The Illusion

Prologue

Our new house is a fresh start. Someplace dad has never been. A place where the arguments and door slamming and his telling my younger sister Jamie and me to get the fuck out of his way don't exist. Our dad uses a lot of bad words.

Our old, bigger house wasn't a happy place. But it was a place I knew. That Jamie knew. Here, the sounds are new. The neighbors are new. The state is new. Washington now instead of Oregon. The smells and even the school we go to are all new.

Leaving our old school and our old friends hurt the most. They're all back in Portland and we're here in Seattle, starting fresh.

But fresh is scary. Fresh is Jamie and I whispering to each other about why dad doesn't even call or come see us. He's just gone. And I wonder if it's good that I'm both crushed and relieved.

He didn't come to the house when we were packing up to move. Mom had set aside a few boxes of the stuff he left behind for him. The last time I saw them they were on the curb waiting for trash pickup because he never came and got them.

I saw their wedding album out there in the trash, too. And while she was busy packing up our minivan for the last time, I snuck it out of the trash and into my backpack.

Mom got a phone call this morning. I was in the kitchen eating cereal when I heard her voice change. She said "What?" and then "When?" and then she didn't say anything at all for a long time. After she hung up she just stood there, staring at the wall.

Jamie asked if she was okay and mom said yes, but her voice sounded wrong. Since then she's been like a ghost all day. Not really seeing us. Not really here.

In my bedroom, I pull out the wedding album. The one I snuck into my backpack when we moved here. Jamie and I sit side by side looking at it.

Mom looks happy in these pictures. So does dad.

In some, they’re even kissing. Holding fancy glasses of champagne.

Dancing. Close together. In the back of the album, there’s a wedding program that lists their names, the date, their wedding party, the church where they were married, and their parents' names.

The last page is a photo of them with the lyrics to the song they chose for their first dance at their reception on top.

It’s Unforgettable by Nat King Cole. The words are so pretty. I can’t imagine my parents ever felt this way about each other.

Actually, that’s not totally true. I can imagine my mom feeling that way about my dad. She's beautiful and nice. She feels things. I worry maybe she feels them too strongly.

But not him loving her. I never saw him love anyone. I don’t even think he loves me or Jamie. I mean it’s been six months since he left and we haven’t seen or heard from him. That’s not what a dad who loves his kids would do, right?

The divorce was final last week. Mom cried herself to sleep. Jamie and I could hear her. But when we knocked on the door to see if she was okay, she called out and asked us to please leave her alone. So we did.

The next day, I heard her on the phone with my gram, telling her she just wanted to sail away and disappear. She said she looks out at the ocean and thinks about how there's unlimited space and adventure out there, but here there are constant reminders of dad.

I think she means me and Jamie.

“Do you think Daddy ever thinks about us?” Jamie whispers.

“I don’t know,” I whisper back. “Probably not though.”

She nods. We both know he’s not like other dads we’ve met.

I bite my lip as I flip to a photo of him and mom where he’s dipping her on the dance floor. For a minute, I study the picture, trying to imagine our dad smiling like he is in this picture.

I don’t remember a smiling version of daddy. He got annoyed when Jamie or I needed attention. He yelled at me for falling off my bike and hobbling home with a missing tooth. The following day, he gave the bike away. Any time Jamie or I made noise, he’d be annoyed. So we learned to be quiet.

The day he left, he spanked Jamie for making too much noise while he was on the phone in his office.

Mom had run down the street to pick up his suits from the dry cleaner—fucking pathetic that it wasn't already done, he'd yelled as she left—so she wasn't there to step in when he thundered out of his office, pulled Jamie by her arm into the kitchen, sat down, and put her over his knee.

Listening to my little sister cry, seeing how scared she was, I ran across the room to try and stop him. But when I grabbed his arm, he got even madder. He yelled at me to shut my ugly fucking mouth as he threw Jamie to the floor. And then he slapped me across the face. Hard.

Hard enough that I flew back and hit my head on a cabinet. He was screaming about how fucking ridiculous we were, Jamie was screaming in fear, and I was scared he was going to kill us both.

“Daddy, no!”

