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ChapterTwenty-Two
“H-hi, sweetie,” she greeted as she cautiously walked toward her.
Rory looked up at her mother as she approached. “I need you to set up the zoom appointment with the lawyer,” she informed Andrea.
Andrea gave her daughter a small smile of understanding. “Okay, sweetie, I’ll do that,” she agreed. “Is there anything else that you’d like me to do?”
“No. Just that.”
The disappointment that Andrea felt at her daughter’s seeming dismissal caused her heart to plummet to the bottom of her chest, but she maintained the smile. “Sounds good, honey. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Mom,” Rory called out before she’d made more than three steps.
Andrea turned to her daughter with a hopeful expression.
“Can you… can you tell me about him? My father?” she asked.
Andrea’s heart broke at the vulnerability in her voice.
“I can,” she confirmed, “but I’m afraid you won’t like what I have to say,” she cautioned.
“Mom, please.”
“All right.” Andrea sat in the chair opposite her daughter’s.
“I met your father at a party I was waitressing at. He was an up-and-coming movie director. They were throwing a party to celebrate the success of his latest film. You could say I caught his eyes… For the next two weeks, he chased me, and I was young and felt special because the attention he was showing me was overwhelming. I felt like I had won the jackpot, and this was another success to rub in my father’s face and prove him wrong that I wouldn’t make it.”
Andrea paused, steeling herself to continue with the darker side of the story.
“When he finally got what he wanted, I woke up to a note that he had to fly out and wouldn’t be back for a while. There was also two hundred dollars to take a cab home. After that, every call to him went to voicemail. I missed my period, and subsequently, I took a pregnancy test to find out that I was pregnant… with you. I decided to visit his home, and that’s where I found out that not only did he trick me into falling for him, but that he actually had a fiancée that he didn’t want to lose. I went through my pregnancy alone and confused.”
“I’m sorry, Mom, I didn’t know you went through all of that,” Rory consoled her.
Andrea gave her a grateful smile.
“When you were four, I brought you to meet him. You were too young for you to remember this. When I got to him, he laughed in my face and said I couldn’t prove that he was your father because if I could…”
Andrea felt her heart clench as the words he said to her gave shape vividly to the words and the man who spoke them.
“Anyway, that’s in the past,” she said, skirting over the thought.
“Mom, please, you’re helping me to understand what kind of man he was. Just tell me. I believe I’ve earned the right to know,” Rory implored.
“He alluded that I was loose, even though I was a virgin when I met him. He threatened to have me arrested, and you put into foster care if I ever showed my face to him again. At the time, I was broken, and I didn’t want you growing up with the knowledge that your father didn’t want you, so I lied. I couldn’t bear to see this look that you have on your face now. Not then and still not now.”
Andrea reached over and touched her daughter’s face, using her thumb to wipe her tears. She gave her a pained look from the guilt of her actions and the hurt it was causing her now.
“I told you he died when you were a baby, and for that, I am sorry. You deserved to know that your father was alive. It was not my place to decide he was dead,” she expressed, pained.
Rory sat for a few minutes, running over all the information her mother had just given her as her tears flowed down her face.
Andrea sat with her head down, tears running down her face as she thought about how she messed up. She felt a pair of hands wrap around her in a tight hug.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, Mom,” her daughter sobbed against her shoulder. “I wish you didn’t have to go through all of what you’ve been through.”
Andrea clung to her daughter as the saltiness of her tears touched her tongue as she pursed her lips in an effort to stop them.
“I don’t agree with what you did, but I understand why you did it, and I don’t blame you anymore for doing what you thought was best for me. You were young and going through so much, and still, you made sure I was okay. I watched you sacrifice for my well-being.”
