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“By nitpicking everything she does? You haven’t engaged in conversation with her at all during this whole dinner.” He grabs a napkin and wipes his mouth. “I don’t like it. You think by kissing my ass you’re going to get more money out of me?” He folds his arms across his chest. “You’re not. You will not use your daughter as a pawn to get whatever you want out of me.”
Everyone’s mouth drops open, except for my mother’s. She holds her head up high, but guilt clouds her pupils.
“I’m quite sure she loves me,” I murmur.
My mother doesn’t respond but reverts her eyes to outside the window, to the oak tree that was planted in honor of my grandmother. Her not responding cuts deep, and I’m hoping she will deny what he said.
The tension in the room can be cut with a knife and tears threaten to fall, but I bite my lip.
“I’m sure your mother loves you,” my stepfather says, resting his hand on hers, but she quickly removes it. “She might be mean, but she loves you.”
“Please.” Jimmy rolls his eyes and pours himself a glass of sweet tea. “Everyone knows Mom only cares about her status. She blames Poppy for her failures in life. She got pregnant with her when she was teenager, and her father might have been a famous painter in the nineties but he was a crackhead. I see her as a disappointment too.”
“Jimmy!” Sophia says, rubbing my back. “He didn’t mean it.” Her tone is as if she’s speaking to a wounded child.
“I’m not eating with a bunch of snakes who don’t care about my wife.” Jasper grabs my hand. “This will be the last time we’ll have dinner here.”
I follow Jasper to the hallway as he gently tugs my hand, ushering me to the entrance. The sad part is, my mother didn’t bother running after me, or tell me Jimmy didn’t mean what he said, or confirm that she does love me.
Once we’re in the car, I let all the tears out, all the anger, the sadness, and betrayal. I ugly-cry. I tried to be tough and strong and act like nothing is wrong, but getting my mother’s approval means everything to me. I just want her to love me for who I am, but Jasper may be right. She only loves me when it’s convenient for her.
When you love someone deeply, you truly see them through a rose-tinted glass.
Jasper strokes the back of my neck. “You deserve so much more than to be treated like a pawn. Your mother doesn’t love you.”
He makes a lot of sense, but I can’t fight the nagging feeling in my gut—of wanting her love, needing it. I can’t stop the urge to call her and ask her why she doesn’t love me like her other kids. Why am I the only one being singled out?
The tears begin to finally dry up, and I say, “She sacrificed a lot for me.”
Here I am still making excuses for her, fighting the urge to tell Jasper to turn the car around and go back to her, but then I would only hurt my own feelings.
“Parents are supposed to make sacrifices for their kids. You didn’t ask to be brought into this world, Angel. And she shouldn’t punish you for your father’s mistake. You deserve better.”
I don’t respond, because deep down I know he’s right.
Jasper
My grandfather called me earlier this morning to invite me over to deliver some news, so I meet him in his living room. He hands me a folder.
I stare at the manila folder, then I glance back up at him. “What is this?”
“Open it,” he demands.
His maid, Malinda, who’s been working for him for fifteen years, hands me a bottle of water. I set it on the end table near the brown love seat and open up the folder. A picture of an older woman with blonde-and-white hair stares at me. I flip the photo over, revealing some documents.
I thrust my fingers through my hair, trying to figure out what I’m looking at. It’s past eight a.m., I haven’t had my coffee yet, and I’m late for work. I have a business meeting with a few shareholders to approve of lingerie for the fashion show that’s coming up in the next couple of months.
“What am I looking at?”
My grandfather rubs his hands on his pajama pants and sighs in disappointment.
“I suspected for a long time your mother’s drowning was foul play. I had my PI snoop through Tommy’s home while he was out. He found this in the safe.” He taps his foot on the wooden floors. “This is the thing that can get him locked up. He paid this woman in the photo, Judy, five million to keep her mouth shut about what she saw. It doesn’t say what she saw, exactly, but it shows a business contract between the two where she promised not to tell the policemen. It turned out she was living right next door to him at the time of your mother’s death. I suspect he paid her off, but when my PI went to her new place, she wouldn’t talk.”
“Where does she live?”
“She lives in the Hamptons. If she’s a witness to your mother’s murder, she will go to prison right along with him because when the cops questioned her, she lied to them.”
Since she saw what happened, she could have prevented it, she could have stopped him. My mother could’ve been alive right now as we speak, and I wouldn’t have had to go through what I went through as a child. My mother didn’t deserve to die in the first place. She didn’t deserve to be treated and punished for her actions and for wanting to keep me. Why didn’t she leave him? Her family had money, and it’s not like she didn’t have any resources. None of this makes any sense.
