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That fired her up again. “No, Tamara, not nothing. You—”
“Mum, if there is an actual reason I am eager to hear it.”
She didn’t say anything.
“Mum, this is your big chance. If you have something to say you need to—” I shook my head and turned away. “Who am I kidding? You don’t have anything to tell me. Fucked my whole life around and you don’t have shit to say for yourself about it.”
Mum clutched at me as I started to walk from the room. I paused. “Yes?” Her lips quivered, but she didn’t speak. “Yeah. I thought so.”
I went straight to my room, closed the door, and sat on the floor leaning against it like I was still thirteen (it hadn’t worked then, and it probably wouldn’t work now). After a few minutes Mike and Mum forgot they were trying to keep me from hearing their argument, and I got up to put my earbuds in. I couldn’t concentrate on music or anything though. I just kept thinking about Brad, about how terrible it must have been for him all these years. How his life would never be the same thanks to this. He had done something wrong… but, even though I felt a little bad for thinking that way, surely that was between him and my mum. Ryan and I shouldn’t have paid for it. Jess shouldn’t have paid for it.
I didn’t even know what my sister looked like.
I jumped at a knock on my door, and pulled out my earbuds. It wasn’t Mum with that careful knock, that was for sure. “Yes?”
Mike shuffled in, ducking his head like he thought I was going to throw my phone at him or something. “I’m not mad at you,” I said. “I just feel sorry for you because your partner is a liar.”
Mike shook his head at me. “Tamara, I can’t just let you talk about your mother like that. She’s made her mistakes with this situation. But I know her. I do not believe she would have done this unless she believed she was protecting you.”
“And I’m… what? Supposed to just accept that she made a poor judgement call that very personally hurt at least four people I can think of?”
“I’m saying there might be more to this than you know.”
I shot to my feet. “Do you know something?”
“Nothing you don’t already, Tamara, I swear. She won’t speak to me. But that just makes me think there has to be more to this.”
“What makes you think that is the fact that you’re fucking her,” I snapped.
“Language, Tamara,” Mike shot back. “Now, you were still a kid when you came into my life, and I’ve always considered you a de facto daughter of mine. Your mother never exactly agreed. Sometimes we made like I was your real father, for when we didn’t feel like getting into the details. But Sue was never going to take the risk of another man getting really deep into your life, and you’ve got to wonder about that.”
I didn’t have to wonder about it at all. “She didn’t want anyone else to have a chance at controlling me, did she?”
Mike sighed. Was I the fucking bad guy here? This was such a bizarre situation. What had I ever done but try to keep my mum’s life low-stress, even when she was the reason for her own distress? I did everything she asked—demanded mostly—and played her loopy games. I couldn’t even imagine how stupid Steven had thought I was for being too afraid to ask her for a piece of paperwork I needed to have access to. There I was, playing at being an adult with him, enjoying adult things, but I didn’t know the first thing about acting like an adult.
“Look, Tamara.” He took my hands and sat down with me on my bed. Suddenly I was trying to remember even one prior occasion where that had happened: Mike in my room, sitting with me like a dad. It hadn’t happened, because Mum always found a way to supervise whenever it was just the two of us. I’d never minded. I understood she was scared of me being hurt again, and I knew what had happened with my dad so I was a bit wary too.
Now, even apart from what I’d found out about Brad, the whole situation seemed fucked-up. Mike had done everything a dad was supposed to do for the past ten years, and he got treated like a criminal because of something another man had done. It was even worse when Mum had known all along the prior crime wasn’t what she claimed.
“Now I’ve never held back in telling your mum when I thought she was making mistakes in raising you. I’ve spoken my mind a lot over the years, whether or not I was being listened to. And I did tell her, look, you’re going to ensure your daughter is too afraid to ever have a boyfriend and a proper relationship—and I fully believe that. So if one good thing can come out of this… maybe you don’t have to turn out that way.”
Suddenly, I wanted to tell someone. But definitely not her. I kept my voice low. “I didn’t turn out that way, actually. Even before all of this… well, maybe for a while.” Mike looked dubious. “But something’s changed lately.”
I’d never seen such a big smile on him before. “A boyfriend.”
“Not exactly a boyfriend.” I felt awkward trying to explain it to him, but Mike was calm, his expression without judgement. If only Mum could be the same. “Not yet, at least. We’re just having some fun.”
Mike raised his eyebrows at me. “Safe fun, I hope.”
I just nodded. There was no need to give him all the details of how that situation had come about.
“And you’ve met your… biological father.”
“Briefly,” I said.
&nb
sp; “But you trust him.”
