Chapter 10 #2
The thought makes my heart pinch painfully.
I don't remember this day, but I remember the feeling of being his everything.
Like it was him and me against the world after we lost her.
Somewhere along the line, that died. Somewhere between boarding school and summers spent anywhere but home, that look disappeared.
It was replaced by distance, secrets, and a wall so high I stopped trying to scale it.
"How did you get this?" My voice comes out steady, even though my pulse is racing.
"So it is you?" Rohan moves closer, looking over my shoulder at the photo. "That's your mom and dad?"
"Yes." I force myself to meet his eyes, to keep my expression neutral even though my world is tilting sideways. "Now answer my question. How did you get this?"
"Your mother sent it to us." His voice is soft, almost gentle, and that somehow makes it worse.
The floor seems to shift beneath my feet. "My mother? When?"
"Around the time that photo was taken." He reaches out, his hand hovering over the frame, drawing my attention back to the image.
Back to the family that no longer exists.
"Asha, I don't know how else to say this, but your father is my uncle.
" He pauses, letting that sink in. "Our parents are twins. "
The photograph slips in my grip, and I have to tighten my fingers to keep from dropping it. Twins. Which means Dar, Daruka, is my father's sister.
My head spins, though part of me isn't surprised. I've known for years my father was keeping secrets. I felt it in every deflection and every time I asked about family and got silence. I just didn't realize the secret was this big.
Why would anyone assume their father had erased an entire family from existence?
My mother's parents died when I was young, leaving only Aunt Melly and Hollis on her side.
I've always known my father was adopted.
I spent summers with Grandma and Grandpa Stone in Connecticut until they died.
That was supposed to be it. All the family I had.
But my father has a twin sister. A whole birth family he never mentioned.
I love my father. I love him so much it hurts.
However, that man in the photo, looking at my mother and me like we were his entire world…
that's just a memory. After she died, something changed or broke, and slowly, piece by piece, I started to wonder why he kept me away.
Dark thoughts crept in, thoughts I'd push away because I didn't want to believe my father was the bad guy.
Because he was all I had. If I let myself believe the worst, what did that leave me with?
So I told myself boarding school was for the best. That his silence was grief, not guilt.
That the walls he built were to keep pain out, not to keep me at a distance.
However, finding out about the expiring lease he hid from me, those dark thoughts flooded back in.
It was proof that maybe my suspicions weren't paranoia.
That maybe there was something fundamentally wrong I'd been too afraid to acknowledge.
Boarding school ensured his secrets were kept.
Keeping his secrets was easier if I wasn't around to unearth them.
I hand the picture back to Rohan. "That's it?" He takes the frame, his brow furrowing. "No comment? No questions?"
"I'm not sure what you want me to say."
He plants both hands on his hips. "You're either just as surprised as I am by this coincidence, or it's not a coincidence at all, and you knew exactly who my mother is." His eyes search mine, hard and assessing. "And you're here trying to hurt her."
The accusation snaps me back to the present. "Hurt her?" I take a step back. "Why the hell would I want to hurt your mother?"
"Because of your father." He sets the photo down with deliberate care. "Because of what he believes happened. What he blames her for."
A cold weight settles in my stomach. "You think my father hates his own sister?"
I don't even know if that's true. How could I? Her existence was news to me ten minutes ago.
"Yes." Rohan's voice is flat, certain. "He hates what he believes happened when they were kids. That their parents chose to save my mother over him."
The words don't make sense. I shake my head, trying to piece it together. "What are you talking about?"
His eyes search mine, and I watch something shift in his expression. Recognition. Understanding. "You really don't know, do you?"
I keep my face impassive, drawing on years of practice hiding my feelings from my father. From everyone.
"Of course you don't." He lets out a breath, and the suspicion in his posture eases slightly.
"You can drop the act, Asha. I could tell last night that you had no idea who we are, but I had to ask.
I had to be sure you weren't here to—" He stops himself and idly spins the watch on his wrist. "I had to be sure. "
Rohan picks up the photo again, his thumb tracing the edge of the frame.
"When our parents were kids, there was a flood.
" His voice is quieter. "The waters rose quickly.
Unexpectedly. Our grandmother was feeding my mother when your father started crying in his crib down the hall.
She called for help, and our grandfather tried to save him.
" He pauses, his throat working. "He didn't get to him in time and lost his own life trying. "
My breath catches.
"The floods separated them. Your father's crib was swept away.
" Rohan looks up at me, and there's genuine sadness in his eyes now.
"He was believed to be among the dead. They held a funeral.
Mourned him. My mother was just a baby, but she grew up knowing she'd had a twin brother who died and that her father died trying to save him. "
"But he didn't die." The words feel thick in my mouth.
"No. However, it wasn't until your mother sent us that photo that we found that out." Rohan's voice is careful. "She reached out to my mother years ago. Said she'd been doing research into your father's adoption, wanted to know if we might be family. That photo was proof."
My mother knew. She knew about the Aroras, about Dar, about all of it.
"When?" my voice cracks. "When did she send it?"
"A few months before she..." Rohan stops, his expression shifting to something gentler.
The room tilts again. My mother spent her final months trying to connect my father to the family he'd lost. Trying to heal something he refused to acknowledge was broken, and he never told me.
"Asha?"
I turn at the sound of my name, and Trigger is standing in the doorway of the study. His hair is windswept, his shirt dusty from the ranch tour, and there's dirt on his jeans. His hat is clutched in one hand, and his eyes are locked on me with an intensity that makes my chest tighten.
He takes one look at my face and goes still. "What happened?"