He raised his hand again, his face pure hate. And then my mom came into the room and she was screaming too. I saw her grab a knife from the block on the counter. The one Jamie and I couldn’t touch because knives were dangerous.

I’d never seen my mom look that angry.

“That’s enough!” She yelled, gesturing at him with the knife. “Get away from my daughters.”

He wasn’t afraid. “What’re you going to do, Jennifer?" He laughed. "Fucking stab me?”

She didn't move. "Try touching one of them again and we'll find out."

Mom snapped her fingers at Jamie. “Get your sister and go to your room. Now.”

Jamie scurried across the floor to me. I hesitated.

“Girls. Now.”

My mom didn’t use that tone. Not ever. It unfroze me. Jamie grabbed my hand and we ran to her room, slamming the door and locking it behind us.

He was gone an hour later. There was door slamming and yelling. He said a lot of bad things. Our mom mostly cried and told him he was a terrible man and she hated him.

He told her to go fuck herself because he hated her, and us, and didn’t give a fuck what she thought.

And we haven’t seen him since he slammed out that door.

I’m so caught up in the memory that I don’t hear the bedroom door open. Only the sound of mom’s gasp announces that she’s here.

“Where did that come from?” she asks.

Her face has gone pale and her finger shakes a bit as she points to the wedding album.

“I did it,” I confess, so she knows it was me and not Jamie. “It was in the trash and I was curious.”

My mom doesn’t get angry. Not really. She deflates. But she looks determined as she walks to us and gestures to the wedding album.

“Girls. I know you’re curious. And I know this has all been a lot for you. But this… this book is an anchor and I won’t have it in my house. If you must, you can keep it in the shed in the yard. But I never want to see it. Not ever. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Mommy,” Jamie and I answer in unison.

She nods, like she’s satisfied. “Put it in a trash bag so it doesn’t get eaten by mice out there and take it out in the morning. I'll buy you a plastic bin for long term storage.”

We nod. But as she turns to leave, Jamie says “Mommy?”

Mom stops but doesn’t turn around. “Yes?”

“You and Daddy. You look happy here. I never saw daddy like this. Why did he change?”

Mom's entire body seems to freeze. For several seconds, she says nothing. When she turns to look at us, her expression is fierce.

"He didn't change." The way she says it is so sharp it gives me goosebumps. "That man in those photos never existed. He was a character your father played. An illusion. A lie he told so well I believed it."

"Like his name isn't really Michael?" I ask, confused.

"No, honey." She crouches down so she's at eye level with us, and I can see tears in her eyes.

"I mean he showed me a version of himself that wasn't real.

A public face. The man who danced with me at our wedding, who smiled in these pictures—that was the performance.

But the private version, the one who screamed at you and hit you and walked away without looking back, the man who cheated and lied and stole, that's who he really is. "

She reaches out and touches the wedding album, her finger trembling against the cover.

"Today I found out your father has a son.

A baby boy named Michael. With someone else.

He's handing out cigars." Her voice cracks.

"He's acting like he has time for this child.

Like he wanted this child. He acted like that about both of you once.

But he couldn't be bothered to call you girls even once in six months. Do you understand what that means?"

Jamie and I are both crying now. "No, Mommy."

"It means the illusion only works when he wants it to.

When it serves him. And the moment it doesn't, he drops it and walks away.

" She wipes her eyes roughly. "I fell for the lie because I wanted to believe it.

Because it was so beautiful. But it was never real.

And by the time I realized he was a monster, it was too late.

I was trapped inside the lie. I couldn't see a way out and he wouldn't leave for so, so long. "

She grips both our shoulders, her fingers tight.

"Girls, listen to me. Never make my mistake.

Pay attention to the signs. Trust your gut.

There are more bad men than good, and they're very good at pretending.

Don't ever wind up like me, choking on regret because you ignored the signs.

Find men who know how to be supportive. Who are mature enough to love people other than themselves. "

Her voice drops to almost a whisper. "And don't let a man weave a spell around you. Because when it falls apart, and it will, you'll realize you never knew him at all. And the pain of that is nearly unbearable. Only you two make any of that worth it."

After she leaves, I promise myself that I'll see the difference between the performance and the person. That I'll watch for the signs.

That I'll never mistake an illusion for the truth.