." She laughs but it's bitter. She wipes her dripping nose on the back of her terry towel bathrobe sleeve and sighs. "I didn't tell him about you. I told him it was over. No long distance thing. And the truth is, he never came after me. He never tried to fight for me. Not once. Maybe if he had, I would have told him. I let him go, and he never looked back." She sits back on the couch and puts her head in her hands. The boys each take a seat beside her and pat her back.

I jump to my feet. This wasn't supposed to be about her, how hard it was for her. She had years and years to make things right. It took a lot of stubbornness to keep that up.

"You were scared, Mom," I yell. "You made the choice for you.

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J a n e t G u r t l e r You never thought about me, what I might want- or need."

I sweep my arm out. "My whole life, I felt like it was my fault, that he wanted nothing to do with me. But he didn't even know! I deserved to know that."

She buries her head in her hands, but I spin on my heels. "I will never forgive you," I tell her as I walk out the front door. It's not true. It's horrible and I hate myself for saying it, but I want to hurt her. I want her to feel some of the pain I've been feeling. I don't know what to do with all the emotions swirling around my head, competing for attention. I head to the front porch. The clouds aren't hiding the sun anymore. It s.h.i.+nes bright, mocking me. It's a waste. What could have been mocks me.

"Hey!" a voice yells to me.

I lift my hand to block the rays. Adam is standing at the end of the driveway.

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chapter twenty- one.

A dam smiles. "I tried to call. Text. Tweet. But you weren't answering."

My phone is still in my backpack. Inside the door. "You lied to me too," I say, as if he's been part of the conversation I was having with my family. "You lied to me too." I walk down the steps of the porch toward him, and he raises both hands in the air as if he surrenders. I march on, open my eyes wider, and tug on the bottom of the cotton shorts I'd changed into. My cheeks warm. The over- exposure suddenly matters.

"You okay?" he asks.

"No," I say. And it's the best I have right then. His hair is wet and combed back. He's got on a black T- s.h.i.+rt and black jeans, different clothes from when I was dropped off not so long ago.

"Thank you," I say and glance down at the dirty T- s.h.i.+rt I'm still wearing. The greasy stains on the front. The splotches of mud from the side of the road. "For coming. But you lied about your girlfriend."

He tilts his head as the sun zips behind a cloud, and we look at each other without squinting. "I told you, Morgan. It was an excuse. For work. It's not always easy being in charge of people our age. And I was going to tell you the truth..."

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J a n e t G u r t l e r "I know." I gesture my hand to the house behind me. "It's not you I'm mad at."

There's a spraying noise, and I glance over and see Mrs. Phillips at the bush growing between our property with a hose in her hand.

Doesn't she realize it just stopped raining? She sprays the bush but makes no attempt to hide her curiosity.

"You look good," Adam mumbles.

I look down. I'm a mess. The breeze has turned cool and the sun has slid behind a cloud. I wrap my arms around myself, wanting to lie down and sleep.

"I guess I don't need to ask how it went?" Adam asks.

I shake my head. "Not really." I walk forward until I reach his side then stop, looking up at him. "What are you doing here?"

"I thought you might need someone to talk to." His cheeks are blotchy and he avoids my eyes. He's making it a habit, showing up when I need him. I don't want to like it. But I do.

"Do you want to go for a walk? Or a drive?" He points at a truck parked in front of Mrs. Phillips's house.

"That's yours?" It's an old red truck. A small one, rusty on the bottom.

Adam nods. "Sort of. I use it when my mom doesn't need it."

"Hmmm. I wouldn't have pegged you for a truck guy," I say.

"I wouldn't have pegged you as someone who would dance around in men's underwear." His mouth turns up, and under his gla.s.ses, his eyes s.h.i.+ne.

I relax a little and laugh, like I know he intended me to. "Sorry,"

I say again, shrugging my shoulders and rolling my neck around to get out some of the kinks. "It's not you."

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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 "Yeah. I kind of guessed that. So? Walk or ride?" he asks again.

I press my lips tight, wis.h.i.+ng I had my ChapStick handy.

Something flitters by my face and I glance up and see a black, orange, and white b.u.t.terfly. It flaps its wings gracefully and flies up over my head and quickly out of my sight.

"How about a ride?" I tell him. "I already went for a walk. In these shorts, my neighbors might make a call to family services."