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A whimpering crying noise comes from the opposite side of the table as Mrs Jacobs covers her mouth with her hand.
Warm breath caresses my ear. “I think we should leave.”
I ignore Jackson, voice cracking as I ask, “How long?”
I don't expect an answer but I get one.
Or rather, Ma gets one.
Jacobs turns to face the woman he got pregnant, his expression so plain, his voice so matter-of-fact. “The day you went to the clinic, I followed you. To make sure you…” He trails off but I think we all hear the end of his sentence anyway.
To make sure she got rid of me.
“You left without even going inside.” A tendon in his jaw jumps. “I saw your name on her application and I knew.”
His gaze flicks to mine and the cool uncaring in them hits me right in the stomach. “The moment I saw you in my class, I knew you were my daughter.”
51
LUNA
That familiar,utterly overwhelming feeling of helplessness looms, constricting my chest and threatening to sweep me off my feet. If it weren't for the hand flush against my lower back, it probably would.
The owner of that hand is what guides me to stand, or more like yanks me to my feet. Pen does the same to her mom, hauling her out of her chair. Professor Jacobs rises, reaching for his wife but she jerks away from him.
“Jennifer, please.”
“We're leaving,” Pen snaps without looking at her dad, her full focus on her shaking, quivering, crying mother. “You are un-fucking-believable.”
I knew you were my daughter.
So, he wasn’t living one life for twenty years. He was living two.
You know, I think maybe, very deep down where the little girl who longed for a dad lives, I held out hope that one day, we’d work this out. Not become a happy family or anything but a tolerable one. One that you can have dinner with without feeling like you’re choking.
Now, as I begin to understand just how much hatred the human body can handle, that hope dies.
And I think it dies in Mrs Jacobs too.
With a deep, bone-chilling sigh, she stares down her husband with teary but determined eyes. “I want a divorce.”
Jacobs gapes at her. “Jen, you can't be serious.”
Oh, but she is. She might be sad and crying and heartbroken but God, she’s angry too, and everyone in the room can see it but him. Her gaze flicks to Ma and the anger softens, or maybe it just… changes. “I knew about you,” she reveals softly and Ma winces. “I knew about all of you.”
All of you.
She knew about all of them.
Judging by the look on her face, Ma most definitely didn't.
Mrs Jacobs barely gives us a chance to recover from that bomb before she continues, “You weren't the first but you were the last. I never questioned why until now.” Her eyes land on me, and I swear I see humor flicker in them. “You scared him into fidelity, obviously.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch Pen crumple. I see her angry mask shift just enough for hurt to shine through before she fixes it. I hear what she hears; I was enough for him to clean his act up, but she wasn't.
Mrs Jacobs notices it too, and when she regards her husband again, all that anger comes rushing back tenfold. “I stayed with you because I was young and naive and I had nothing. I wanted a nice, stable life for my daughter so I stayed.“ She wraps an arm around Pen. “I will regret that for the rest of my life.“
With one last anger-filled glare, she turns on her heel and stalks out the room, Pen right behind her. I hear their footsteps retreat upstairs and then the sound of a door slamming, and I swear I don't imagine a frustrated yell.
