Chapter 18 Not Long Ago #2
“Cindi knew that was you, and I wouldn’t believe her!
” he said. “She kept saying, ‘That sounds a lot like your mom.’ She found other Paloma Doralle songs online and said the same thing. She even showed me online photos of Paloma Doralle and said it was obviously you with a bleach job and no dental work.” His voice went hard.
“Even though all that evidence was right there in front of me, I refused to believe it, because I knew you wouldn’t have kept this a secret from me.
” He retreated into the corner of the couch, his arms folded protectively across his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner? ”
“Because I was—I am—ashamed of what I’d done,” she said, relieved she’d finally said the words aloud.
“Instead of breaking up with my girlfriend and wrapping up my career like an adult, I left her without any explanation and reneged on my tour commitments and my album contract. I dropped completely out of sight and came here to hide under Aunt Bobbie’s wing. ”
“Hold on. Your ex didn’t know you were pregnant? Did Dad know?”
“Yes.”
Kaden looked stricken. “Did he not want you to have me?”
“Oh my God, sweetheart, he wanted you,” she said immediately.
“He wanted you just as much as I did. But like we’ve told you, we weren’t a couple, and I didn’t want to move to LA, and he couldn’t work in Michigan, so we developed our own custody arrangement.
I wanted to keep our lives private, so he helped me find a lawyer to set up an LLC so my royalties and performance rights are controlled by me but not as Paloma Doralle. ”
“So you started using a fake name.”
“An alias—‘aka P. D. Smith,’ ” she confirmed with air quotes around the legalese.
“Using your real initials.”
“Yes.”
His brows furrowed. “You always told me you were named P. D. to honor members of your family.”
“Technically, that’s true,” she mumbled.
He thought for a moment. “So that’s why you got all weird when we went to the Secretary of State to get my driver’s license and wouldn’t let me touch my birth certificate before you handed it over to the clerk: You didn’t want me to see your real name on the document. Unbelievable.”
Kaden went quiet, staring at a point on the floor. She wished he’d say something, or yell, or walk away. Finally, the silence got to be too much for her.
“I know it was wrong for me to wait this long to tell you. The more time passed, the more it seemed like a non-issue because ‘Paloma Doralle’ was pretty much forgotten. But because this old song of mine is suddenly crazy popular, I got asked to do this benefit, and I knew I couldn’t hide much longer. ”
He looked unsympathetic. “All this time you were lying to me and everyone we know, pretending to be someone else.”
“I wasn’t pretending to be someone else,” she protested. “I’ve always been me. I wanted to put distance between my current life and my prior career, and I couldn’t do that unless I changed my location and my name.”
He glowered at her. “This is the exact opposite of what you taught me. Own up to your mistakes. Apologize right away and make things right.”
“I know. I wanted you to do better than I had done, so I drilled that into you.”
He shut his eyes in exasperation. “It’s not like you robbed a bank, Mom! You got pregnant and wanted a job change. So what? Why all the drama?”
“I knew my girlfriend—Jace—was going to be devastated whether I stayed or left,” she blurted. “I took off so I wouldn’t have to look her in the eye and break her heart.”
His volume ratcheted up over hers. “But if you hadn’t gotten pregnant, I wouldn’t be here, so you can see why I’m not exactly caring about what this Jace person might have thought about it.”
Paloma powered on. “Well, now we’re back in touch. She’s the one organizing the benefit in Detroit I told you about. She’s raising money to save the club where I got my start. Your father talked to her and gave me her phone number. And she came up here and met with me today.”
His face darkened. “So that’s why you finally decided to tell me that you’ve been living a lie my entire life and forced me to grow up in this broke-ass town: because your ex finally caught up with you.”
Paloma inwardly flinched. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but he wasn’t completely right, either.
“I always meant to tell you, but when you were younger, I didn’t want you to accidentally slip up and tell someone.
When you were older, I couldn’t figure out the best way to bring it up, so I’d put it off again and again. ”
“So you weren’t going to tell me! Just like you weren’t ever going to tell that Jace person. This makes no sense. Why were you so afraid?”
The words spilled out before she could stop herself.
“I learned at a young age that revealing a secret makes the people you love turn against you. I’ve told you that when I was in high school and my parents found out I was bisexual, they kicked me out of the house, turned my brother against me, and never spoke to me again.
I didn’t think I could survive being abandoned like that again.
Not by my girlfriend, and certainly not by my son. ”
“So them being raging homophobes and terrible parents justifies you running out on this Jace person and lying to me?” he shot back. “Do you understand how messed up this is, Mom?”
Her chest started to tighten. “I should never have talked to Jace or agreed to do this benefit. Forget it; I’m not going through with it.”
“Mom! Listen to yourself!” he scolded. “You’re trying to run away from the consequences of your decisions. Again! At least have the guts to follow through this time.” He got up from the couch and walked toward his bedroom.
Paloma hurried after him. “I was trying to protect you. I—”
He turned to face her. “Bullshit! You were trying to protect yourself, and you dragged me along with you. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I’ll never set foot in Stone Beach again.”
He slammed the door behind him. Paloma was certain he was crouching on the edge of his bed, texting Cindi, bringing her into the circle of shame his mother built so many years ago.
As awful as it had been to watch, she knew he had every right to be angry, and all she could do right now was hope that they’d find some way to reconcile.
She went to her bedroom and lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling as her own mother’s final words blinked on and off in her brain like a neon sign:
If you had kept your feelings to yourself, you’d still have a family.