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I release my mother from the hug and fill her in a little bit, “They’re going great, but there’s someone I want you to meet. This is Lom, my boyfriend.”
Mom looks over at Lom and smiles widely. “Well, I didn’t know we would have more company over for dinner. I’ll have to get another place setting out for you.”
“I’m sorry if I’m intruding. It is lovely to meet you.” Lom has impeccable manners, especially since my mom’s been a bit rude already.
“Oh, it’s no bother. I just would’ve appreciated a little bit of a heads-up. I made plenty of food, so don’t you worry about that. Actually, Emily, if you could get another place setting out for Tom, that would be great.”
“It’s Lom,” I correct my mother because this seems pretty fucking shitty of her so far.
“That’s what I said. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” My mom walks off into the kitchen, and I take Lom into the dining room. She’s already pissing me off so badly, and I know things are just about to get worse.
For the next five minutes, I find another place setting and put it next to my seat. Meanwhile, I make introductions between Lom and my brother, Will, who seems to have a huge stick up his ass.
Eventually, my father makes it out from his den and takes a seat at the head of the table, calling Lom Tom, just like Mom has been. We all pass the dishes around and grab food, and for the first part of dinner, my dad talks about farming and tries to get to know a bit more about Lom but still calls him Tom. After a while, I’m starting to think they’re just doing this to piss me off, and I don’t think I’m wrong.
Out of nowhere, my mom stands up and delicately hits her fork against her glass. “I’d love to make a toast, and I think it’s about high time I did it. I want to toast to our beautiful granddaughter, whom we never even knew we had until my sister called me up a couple of weeks ago. I really want to say how grand of you it was to give her away to complete strangers without even considering that your father and I would’ve taken her.”
“I… I was faced with an impossible decision,” I state, but they don’t care.
“You were not! You were acting like a little jezebel and couldn’t deal with the consequences of your actions, so you just gave her away to hide your secrets,” Mom quips, and my father shakes his head.
“Calling her a jezebel is kind, Mom. Emily’s a slut. She always has been, and she always will be,” Will grits out, then looks at Lom. “Now, I don’t know how long you’ve known my sister, but she isn’t anything special, and you look like the kind of man who wants a woman who hasn’t been touched by everyone in town. My sister is used goods, man.”
Lom rises from his seat and leans over the table, and before any of us realize what’s going on, Lom’s fist collides with Will’s nose. There’s a crackling sound that rings out in the dining room, and my mom screams while my father reaches for his rifle that’s over the entryway. “Your sister is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. And you,” Lom looks at my mother, “you should be ashamed of yourself. Have you ever thought for one second about why Emily felt like she couldn’t come to you about this? You should be furious with Lucy because she’s the one who gave that baby away to God knows who, and we’re still trying to find her. Your sister was the monster in this scenario, not your daughter… but you’re so blind that you can’t even see it,” Lom roars from the top of his lungs.
My mom takes a step back and clutches her chest, but it doesn’t faze me one bit. I should’ve known things would be like this. Like, honestly… I should’ve known.
I rise from my seat and rush out the door, heading straight for Lom’s car. I open the passenger side door and hop in, and sure enough, he’s rushing down the steps right behind me and gets behind the wheel. In a mere few moments, he’s started it up, and we’re driving away from the place where I grew up.
I shake my head as tears slide down my cheeks because I wanted this to go well… but deep down, I knew it never would.
I’m the monster to them, and they’re never going to see me any differently.
Chapter Eighteen
Lom
We both knew the meeting with her parents wasn’t going to go well, but we never anticipated how bad it was actually going to be. Her aunt calling and telling her parents about it didn’t help the situation. I’d like to think that if Emily had had an opportunity to speak to them first, things might have gone better, but the brutal reality is that we don’t know if it would have or not. Honestly, I don’t think it would’ve made a difference. I think they’re bitter, judgmental people who only care about their values. I’d call them selfish because not once did they even consider what Emily would’ve gone through in keeping the child or giving up her child to them. She would’ve constantly felt shame and guilt in front of her face, which wouldn’t have made anything any easier. I guarantee they would be the type of people who would condemn her for furthering her education so she could do better in life, even if they were the ones who made the decision to keep the baby.
