Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
R epeating the previous day’s agenda, I started at the coffee shop and ordered another double-shot cappuccino but chose the orange and poppyseed muffin this time. I ate and drank my breakfast as I walked to the caravan park and was at Mother’s trailer by nine-thirty.
I entered the van, surprised by all the windows and curtains being open and the lights on. In my haste to leave yesterday, I’d obviously left it like that. It was a wonder there was anything left. Then again, there was absolutely nothing of real value in here. You would have to be very desperate to want to steal anything from this trailer.
Still feeling a little hungry, I opened the pantry, hoping at least for a muesli bar. No such luck. The fridge was no better. If I’d wanted some cheap cask wine or what looked like leftover Chinese, then I would’ve been in heaven. Opting for a safer option, I went for a cup of tea instead. I popped on the kettle and headed into Mother’s bedroom.
The contents of that drawer were still all over her bed. Sitting on the side of the mattress, I picked up a chunky bangle and slipped it over my wrist. But it was way too big for me and slipped right off. I put it back into the drawer and grabbed another. This one was a series of rectangular glass stones held together with two elastic ropes. It looked homemade. Knowing Mother, she probably bought it from a market or someone she’d befriended.
I picked up the Walkman and pressed the play button, but it didn’t move. I flipped it over and popped open the battery compartment. It was empty. I put the machine in my backpack and made a mental note to buy some batteries before I went to the hospital. A few tapes were there too; Michael Jackson’s Bad ; George Michael’s Faith ; Kick , by INXS. They probably didn’t even work.
My eyes snagged on the newspaper again. It was so out of place with all the other trinkets on the bed. I picked it up and went to the kitchen. Sitting at the same kitchen table where I had been told I was conceived during an orgy, I sipped the tea and read the newspaper.
The article in the corner was about a jewelry store robbery that’d gone wrong. Four thieves had broken into a jewelry store in the Queensland regional city of Toowoomba. According to the report, the store owner had stayed back after closing to get a head start on a stock take they were performing the next day.
The thieves had tied up the owner, and after ransacking the jewelry cabinets, one of the robbers had hit the owner over the back of his head with a paperweight. The article ended with a sad description of the fifty-eight-year-old man being in a coma surrounded by his wife and three young children.
A memory from my childhood spilled into my brain like battery acid. I had been seven or eight, not much older. Mom and Dad had been fighting. There was nothing unusual about that. But it was what they’d fought over that rattled my memory .
Mother had been dressed in tight-fitting jeans and a revealing top. But she’d also been wearing a diamond-studded necklace. It was the first and possibly the only time I’d ever seen Rob lay a finger on her. He hadn’t hit her; he’d snatched the necklace so hard it’d snapped and some of the diamonds had pinged across the table.
Mother had sobbed as she’d crawled around on the floor, trying to find all the jewels.
I never did see those diamonds again.
My eyes shot to Mother’s top drawer. I stood and strode to the bedroom, yanked the drawer all the way out, and upended it on the bed. I was possessed. Obsessed. I dug through the scrambled collection of junk, yet I had no idea what I was searching for.
I took out the next drawer and the next, tossing everything onto the bed. I pulled out her hanging clothes, went through her shoeboxes and makeup pouches. Caravans had all sorts of tiny cupboards where things could be stored, and one by one, I yanked them open and rummaged through the contents. There was so much crap, and the pile on the bed grew bigger with each drawer I upended.
I stood on her bed, and it took all my might to slide open a cupboard hovering above the pillows. Grabbing yet another shoebox from the shelf, I popped open the lid. My breath caught. Inside was just one thing—a black velvet pouch.
My heart was in my throat as I tugged on the two silky ropes that sealed the bag.
When a diamond-studded necklace spilled onto my palm, my heart died.
By the time my brain had cleared enough to think, it was after lunch. But it wasn’t food I was after. It was answers.
Mother was lucky that it took so fucking long to get from her trailer to the hospital. If it had been much shorter, my fury probably would’ve had me strangling her with my bare hands to get those answers.
But thanks to the blessing of time by myself in the taxi, I had worked through that rage and had a plan of attack. I wanted all the answers today, and I had five hours until visiting time was over. I intended to use every single one of them wisely.
I arrived at her bedside to find her asleep again. How she could sleep after her lifetime of lies was beyond me. Unlike yesterday, I didn’t want to leave her in peace. Time was ticking, and contrary to that damn clock that had been ticking in my head in Europe, this one had even more dire consequences.
Trying to be as noisy as possible, without being so extreme that I woke Mother’s sick neighbors, I dragged the chair to her beside. I unzipped my pack and wrestled the wooden box from it and placed it at my side. I even cleared my throat a few times. When none of that woke her, I reached over and placed my hand on her shoulder.
Mother’s eyes fluttered open, and her head rolled toward me with a strained smile crawling across her lips. “Daisy. It’s so lovely to see you.”
“Hi, Mom. How do you feel?”
She blinked hard a few times as if trying to get them to focus, and cleared her throat. “Well, that’s the only good thing about all these drugs they’re pumping into me. I don’t actually feel anything.”
Much like the drugs you’ve taken all your life , I wanted to say. But didn’t. I didn’t want to get off to a bad start. “Would you like a drink? ”
“Yes please.”
Standing, I pulled the bedside trolley up to the bed until it was positioned across her chest. The perfect position for her to see all the things I’d found.
While she sipped her drink, I flipped open the lid on the wooden box at my side and plucked out the photo of Rob—the man who’d pretended to be my father. She placed the cup on the tray, and I placed the photo beside it.
