Unsure exactly how to get to the heart of the matter, I asked quietly, “Did you get married since we last saw each other?”
“Something like that.”
“She’s divorced,” Jussica added.
Mara pinched her daughter’s arm, and she promptly yelled louder than the actual pain, I’m sure she felt.
“That hurt, Mommy.”
I tried to catch Mara’s eyes again, and she refused to look at me now. In fact, I spotted beads of perspiration next to herbaby hair that she’d carefully brushed down to frame her rather angular face.
Picking up my cell, I checked for her name on my Uber request and searched for her on Instagram. Bingo. Nothing but pictures of Cherry…Mara and her daughter. A daughter who had striking eyes, as I did. Brown eyes that glinted lighter in the sun. My mother’s eyes.Fuck me.
I quickly messaged her with trembling fingers.
Please be honest with me. Is your daughter also mine?
Her phone, attached to the console, buzzed. She glanced at the phone before attending to the road. My trip would end in three minutes, and my soul wouldn’t rest until I knew without a doubt what my gut screamed at me.
“Might want to see what it says.” I practically growled.
“I don’t look at my cell when I’m driving except for directions.”
“Un...huh…you look at your cell lots,” Jussica contradicted.
If I wasn’t about to freak out, her daughter’s honesty was actually hilarious, and I understood more why I annoyed my mother when I was a child.
“The light is red, please check it,” I instructed more firmly and tapped the back of her seat with my fist.
She gripped the steering wheel when we stopped at the light. Her hand shook slightly as she reached for the cell. My breath caught when she texted something.
I looked down at my cell.
No.
Her response only brought on more questions and not the relief I expected. When she slowly pulled in front of the Mercedes dealership, where my EQE SUV model waited to be picked up. I stared into the review mirror, daring her to give me eye contact.
When she kept her gaze downward, I added, “I need to speak to you.”
At her continued silence and her refusal to look at me, I warned, “We can either talk in front of the little one, or you can open my door, and we can talk right there.” I pointed to a spot near enough for her to keep an eye on Jussica and far enough for her not to hear our conversation. I pretended for the sake of Jussica that I couldn’t open my door. I didn’t trust her not to simply drive off if I exited the car while she was behind the wheel. “I believe the child locks are on. Please let me out.”
She clenched her jaw but got out of the car and opened my door.
“Mommy, where are you going?”
“Baby, I’ll be right there. He’s an old friend.”
The little girl immediately peeked over the seat to smile at me, and my chest burned painfully. I never fantasized about how my children would look or if their personalities would match mine. I didn’t care if I saw myself in someone I created or longed to have a legacy. I never wanted children. Never wanted the wife, the 2.5 kids, or the picket fence. Loved the single life of never having to answer to anyone except my conscience. Yet, my heart painfully squeezed at the pretty brown face with one missing tooth. A face unmistakably mine. I’d long ago observed that girls often look more like their fathers than their mothers, as this one did.
And whether I’d ever wanted a child didn’t matter.
She was my kin. My flesh and blood.
I wouldn’t walk away like my father.
TWO
soraya
