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“I figured I’d be hearing from you. And here you are.” She looks at me—her lips pursed, the fear gone from her eyes—total calm in its place.
“Yes, here I am.” Our eyes linger for a long moment, but I don’t see anything in hers I recognize. I break our gaze and open my carry-on, pulling out the envelope I found in the false bottom of her drawer.
She jumps up and reaches for it. I only narrowly manage to keep it out of her grasp.
“Where did you get this? Did you break into my house?” she screams and reaches for it again.
I stand up to put some distance between us and raise my voice to match hers. “Mother, sit down. Now.”
She glares at me, defiantly and with something akin to hatred in her eyes.
“You are such a shit. Just like your father. He ruin
ed my life when he forced me to have you. I never ever wanted children. He knew this, so he tricked me,” she screams at me, but sits down.
I feel like I’ve been kicked in the stomach with a steel-toe boot. This was always my suspicion, but to have it hurled at me so violently nearly cuts me off at the knees.
“Now you know. It was all your father’s idea. He’s the one who found out what that dirty terrorist, who was pretending to be a fucking lawyer, was really doing. We needed the money, Dean. Needed it. Enron was about to collapse; our debts were out of control. So your dad followed him, took some pictures, while I went to Switzerland to open the bank account. And we blackmailed him.” She sneers. Her face, one I have always found uncommonly beautiful, twists into an ugly mask of fury.
“And he paid. How was I supposed to know he was going to disappear and leave his family? That’s not my fault. And then your father, because he was so weak and couldn’t live with himself, decided he was going to concoct this little story about a life insurance policy and take his life.” She shrugs one of her dainty shoulders, like what she just said is of little consequence.
I sit back down, unable to hold myself up anymore.
She rolls her eyes in exasperation.
“I wasn’t going to stop him, Dean. He was miserable. He said he was better off dead, and honestly, I agreed. You were leaving for college and didn’t need him anymore. I certainly didn’t need him anymore. So, I agreed to the ruse and played the part of devastated widower when he finally got the nerve to do it.”
She leans back on her chair, staring out at the sea. A view paid for with people’s freedom, their family’s well-being, my father’s life. And she looks content.
I cannot respond.
My blood is rushing in my ears, and it drowns out the sounds of the city that has been our companion during this conversation.
Bits of her diatribe come back to me. She wanted my father to kill himself. She never wanted children. She called Milly’s father a terrorist.
When my mind trips over Milly’s name, all of my senses come rushing back to life. That’s where I need to be. I don’t know what to do with the information I’ve just received, except that I need to tell Milly. She needs to tell her father.
I swallow the bile that rises up as I look at this woman sitting next to me. I wonder, absently, what happened to make her this way. Not that it matters.
“I’ve got to go.” I stand up to leave the veranda. She merely glances at me, and then looks back to the sea.
“I suppose you’re going to the police or something noble like that?” Her voice is full of disdain and acrimony.
I shake my head and look back at her. I can’t find it in me to respond. I wouldn’t know where to begin. And if I start screaming, I might never stop, and I need to get to Milly.
And so, without another word to my mother and knowing this is the last time I will see her, at least voluntarily, I turn and leave.
Something has broken in my soul. That piece of it that no matter what they do to you, allows you to believe your parents love you. It falls off, hits the ground, and shatters into a million pieces. In its place is a fissure I know won’t ever be filled again. I’m an orphan. I have no parents. I'm lost in my loneliness.
I'm in a cab on my way back to the airport area to find a hotel for the night when I kick myself.
I’m a rich man. Not rich enough to own my own private plane, but certainly I can afford to charter one.
I lean forward and ask the cab driver to head directly to the airport. I message Cristal and ask her to arrange a flight for me.
I need to put as much distance between myself and my mother as I can.
Our memory is a powerful thing. And so, I use it to recall Milly. Her name, as it moves through my mind, the name helps me to remember the way it feels to be loved. Then I remember I haven’t really been alone since I was sixteen years old. Because that’s when Millicent Hassan crawled into my heart, staked her claim on it, and never let go.
