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I actually remembered a book Callie had brought to school before we moved up to Burgundy College that had the exact same thing happening to the heroine. Aileen and I had grabbed the book off Callie and laughed as we did our dramatic reading, then we’d traded shifty looks as we tried to work out which of us would actually go for that sort of thing. Aileen said right away she was completely up for it, but it sounded like she was making a joke the rest of us weren’t smart enough to figure out. Callie refused to say much of anything.
I said never, no way. The whole thing sounded degrading to me. But apparently everything had changed.
I didn’t realise I was grinning until I followed Ryan into the house taking very small steps, and nearly tripped over Mum, waiting.
That wouldn’t have been enough to scare me except for two other details: Mike hanging around in the background shifting on his feet as if he expected to have to jump in and break something up… and the piece of paper in Mum’s hands, now even more rumpled than I’d left it. If she was going to tell me she’d just ‘accidentally’ found that I wasn’t—
But of course she didn’t think she even needed an excuse. “Tamara,” she said, “what have you been doing?”
I looked around for Ryan, not that he was the hero I needed right now… and he’d already slunk off to his bedroom.
Mum was coming close to me, peering at me. I was afraid she’d smell him on me—I didn’t even know which him I was more worried about.
Thinking about what had happened that day with Steven gave me unexpected courage, though. “I just wanted to have a copy,” I said. “I…” I shouldn’t say the rest. “I wanted to know his name.”
The way her face twisted actually scared me. I was far more afraid in that moment that Mum would hit me than I’d been of Brad. I glanced to Mike, needing to know he was still there… even if I didn’t really believe he could do anything. He would have done it before now, wouldn’t he?
“I have a copy of your birth certificate, Tamara. I could tell you that name. You could have asked.”
My head felt heavy, unwilling to move, but I shook it. “You know I couldn’t ask you. You won’t even acknowledge he was someone who existed and had a part in our creation—and no, I don’t consider all this indirecting you do about ‘terrible men’ to count.”
“Acknowledge him? You know what he did to you—”
“I know because you’ve talked about it once. One time, and it’s always been obvious we’re not supposed to revisit it.” There was something inside me that was pushing me on now, keeping me from faltering. “And don’t try to tell me there’s something wrong with me for wanting to. Doesn’t it make sense that someone would want to talk about something that big that happened, before they could remember? Haven’t you spent a lot of time, over the years, going over what you remember in your head, trying to make sense of how you could have gotten yourself into that situation? Can’t you understand how it is for me, knowing but not remembering?”
There was a softening I hadn’t seen in her before. “You never say anything.”
Mike was edging towards the nearest door. Maybe, for a wonder, I didn’t need him. “You’ve never made me feel like I could.”
Mum took a step closer to me I allowed, and took hold of my arm. Her nails were digging into my skin, she had to know, an
d still she didn’t let up her grip. I tried not to squirm as I was reminded of my unwelcome lack of underwear. Why was it since I’d dared to come out of my shell I’d been lurching from one ridiculous situation into another?
“I’m sorry if I’ve forced you to keep all your feelings bottled up, Tamara,” Mum said. “I of all people know that’s not healthy, not sustainable. But at the same time… well, there are some things that just aren’t supposed to be remembered. You need to know about him? Fine, you have his name on that damn piece of paper—” the one she had yet to give back to me, “—and I bet it’s embedded in that brain of yours now. So go find out all you want to about him, I’m sure there are a few details you’ll find interesting. But try to read between the lines of what there is to be found. Think about it in context. Whatever you can learn from just his name, that’s all you should need. Don’t get any closer.”
“Why did you never tell me I have a half-sister?” I blurted out. It was my biggest, my most telling mistake ever.
“You’ve already been in contact with him,” Mum said.
My eyes were drawn aside by Mike stiffening. He was in the doorway, but he’d stopped.
“I met with him, yes. For better or worse, I wanted to hear what he had to say about what happened.”
Her nails had been pressing in harder ever since I mentioned Jess. I bit the insides of my cheeks rather than telling her she was hurting me. “Oh, I bet he had a lot to say.”
“His story was a bit different to the one you’ve always told me… but I have a feeling you already knew it would be that way, didn’t you?”
She wouldn’t look at me.
“More than anything you hate that he cheated on you, isn’t that right? It’s been fifteen years and you still can’t get over it. Could never bring yourself to let me know the little sister I asked Santa for when I was six years old already existed. Cheating has always pissed you off more than anything, you won’t even watch a television show once you find out there’s a cheating plot—”
Mum fired right up. “It’s a brutal thing to do to someone who loves you, Tamara, a complete humiliation—”
“Did Brad ever really hit me, Mum? Or was that something you made up so you wouldn’t have to face the real reason you left him?”
In my whole life, I had never seen her go off the boil as fast as she did then. She stepped straight back, my certificate falling to the ground without her seeming to realise.
I didn’t understand why there were tears in my eyes. I didn’t understand any of what was happening right now, though. “It’s true. It’s fucking true. You took us away from him because of something that had nothing to do with me.”
