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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.”
-Flannery O’Connor
Jane
Her voice is so quiet, that I’m almost positive I hear her wrong until she confirms. “Sarah Ivers’s father.”
“William…” The man who made the fun breakfasts for all us kids at sleepovers, the man who was engaging and encouraging and always so nice. He’d been with my mother… he was my…
“This can’t be happening.” I cover my face with my hands, allowing the tears to roll down my cheeks, and sigh. “I can’t believe you would lie about this.” I swallow hard and lift my eyes to hers, glaring. “I can’t believe you would let me go over there and be with him and not tell me he was my father.”
“He could have figured it out,” she murmurs.
“What?” I stand from my chair and pace. “He never asked?”
“I spread the news that I had you made, that I did it that way so there’d never be questions.”
“But I could have looked like him,” I argued. “How… if you… Gah! I am so mad at you, I don’t even know how to talk right now.”
“I’m sorry, Jane. I’m so, so sorry.” Tears continue down her face and she looks at me with genuine remorse. Something I’ve rarely seen.
“Sorry doesn’t cut it.” I keep pacing. “He never asked?”
“No. Whenever there was a sleepover or function, we never spoke again.”
“But you loved him,” I clarify.
“He didn’t love me back. Not enough to… to stay with me.” She holds up her hands helplessly.
“He has other children. Wouldn’t he have wanted…” I trail off, unsure what I wanted to say. Maybe he wouldn’t care about having any more kids. He already had three. Sarah, who was just a year or two younger than me, Michael and Dawn, who were twins, four years younger than me.
All kids I’d grown up with. My half-sibs. Holy… “I’m going to be sick.”
“I’m sorry,” Mom says again and I huff.
“Alright.” I give her a look. “I don’t forgive you.” I clear my throat and shake a hand out, just needing to move. “Not yet. But what does this have to do with Carl?”
“He wants a piece of Leads Energy.”
“So why doesn’t he just buy in? Why not just go to the stock market?”
“Because he wants a bigger piece, he eventually wants controlling interest.”
I cross my arms and stare her down. “I’d never let that happen.”
“I know you would try to prevent it, but he’ll go to William and tell him everything.”
I raise a brow. “Why not do that yourself?”
“Because… because…”
“Tell me.”
“I don’t want him to take you away!” My frantic mother has my eyes widening, I’ve never seen her so… unhinged.
I wisely keep that to myself.
“Mother, I’m thirty years old. I cannot be taken anywhere.”
