Danika waits, but when the silence stretches, she says, “How did it go? How’s Bella?”
A sigh. “I thought the worst moment of my life was when I read the private investigator’s report that said Chris was dead. That he had another family. But now I know I was wrong. The worst moment of my life was when I held my daughter as she cried until she was physically sick and said she hated her daddy, that he couldn’t have loved us, and that I should have told her before now.”
Danika’s skin prickles, and she’s chilly with foreboding. “Is she…? What happened?”
There’s a moment of silence. Danika imagines Kim sitting on her blue couch.
“It went to shit,” Kim says. Another silence. “Sorry, I’m sitting here with what seems like a pint glass of chardonnay, trying to find the words to tell you what happened.”
Danika swallows, and her throat is so dry it scratches. She wishes she’d given in and got that glass of wine.
“Bella is angry. And she’s sad too. She’s finally had to give up hope that her father is alive and will somehow return to her. I’ve ripped that from her, and worse, she now knows she wasn’t Chris’s special little girl, his only little girl. That she and I weren’t his only family. Not his first family, not his best family. She said that as she’s older than Cami, Chris should have lived with us always.” Another silence.
Danika imagines her taking great gulps of wine as if it could somehow wash away the emotion.
“And now she says she hates Chris. I thought learning Cami is her sister would somehow make it magically better, but it’s made it worse. She now wants nothing to do with her. She wants to give up soccer so they don’t cross paths.”
“Oh,” Danika says faintly. “Oh.” She thinks of Cami, asleep upstairs, so happy to think that Bella and she are sisters.
“How about Cami?” Kim’s voice is thick, as if she, too, has been crying.
Danika closes her eyes briefly. “She took it well, and part of that was that she now has a sister and it’s someone she already really likes. She didn’t want to go to bed; she wanted to stay up waiting for you and Bella to call.”
“It’s not going to happen.” Kim’s voice is devoid of emotion. She could be talking about a grocery delivery. “Not now. I’ve told her she doesn’t have to see Cami if she doesn’t want to. I’msorry; I didn’t expect this, although”—her voice drops almost to a whisper—“I should have known my daughter better.”
“What do we do?” Danika clutches her phone. There’s a plummeting feeling in her stomach, her life in free fall. One part of her, an analytical part, is saying that it’s a reversal of their positions. Kim was the one who initiated this strange relationship they’re in. Kim was the one encouraging her to tell Cami so their daughters would have each other. A strange way of bonding. And now, it’s Kim saying Bella and Cami won’t have any sort of relationship.
Gone. Done.
Finished.
“I don’t know.” Kim’s voice is small over the phone. “But I won’t make Bella see Cami if she doesn’t want to. Forcing them together is not the answer.” A beat. “Right now, I’m wishing I’d never knocked on your door. That Bella had never attended that soccer clinic. That Cami hadn’t. I wish Bella was still living her life, hoping that someday Chris will come home.”
“Living a lie,” Danika says. It’s harsh, but true. And that, she now realises, is because she thought the same thing after Kim appeared on her doorstep. She, too, had thought to pretend it had never happened.
She hadn’t been able to do that then, and she doesn’t think Kim should do it now.
“Yes,” Kim agrees. “For now. I hope…I really hope that once the shock has eased for Bella, once she realises it’s better to know these things, that she will come around and want to know more. Want to know Cami.”
“I hope so too.” Danika takes a breath. “What about you and me? Will we stay in touch?”
“Do you want that?” Kim’s voice takes on a rough edge that doesn’t entirely seem to be from pain. “You’re the one who pushed me away at first. Now you’re asking me to lie to Bella.Because she will ask if I talk to you, talk to Cami. I won’t do that to her. There’s been enough lies in her life already.”
“I understand,” Danika says. She does, although she wishes it were different. “You have my number. Please call me if there’s anything I can do. If Bella changes her mind.”
“I will. But please don’t call me.”
“I promise. I’ll keep your number in my phone though. So I know if—when—you call.”
“Thank you. I was naïve, I guess. Hoping for a fairytale for our girls. I’m sorry I disrupted your life. I hope you can help Cami understand.”
“So do I.” She takes a breath. “Goodbye, Kim. Thank you for being brave.”
“You too. Bye, Danika. I hope someday we’ll talk again.”
“Me too.” Danika hangs up the phone before she can say something stupid—that she’ll miss Kim and Bella in her life, difficult and awkward though it’s been. Before she can beg Kim to let Cami call Bella.
For now, there’s nothing she can do except comfort her daughter against the rejection.
