And then I turn and run.
30
ITAKE THE STAIRSup to my room, two at a time, hearing Leo’s footsteps following more deliberately behind me. I throw open the shutters onto the balconette and perch myself on the end of my bed. A moment or two later, I hear a gentle knock on my door.
“Olive?” Leo says.
“Yes, Leo,” I reply.
“Let me in.”
I walk to the door and open it. Leo clocks my face with immediate concern. “You’re really pale. You need to sit.”
“Did you hear that?” I say, my breath ragged. “You heard it, right?”
“Can it be true?” Leo asks, his face etched with worry.
A hundred little things sharpen in my mind. The crystal clarity of my life playing back with new color and new understanding. My mother’s face comes into view and I feel it so hard, it knocks the breath out of me.
“Oh my god,” I say again.
Leo closes his eyes, and for a moment I feel a stab of anger toward him. Did he know?
“He’s not my father.”
Everything around me starts to swim, and I move in slow motion.
“Mum already had me,” I say, muttering. “Dad met Mum when she already had me.”
“Roger might not know the full story,” Leo says, sitting me down, putting his hands on my shoulders, running them up and down. Calming. Soothing me. “You can’t be sure. You should ask him.”
“No,” I say. “He told me I washis Olive. That I was a gift from God.”
“Oh no,” Leo says, his voice tight now too. “You need to speak to your mum.”
“I have to go,” I say. I stand up and fish around for my clothing, eyes starting to prickle with tears.
“They lied to me, and when they broke up, they didn’t tell me... because why? Because Dad didn’t want me to know? Because Mum didn’t? I don’t even look like him. I’veneverlooked like him.”
“Olive, slow down,” he says. But he isn’t correcting me. He isn’t telling me I’m wrong.
I lean into the sobering feeling of anger, turning to Leo. “Did you know?”
“Of course not,” Leo says. I feel like someone took a sledgehammer to my heart and it shattered like glass all over the floor. “I knew there was something complicated going on between you. I knew there was something amiss with how much he loved you, and how little he...”
“Fought for me,” I say, slumping against the wall. “It wasn’t justmestaying away.”
“Olive, you need to take a breath, you look really pale,” he says, trying to maneuver me back to the bed. “Sit down. You really, really need to call your mum.”
I nod furiously, searching now for my mobile. I pull it out of my purse and immediately drop it on the floor, along with the contents of my bag.
“He wasn’t my father,” I say again.
“Does it matter?” Leo says.
“It matters,” I say, feeling my eyes start to glass over as I let Leo pull me in for a long embrace, but I hold myself as firmly as I can, refusing to let the tears come. “It matters,” I say again.
“Try to take a deep breath,” he says into my ear, stroking my hair. “Let me get you a glass of water, or tea? Would you like a cup of tea?”
