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“God fucking dammit, Delilah. Fine. I did it. The dates, the galas. You have a good image, squeaky clean. Made sure of that myself.” He said it with pride, and instantly, my mind went to all the boyfriends who would ghost me or dump me after a few dates.
Jesus.
No fucking way.
“My boyfriends. You made them dump me?”
“You were no good to me tainted. I need you pure, Delilah.”
“Pure.” I repeated the ironically filthy word under my breath. Funny how one word could make you sick.
“I figured if my wife was a whore and made me live with her mistake, I was going to get what I could from her.” A silent gag came to my throat. “Never were very bright. You didn’t figure it out. I was shocked it lasted so long, that you and Lola didn’t talk, but I guess she was trying to protect you, and you were trying to help me, so it all somehow bypassed you two gossiping.”
“You sold dates with me.”
“Believe it or not, you’ve had a few wedding proposals in the past few years. But I did the math, and it wasn’t worth it. I knew your sister’s trust was running low, knew that would be a bust soon.”
Four days before, I had thought my father was simply a gambler driven to madness with grief and addiction. Then, I thought he meant well, that he got too tangled up in debt and his addiction and things fell apart from there.
That his marriage to my mother was bad, not a great fit, but I held on to the chance that my mother had exaggerated, stricken by the loss of her fairy-tale love and venting to the lined pages.
But I was wrong.
I should have listened to the journals.
“I deserve this, at the least.” There was a clinking of glass in the background, a sound I recognized as a rocks glass on his marble countertop. A nice, relaxing drink as he confessed his sins after a long day in the office. “I had to raise you, and you weren’t even mine. Some gangster’s bastard child. At least Lola was mine. She was loyal. Your mother had promise, but at the end, her death was all the good she gave me—a platform to use.”
No. Absolutely not.
Because despite the marriage not being perfect, despite it being a last-chance, panicked thing, I know that for a time, my mother convinced herself she loved this man. After Lola was born, she had dreams of making things work, of being a beautiful family.
He had no right to destroy her memory like that.
No right to take advantage of yet another person.
“You do not contact me,” I said, my voice stern, cutting him off before he could spew any more venom. “You do not contact me. You do not contact Lola.”
“Delilah—”
“I have her journals.” The phone went silent. “Everything is in them. How you met, how you tricked her into getting pregnant with Lola by saying she wouldn't have to marry Carluccio. The verbal abuse. How she wanted to leave. How you threatened to take Lola.” I haven’t shared this with my sister, knowing it will destroy her.
It destroyed me two years ago, in a way, when I realized it wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies and perfect families torn apart by illness alone. I think part of me prayed and hoped it was an exaggeration, an emotional brain dump.
But now, I know for certain it was anything but.
“No one will believ—”
“Do you really think that? That no one will believe the stories that fall from the lips of your sweet, innocent daughter?” I felt something new taking over, or maybe breaking out. Any hint of obedience, any semblance of propriety evaporated. “You made me the weapon of your own demise.”
Any loyalty I once felt toward him blew away as everything became clear.
I read it in my mother’s beautifully scrawled handwriting, after all. Now it all made sense.
“No one would believe you, Shane,” I said.
And I think with my words, he believed me.
Knew I didn’t give a shit about him and his image and his campaigns and his, for lack of a better word, prostitution of his youngest daughter.
