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She giggled. “Yep. I left home when I was seventeen, after graduating high school early. And in between part-time classes at the local community college, I took on a job. Saved up as much as I could while living with three other girls in a two-bedroom apartment to save up enough money to have it corrected. And boy, was that a surgery.”
“What was the defect?”
“Its technical name is ‘tubular hypoplasia,’ or something like that. It essentially means the base of a woman’s breast is much narrower than it should be, causing a tissue deformity and nipple malformation during puberty.”
“So much more than I ever needed to know about my stepmom.”
“And yet, here we are.”
The two of us laughed softly before she patted my arm.
“Hell of a surgery. Nine hours under, lots of sawing and suctioning and tugging about. And when I came out of it in recovery, I had this compression bra on and a fanny pack of morphine around my waist with tubes running into the tops of my chest.”
“Yikes.”
“Yep. I still don’t remember those first two weeks of recuperation. Because morphine wasn’t the only drug I was on during that recovery time.”
I smiled. “Holy shit. I don’t blame you on that one, then. This morphine’s got me fucked up enough as it is.”
“You know, part of me wants to tell you ‘language.’ But, here I am. Cursing up a storm along with you.”
It almost felt surreal. Like this was simply another dream. The shy, timid, soft-spoken stepmother I’d become accustomed to was anything but. And it made me wonder why the absolute fuck she’d settled for someone like my father. Then again, I knew why. We both knew why. She’d grown up in a life of conservatism. And my father, well, wasn’t. He gave her all the things she wanted. And even things she didn’t want. That would be attractive to any woman. Even a woman with her head seemingly screwed on straight.
Money talked nowadays.
“So, weeks of physical therapy?”
She paused. “You heard that?”
I shrugged. “Bits and pieces. I was still waking up and falling back asleep.”
“You’re a shit liar, you know.”
That made me laugh hard. “All right. All right. You caught me.”
“I’m sorry, Clint.”
“Don’t be. You stuck up for me. No one’s ever done that before.”
“I should’ve started doing it sooner.”
“Well, something tells me you’ve at least been trying.”
“I’ll get him to stay behind, though. Don’t worry.”
“At this point, I’d rather him go.”
She paused. “Really?”
I nodded. “He’s useless during shit like this. In his mind, this is my fault. So the medical bill will be my fault. For all I know, since I’m eighteen, he’ll write me up some sort of an official loan document and expect me to pay him back for it. Either that, or he’ll feel guilty after the fact and buy me a new bike to try and make things better.”
“I’m sorry, Clint.”
“Not your fault, Cecilia.”
As I lay there, holding her hand within mine, I felt the crushing weight of an unwanted burden settle against my chest. I closed my eyes, hoping sleep would sweep me underneath its warm current again and rid me of the insanity of my mind. What in the world had I done to make my father hate me so much? Why couldn't he just love me? Accept me? I mean, I was his only child. It wasn’t as if there was another child to play ‘favorites’ with.
Did he just not want me?