We’re both back at her apartment, and while almost everything is packed up or has been packed and awaiting shipment, I know this is the closest thing Emily has to a home right now. She’s sitting on the couch with her heated blanket, and I’m in the kitchen making her some hot chamomile tea to settle her nerves. Whatever she needs right now, I’m going to do. The last thing I want to happen is for Emily to stress about anything, especially after what we just went through at her parents’ house.
Once I finish making her tea, I put a spoonful of sugar in her mug and swirl it around. I take it over to her and plop on the couch beside Emily. She grabs it from my hands and blows on the steaming liquid. “Tonight was an absolute shitshow. Thank you for driving us all the way out there and back.”
It’s late, but I don’t care. I’d do anything for Emily, and I hope she sees that someday. “I’m glad I was there with you. I would’ve hated it if you went by yourself and had to deal with all of that.”
Emily groans. “I could’ve handled it, but I’m glad you were there with me too. It just… it was so much worse than I imagined. Like, I never thought for one second that my aunt was actually going to call and tell my mother. I figured she was just saying that to make me feel bad. To try and get me to put money in her commissary account… but the more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense. She’s dating that cartel guy, right? So, why would she want me to put money in her commissary account? I’m sure he has loads of money.”
Emily’s pointing out something very obvious. I grab onto her legs and throw them over mine. As I speak, I rub my hand along one of her legs. “I’ve thought about that a lot, and I don’t even think she wanted money from you, to be honest. I think she wanted payback, and the only way she could really hurt you was by doing what she did. The only thing she ever had to hold against you was your child because otherwise, you never did anything ‘wrong’. All she wanted was payback.”
“So she was masking it all as blackmail when the reality was all she wanted to do was hurt me.”
“Yes,” I confirm, and Emily closes her eyes tightly. I’m sure she can barely believe that her aunt’s really done this to her, but it’s true. Her aunt’s been a total and complete asshole, and because of her aunt, she’ll never have a decent relationship with her parents ever again.
Emily opens her eyes, and as she does, they’re glossy. She’s trying to hold back tears. “I don’t want to cry over this because it seems so silly. No matter what I did, they wouldn’t have ever been okay with me having a baby at sixteen. They wouldn’t have ever understood, and them even suggesting that they’d adopt the baby is total crap. They would’ve told me that she was my responsibility, and my punishment would’ve been to keep her. Everything they said is just… bullshit. You know, I love my parents even though they’re awful to me sometimes. They’ve been like that my entire life, and all I’ve ever wanted was their acceptance, but I was always doing something they didn’t like. It could be getting an A- instead of an A+ or something as simple as not following a recipe the way my mom would. It didn’t matter. I was never good enough, no matter how much I tried.”
I swallow hard as Emily speaks from the heart, and she is breaking inside because of what they’ve done. I clear my throat and decide to speak from my heart. “I understand what it is to have a complicated relationship with your parents. My father died when I was younger, so he has the luxury of this not applying to him… but my mother hasn’t been the greatest parent. She chose other people over my siblings and me, mainly my stepfather, and that is an aching wound like no other. Ruslan almost died, and still, she chose my stepfather. My half-siblings even saw her choices for what they were—wrong. In the end, our tumultuous relationship with our mother bonded my sibling group to be stronger than ever.”
“I wish we could have normal relationships with our parents. Ones where they love us unconditionally, kind of like what they’re supposed to do. You know?” Emily softly smiles at the end, but it quickly drifts away. If only life were fair to us both in that regard, but it hasn’t been, and we have no choice other than to deal with the hand we’ve been dealt.
