“Okay, darling. I’ll let you sleep now.”
“Thank you so much. I feel so much better after telling you both about everything.”
“I’m glad to hear that. I wish you’d told me sooner, so I could have done more about it. But that was your decision to make. I’m just sorry I wasn’t around then to figure it out.” He gives me a nod and another sad little smile before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
I’m planning out the art exhibit in my head when I lay down on the bed. I was right, it’s made of clouds. I’m asleep almost instantly. Even the excitement of finding a passion for art photography again not enough to keep the exhaustion at bay.
I wake up a little while later to the sounds of yelling. It sounds like I’m hearing one side of an argument. Either the other person is speaking softly, or this a phone argument. I have a niggling suspicion that this is something I need to hear, so I roll out of bed and tiptoe to the door, opening it just a crack.
“I don’t care what our arrangement was back then. There’s nothing you can hold over me now, anyway.”
It’s Uncle Patrick. He sounds almost as mad at Uncle Silas was earlier. Who’s he talking to, though?
I open the door a little further, trying to make out another voice.
“I’m not keeping this secret any longer.” Still Uncle Patrick.
“Tell her we’re saying something today.” That’s Uncle Silas. So whoever Uncle Patrick is having an argument with is on the phone. And it’s a woman.
“She worries about her reputation,” Uncle Patrick says. “She thinks people will look down on her.”
“As they should,” Uncle Silas yells, probably so the woman on the phone can hear him. “They should fucking look down on, you bit—”
“Shhh, you’ll wake up Becca.”
Too late. I’m already awake and I’m so damn curious I’m about to army crawl out there on my belly so I can eavesdrop better. I know I shouldn’t be listening in on something that has nothing to do with me, but I can’t help it. There’s just this… feeling telling me I need to hear this. I don’t know what it is, but the only other time my intuition spoke to me this strongly it was about Johnny. And maybe that didn’t turn out exactly as I finally let myself hope, but it did bring about a positive change in me. So I consider it a win. A painful, heartbreaking win, but still a win.
“Listen here, you cold-hearted bitch. If I’d known what kind of person you actually were, I’d have taken her long ago. I’m sure the fact that I had to find her purely by accident would have benefited me in family court.”
Nope, I can’t take it anymore. I need to get closer. I open the door and drop down to the floor, slithering on belly as silently as a snake down to the end of the hallway. I’m still hidden here, unless they come around the corner, but I should be okay.
“You think you’ve had a rough time of it? Imagine you’re me. Imagine your bitch of an ex-wife takes your baby and moves to an undisclosed location and you don’t find her until she’s an adult. Imagine you’ve already taken a job in a different city when find her. Now imagine it’s fifteen years later and you find out that mother has been an abusive cunt all this time.”
I… what? I suddenly feel nauseated.
“I don’t care. I should have told her when I figured it out. She might hate me when she finds out, but she deserves to know the truth. I’ll be begging her for forgiveness, and I suggest you do the same, Rebecca. From Becca, and from whatever gods you believe in, because the way you’ve treated our daughter is horrible. Goodbye, and fuck you.”
A sob follows the sound of crunching metal and smashing glass. A sob so loud it nearly breaks my heart. It doesn’t, because my heart is currently jumping out of my chest, but it comes damn close. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, trying to figure out how I feel about this.
Uncle Patrick is my dad?
What?
“You might as well come out here and join us, Becca. We have some things to talk about. It’s time for a long overdue conversation.” Uncle Silas is standing at my head, looking down at me. Should I call him Dad? Should I call my father, Uncle Patrick, Dad?
I get to my feet and follow Uncle Silas to the living room, where Uncle Patrick is sitting on the couch, crying his eyes out. And even though I should be mad that he knew and didn’t tell me, that they’ve both hidden this from me for years, I go to him.
I sit next to the man I now know is my father. The man who didn’t abandon me because he couldn’t deal with my scars. The man who’s loved me from a distance all these years. I sit next to him, and I rest my head on his shoulder, and I cry with him.
