Part 14 (1/2)
”Are you saying my mom killed herself?”
Henry looks up from the folder looking confused. He thought I already knew this.
”Oh, G.o.d,” I whisper as I bury my face in my hands. ”I can't believe this.”
”Your mother loved you, Claire,” Henry insists.
Adam rubs my back as I press the heels of my hands against my eyelids; trying to push back the memory of the hours I spent hiding from my mother's dead body. I think of how my legs ached as I stood in the crack between the refrigerator and the wall. How I convinced myself more than once that if I came out of my hiding place, this time she would be alive. How I p.i.s.sed myself because I was too afraid to walk through the living room to go to the restroom. How the policeman who found me cried as he carried me out of the trailer. All this time I thought it was an accident. I thought my mother made a mistake, a miscalculation. Even after everything I went through before that policeman found me and in all the foster homes after that, I never hated my mother. Until now.
I sit up and wipe the tears away from my face. ”Who's the donor?”
The lines at the corners of his eyes deepen as he contemplates the answer to this question. He glances at Adam then back at me. ”I think you might want to be alone when you hear this.”
Adam begins to stand and I put my hand on his knee to stop him. ”Henry, you just told me my mother committed suicide,” I say incredulously. ”Do you really think anything you tell me now is going to be more devastating than that? Who's the f.u.c.king donor?”
Henry looks back and forth nervously between Adam and me as if we've just pointed guns at his head and asked him to open the bank vault. ”Yes, I do think this news will be quite devastating, but I'll respect your wishes if you want your friend here with you.” My leg starts bouncing uncontrollably as I wait for Henry's next words. ”Your father is the donor, but-” He puts a hand up to stop me from speaking when I open my mouth. ”-before you accuse your mother of keeping you from your father while taking his money, there's something you need to know.”
The few bites of yogurt I ate three hours ago are swirling in my belly as my stomach twists in knots from the antic.i.p.ation.
”Claire, your mother was raped when she was seventeen by one of her cousins.”
I knew her uncle repeatedly raped her from age nine to fourteen, but she never told me anything about her cousin.
”Are you sure you don't mean she was raped by her uncle? Because she told me about that.”
Henry shakes his head. ”It was the son of the same uncle. Claire, your mother was a good person. She trusted too many people too much.”
”Until she didn't trust anybody at all,” I say, beginning to understand why my mother kept me locked away in that trailer and why she was so adamant about teaching me how to stay safe.
Then another realization hits me. We were talking about the donor on the trust account before Henry told me my mother was raped by her cousin.
”Oh, G.o.d,” I whisper, and I double over in my chair, suddenly feeling as if a ten-ton slab of concrete is crus.h.i.+ng my chest. ”He's my father.”
Adam slides off the chair and kneels in front of me. ”I think we should leave.” He lifts my chin and takes my face in his hands. ”You don't need to hear any more of this s.h.i.+t.”
”My mother never told me any of this,” I whisper as he swipes his thumb across my face to brush away the tears. ”He raped her and she still took his money.”
I grab Adam's hands and pull them away from my face, but I hold tight to them as they rest in my lap.
”She did it because she wanted you to be taken care of,” Henry insists.
”Two hundred and seventeen thousand dollars.” Just saying the words aloud makes me feel filthy. ”Why would he give her so much money?”
Almost as soon as I speak the words I know the answer. It was hush money to keep her from turning him in. It had to be. She used her pain to extort money from him. She gave up the chance for justice so that I would have a chance at a better life.
”I don't want that money.”
Adam stares fiercely into my eyes. ”You don't have to take a single penny of it. Let's get out of here. You don't need this s.h.i.+t, especially not on your birthday.”
”You know we can't legally keep this money. The money will just sit here collecting interest,” Henry informs me, as if I care. ”She wanted you to have the money.”
Adam stands up and scoots aside so I can stand. Henry looks up at me from his desk with a sad look in his eyes. He's disappointed that I can't take the money my mother intended for me. I wonder silently if he ever had a relations.h.i.+p with my mother. How could someone so kind and straight-laced as Henry be so fiercely protective of a heroin addict who committed suicide and extorted money from her rapist?
I know my mother had a hard life. I didn't know anyone who'd had a more difficult life than her. But that was no excuse for what she did. She left me homeless, drifting from one family to the next, never staying anywhere long enough to form any true friends.h.i.+ps. Maybe she thought she was doing me a favor by tearing herself out of my life. Maybe she thought I would end up with a good family right away. She didn't know it would take eight years for me to arrive on the Knight's doorstep.
”I just have one more question,” I say as Adam and I reach the office door. ”If my mom knew she was going to kill herself, why didn't she call the police before she did it? Why didn't she send me to the neighbors or something? Why did she make me stay there with her?”
Henry heaves a deep sigh. ”I don't know.”
”Are you sure you still want to go to dinner? We can stay at the hotel room and talk. Or we can go home. It's up to you.”
I shake my head and close my eyes as I lean back against the headrest in the truck. ”I don't want to make any more decisions today. You decide.”
”Okay, we're going home.”
”No! I want to see Senia tonight. Just go to the hotel and we can hang out there until dinner.”
”Anything you want.”
After we check in at the hotel, we go up to our room and curl up on the bed.
”I want to know what it's like to not feel lost,” I say as I rest my head on Adam's shoulder and he strokes my hair.
”I don't know if anybody ever gets there, but we can try.”
”My mom and I used to play this game whenever someone knocked on our front door. She would face the door while I chose one of three hiding places: under the bed, in the closet, or in the nook between the fridge and the wall. As soon as she got rid of whoever was at the door, she'd come looking for me. If I was hiding in the first place she looked, she got to tickle me. I think of stuff like that then I think of the things Henry just told me and I don't think I ever knew my mother.”
”None of this has to make any sense to you right now.”
”The thing is, it does make sense. She didn't want to live. I almost don't blame her for ending her life after everything she went through.” I curl my fingers around a piece of his s.h.i.+rt and squeeze tightly. ”The worst part is that I still want her here. Even after everything I've learned today. And part of me knows that if I had been braver, if I had called 9-1-1 right away, she might still be here.”
”You don't know that. You said it yourself; you don't blame her after everything she went through. If you had saved her that day, she probably would have found another way to do it.”
I don't say anything because he's right. My mother didn't want to live, not even for me.
”I'm just so angry with her.”
”One thing they taught us in anger management-”
”Oh, no,” I mutter.
He pokes my side and continues his pep talk over my laughter. ”Go ahead laugh, but I'm serious. I know you like to meditate, but they taught us in anger management cla.s.s to let go of the anger by imagining what you would say to the person you're angry with if you forgave them. What would you say to your mom to let her know you've forgiven her?”
I pause for a moment to think about this. There are so many things I'd say to her. I've spent countless nights lying in bed unable to sleep as I imagine the conversations we'd have if she were still alive.
I sit up on the bed and cross my legs as if I'm going to meditate. ”I would tell her that I love her and that I know she did what she thought she needed to do to make the aching go away. I would tell her that I'm sorry about what happened to her and how I wish I was the one who could have healed her.”