“You cherish the privilege of raising me, and yet you don’t support a single thing I do, you don’t come to any of my field hockey games, you don’t celebrate my huge accomplishment of being offered a full-ride scholarship to Wake Forest, which I accepted by the way. Oh, and you lied to me my entire life. No wonder I’ve never felt comfortable confiding in you. I knew there was a disconnect between us that you don’t seem to share with Amy, and yet I never understood why. Now it all makes sense.” Mom picked her stage well, knowing that a public setting would keep me from causing a scene. “Whether or not you were trying to protect me, it feels like you’ve hit an artery and I’m bleeding out. I may forgive you one day, but for right now, I feel nothing.” I finally sucked in a sharp breath.
My Mom looked at me in a way that made me feel like I was the ungrateful one for everything I’d been given in my life. I wasn’t going to be suddenly guilted in this moment. I lightly moved the Caesar salad around my plate and turned to stare out the window onto the golf course. The satisfaction of making eye contact with either of them was not something I was willing to award.
Just then, the waiter came to the table and asked if he could bring us anything else.
“The dessert menu,” my mom replied. She had never once asked for the dessert menu, which made me continue to question everything about my life. It also meant I was captive here for at least another half hour.
The waiter returned and hovered over me closely. ”Anything for you, Allie?” he asked with a familiarity that showed we came here more than we should.
“Justice,” I replied, only quietly enough for him to hear, as I looked up and stared him deep in his eyes without seeing him at all.
“I’m sorry, what was that, miss?” he asked blankly.
“Creme brûlée,” I replied quickly before he could ask me to repeat myself a second time.
When the desserts arrived, I tapped aggressively on the torched sugar crust of the creme brûlée, and I ate every bite without saying a single word, my mind reeling about all the moments and the years that now felt like a collective lie. All my friends who knew and never told me. All the family vacations and holidays, where surely someone would have gotten drunk enough and spilled the news. But never. Nothing. None of it made sense.
As I licked the spoon clean, my mother signed the check, and it was finally time to get up and leave, but before I even pushed in my chair, I heard a familiar voice. One that I would usually be glad to hear, but not right now.
“Allison, it’s so nice to see you! James, you remember Amy and Allie, don’t you?” Mrs. Barr said.
“Uh, yeah, Mom, obviously, they live right next door,” he said with an enormous eye roll. “Hi Allie, ignore my mom, she’s insane. How’ve you been?” James asked.
“I’m fine,” I lied. James was a good-looking guy, tall with tan skin, dirty blonde untamed hair, and blue eyes. Even though we lived next door to each other since before we could walk, and we played together when we were younger, we had lost touch because he attended St. Mark’s, the local boarding school. He had always been so nice to me, but right now I’d give anything to be left alone.
“Why are you home?” I asked, barely caring but trying to make polite conversation.
“Fall break,” he replied, then he glanced over at Amy and smiled. “What’d you get to eat? I’m starving,” he asked, perhaps trying to return the politeness, or maybe he was actually looking for a recommendation.
“I always get the Caesar salad, she-crab soup, and the filet,” I told him, but I really just wanted to get out of this place. I felt like the walls were closing in on me. Just then, the valet walked through the door. That meant that I was free.
“Mrs. Wyatt, I have your car waiting outside,” he said, leaning into our conversation.
“Thank you, Jeremy,” Mom replied, as she smiled goodbye to our neighbors and headed for the door. I told James it was nice to see him and made my way to the door behind my mom. I caught a smile from him before he turned to whisper something in Amy’s ear, and then he turned around to sit back down. My mom handed the valet a tip, and we climbed into the open doors of the Jeep that were shut for us as soon as we were inside. As I slid across the back seat of Mom’s Jeep, it still felt warm from being parked in the early Fall sun.
“When’s the wedding?” I asked out of nowhere. My cordiality caught my mom off guard, and she eagerly replied.
“Mid-December,” she said, but she knew better than to speak another word, or ask if I’d actually sing.
21
When we pulled into the garage, I was the first one out of the car. I ran up the steps and right into my room, but I didn’t slam the door. This time, I locked it behind me without worrying whether my mom heard me. I didn’t care whether she scolded me for breaking her rules, but I didn’t think she would bother. In a trance, I reached into the center of my mattress, pulled out my blue composition book, and then grabbed my favorite pen to document the injustice of what had happened to me that day.
Dear Diary,
My world is crashing down around me. I’m not who I thought I was. My whole life is a lie. Today I was finally told the truth that everyone has been lying to me my whole life, but somehow nobody ever seemed to find it in their hearts to tell me. Nobody ever thought I deserved to know my own truth. I guess my Dad never loved me at all because he threatened everyone not to tell me. Who does that? For the past eighteen years, I thought I was a part of this family. For the past eighteen years, I thought I mattered. Now I know that I don’t because they didn’t have the guts to tell me the truth about my past. I’m not who I thought I was.
I’M ADOPTED.
Does anyone in this family actually love me? Have they ever actually cared about me the way they care about Amy? Now it all makes sense. Tonight, Amy confessed that she doesn’t even think of me as her sister. She never has, and I’m sure she never will. I’m on my own. I have nobody to rely on but myself. The anxiety of my life now revolves around wondering who knows this secret and who doesn’t. Who has the guts to tell me, and who doesn’t? I’ll never trust anyone ever again.
-Allie
I slammed the cover of the journal shut and held it there in my hands for a moment, savoring the truth that flowed out of my pen and onto the page. Then I shoved it deep between the mattress and turned to sit on the floor, knees to my chest, and softly sobbed. The phone rang multiple times before anyone answered it, and I heard my Mom faintly call for me from the bottom of the stairs.
“Allie, it’s for you,” she said, through a strangely chipper tone. I tried to collect my emotions and hesitated before picking up the receiver on my bedside table.
“Hello?” I said through muffled sobs.
