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Hurt flashed in my Mother’s eyes, sending a sharp pang of guilt through my chest. However, it wasn’t sharp enough to make me believe I was wrong.
“That may be, Kadence, but don’t for one second think I want this life, my life, for you. You are not me, and Caleb isn’t your Father.”
“He might as well be,” I snapped. “Did he tell you what happened? How he used me?”
My Mother looked away, wringing her fingers together. I noticed they were trembling.
“He did.”
“Then how can you expect me not to be angry?”
My Mother stood up, and because she was quite a bit taller than me I had to crane my neck. Even dressed in casual jeans, and a plain button up shirt she looked somewhat authoritarian. It was a new look for her, but I had to admit it suited her well.
“Of course you should be angry, but I won’t allow you to make the same mistake I did.”
“Which was what, Mom? Love a man who didn’t really love you? Love a man who used you for his own misguided agenda? You were blind, and even after you found out about Daddy and Mrs. Callahan you stuck with him until he ruined you. I hate to break it to you but I’m already there.”
“You are forgetting one major difference here,” she replied, her features drawn tight, poised for a fight. “Caleb loves you.”
I bit out a laugh. “In case you didn’t know, just because a man says he loves you doesn’t make it true. Daddy cheated on you for God knows how long and every time he told you he wasn’t, you believed him.”
My vexation was starting to get the better of me, and I was directing it all at my Mother when she didn’t deserve it. I had all this pent up indignation, and hurt and nowhere for it to go.
“You don’t know a thing about me and your Father.” My Mother’s tone hardened. “You don’t know why I stayed, or why I tolerated his affair with that mad woman for so long.”
“Then tell me. Please. Because I don’t understand. He’s dead, and you have yet to talk about it. We didn’t attend his funeral, and you never spoke of him. Ever. So explain why you stayed.”
My Mother’s façade slipped, so barely that no one else would have noticed. “I was hoping you would never have to find out, especially not like this, but -”
“Find what out?”
Before replying, my Mother inhaled deeply, and then sat back down on the sofa. I recognized her struggle, so I tried not to push. No matter how angry I was it wasn’t right to hold her responsible.
“Your Father…Henry… he wasn’t your biological father.”
“What?”
“I was pregnant with you when we met, and he already had Katrina, so we figured it would work.”
My mouth opened, but I was robbed of anything appropriate to say.
Except that maybe I’d become the butt of all God’s jokes. And they weren’t even funny.
My drop onto the sofa was far from graceful.
“How could you never tell me? This is huge, Mom.”
“I realize now that I should have told you sooner, sweetheart, but I wanted you to get your own life back on track before I dragged you into the mess that was mine.”
“I don’t…I mean… This is…” I stuttered. You’d think being a communications major would make forming words easier, but I had nothing. I didn’t even know how I felt about my Mother keeping such a life-changing secret from me.
“You asked me why I stayed,” she continued, taking my stunned silence as an opportunity to finish telling me what I initially wanted to know. I so did not see this one coming. “For you. I wanted you to have a normal life with two parents, instead of a single Mom who had a one-night stand out of rebellion to spite her parents. I didn’t want that for you, and while my marriage to your fath- I mean Henry, may have started out as an arrangement, somewhere along the way we fell in love. Well, I did, I was just too determined to give you a happy family to realize who Henry really was. So you can imagine my surprise when he started screwing Caleb’s Mother.”
“But you stayed,” I muttered, trying to piece it all together in my head. And yet, the pieces refused to fit. I didn’t want to believe it. “For years you made me think I was related to that man. I thought I was destined to become like him and Trina. Do you know what that has done to me?”
“I thought I was doing the right thing -”
“For who, Mom?”
