Grant waves his hand shooing me into the backseat and I go without a complaint. At least until he gives the cabbie the address back to his hotel room. Right now I need to be around someone who will understand. He looks taken aback when I correct him but doesn’t complain or stop me.
The cab cuts into traffic and Grant pulls me into his arms. His affection starts a new wave of waterworks. The whole ordeal pisses me off. Like I didn’t have enough reasons to hate my father. Now I need to add “made me cry in a public” to the long list.
“Hey. It’s okay.” Grant rubs my arm and uses a soothing voice like he’s comforting a small child.
My sobs and gasps make it impossible to answer. There’s twenty-four years of angry emotions to get out. It’s an acceptable reaction when your own father doesn’t recognize you. Not even my first name — the name of his firstborn child — gave him pause.
Wouldn’t a good man at least give a second glance when he heard it? Stare into the woman’s eyes searching for whether or not it could be her? Only in my daydreams.
Maybe he’s forgotten about me.
Clare Cunningham, daughter of Theresa Washington, is forgettable. Everyone who doesn’t meet the Cunningham definition of acceptable isn’t worthy of his time.
“What happened? What did I do to upset you?” Grant pleads, but it only intensifies my cries as the minutes pass.
The cab slows. I take my head off Grant’s shoulder and pretend I didn’t get his suit jacket wet from my crying. I don’t wait for Grant to pay before I jump out of the cab with my fingers crossed Drew is home.
The heavy wooden door bangs on the wall as I shove it open and call out to the empty living room. It takes me three more times before Drew runs out into our shared hallway, his eyes wild ready to take on an attacker.
I fall into his arms and Drew squeezes me to his bare chest. “What the hell did you do?” One hand releases me and flies toward Grant hitting him in the upper chest.
Grant takes a step back. “I don’t know. Everything was fine and then she started crying. Ran from the restaurant.”
“It was him,” I force the words out.
Drew squeezes my shoulder. “Grant?”
I shake my head. “No. William.”
Drew is the only person aware of my entire history. It’s hard to keep certain facts away from other kids when you live together in a foster home. I’m a lockbox for everyone except him; therefore, it doesn’t take him any other words to figure out who I’m talking about.
He also knows about the William updates over the years. He’d stand behind me shaking his head whenever my mother would request more information and I’d spend an hour printing off news articles. Over the last few years of her sentence, he’s put his nonexistent psychology degree to use telling me it won’t help anyone move on. As if I didn’t know that. But when your mom is facing years behind bars, you give in to the small requests.
“What?” Grant asks. “You know William?”
“They have the same last name,” Drew sneers the words across the room where Grant stopped in the hallway.
“She told me she wasn’t related.”
I did tell him that.
The first time we met.
I saw the sliver of a connection in his eye when I introduced myself. Two Cunninghams in the same town. We must be related, right? I jumped in before he asked any of the questions I didn’t want to answer. I reassured him I wasn’t “one of the good ones.”
Because I’m not.
Never have been and never will be. William’s mother made sure of it when she made him choose between being a father to me by marrying my mother or the family fortune.
He chose money.
And for whatever stupid reason — my mother calls it love — she’s never blamed him.
It’s okay. I blame him enough for the both of us.
Drew continues to rub circles on my shoulder while he leads me to the couch in our living room. He sits down beside me but pulls away a fraction of an inch. “You have to tell him.”
I shake my head refusing to lift it.