Her eyes bounced from the photo to me. She blinked at me, and I was pretty certain it wasn’t because she couldn’t see me. She was trying to work out what to say.
I tapped the photo. “Tell me about him.”
She scrunched up her face and flicked her hand. “You already know about him. He’s your father.”
“He’s not my fucking father.”
“Daisy, don’t swear at me.”
“So, don’t lie to me.”
She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t a lie. I told you yesterday—he may not have been your biological father, but he was the man who raised you.”
“Why?”
She did a double-take. “Why what?”
“Why did he raise me?”
“What kind of question is that? He loved you. That’s why.”
“Oh my god.” Her response made me want to vomit. “He never loved me. He never even loved you. But he stayed. Why?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look, Mother, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.”
Her jaw dropped and the glare in her eyes bordered on hatred. “What do you want from me? My whole frigging life story? ”
“Yes, actually. It’s long overdue. Why don’t we start from when you ran away from home at fifteen?”
“Oh, God.” She wobbled her head, reached up, and using the triangle over the bed, adjusted her position on the mattress. Then she trained her eyes on me. “There’s nothing to tell. I lived wherever I could. Slept on hundreds of people’s sofas. Even slept in a few bus shelters. I dug through rubbish bins for food when I needed to and got fed at homeless lodgings when possible. There. Aren’t you glad to find out how desperate I was?”
Not willing to stop, I said, “When did you and Rob get married? Was it before or after I was born?”
Closing her eyes, she huffed. “We never got married.”
“What?” That was a shocker. “Okay then. So, what’s his surname?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Why not? Shouldn’t I know the name of the man who pretended to be my father?”
She cleared her throat, and I could tell she was uncomfortable revealing that piece of my puzzle. But I couldn’t fathom why it was so hard.
“Mathieson. His name was Robert Mathieson.”
“See? That wasn’t so hard.”
“Jesus. You make it all sound so clinical. Can’t we just have a nice chat? Why don’t you tell me about your job?”
“I told you. I had to quit my job to come here.”
She glared at me. “I meant before that. Daisy, please?”
“Just a few more questions. Why did we have to keep moving all the time?”
She frowned at me, maybe trying to work out what I was getting at. “We went where the jobs were.”
“But that doesn’t make sense, Mother. I heard you complaining many times about having to quit a job. Not the other way around. ”
“What would you know?” She huffed. “You were a kid.”
I pulled out another photo—a random one of a guy without a shirt on, holding up a beer. “Who’s this?”
She frowned at the photo and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
I believed her, which was a miracle, and plucked out another photo. “What about him?”
A smile lit up her face. “Oh, he was the caretaker at the trailer park at Rockhampton. He was so nice. He used to let you ride on his mower. Do you remember?”
“No.” I produced another photo. And another. Each time she’d either say she didn’t know or gave some random story about who the man was.
“What about this, Mom?” Speaking as nicely as possible, I opened the newspaper on her tray.
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, but her eyes gave away her deceit.
I plucked the box from the floor. “You had it in here with all these photos. You kept it for a reason. Why?”
“Hmmm.” She shook her head again, acting all innocent. “I have no idea. It must’ve got caught up in a few things.”
“Really? Okay, what about this?” I grabbed the velvet pouch, and before she could move, I tipped the diamond necklace onto the newspaper.
“Shit.” She snatched it in her hand and shoved it beneath the bedsheet. “What the—” She clenched her teeth. Her eyes were seething.
“You need to tell me about these. Right now!”
“Fucking hell, Daisy,” she hissed.
Now there’s the mother I know.
“Yes?” Despite the volcano of acid erupting in my stomach, I remained as calm as I could. “You have one minute to start talking?—”
“Or what?” Her words snapped off her tongue, proving the brittle-voice act she’d been doing was exactly that—an act.
“Or I’m going to the police.”
“You know nothing.”
“I know that Rob or possibly both of you robbed a jewelry store in Toowoomba and that necklace is from the robbery.”
“Oh please.” She flipped her hand, trying to act aloof, but the fury in her eyes exposed her true emotion.
“Is that why Rob stayed? Because you blackmailed him somehow. Was that why?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, her hand strangled the sheet.
“Is that why we had to keep moving? Because we were on the run from the police? Is it?”
Her jaw was clamped so tight it was a wonder her teeth didn’t crack.
But her silence proved I was on the right track. “If you don’t start talking, I am going to take what I think I know to the police.”
Mother inhaled a huge breath and let it out, long and slow. Then she produced the necklace from beneath the sheet. “Put that away.”
I opened the velvet pouch, and she dropped the necklace in like it was on fire.
She glared at me as I put the pouch into my backpack.
I shoved backward on the chair, folded my arms across my chest, and waited.
Mother sipped on her drink, adjusted her position on the bed, and did a few other annoying things, all stalling for time. But I wasn’t going anywhere until I had answers.
She scraped her hand through her hair, and staring at the ceiling, she said, “You are right.”
I blinked at her. “Right about what?”
“About all of it. He robbed the store. We were on the run. I was his alibi and I used that to blackmail him into staying. ”
My jaw dropped. I was stunned into absolute silence. A thousand questions raced through my brain in an instant. It was an eternity before a burning question wriggled its way forward enough for me to speak. “So, Rob was a thief and you knew it. But you wanted him to be my father so bad that you blackmailed him into it. Why?”
She shrugged. “Because I wanted us to be a family.”
Acid coiled in me like a deadly viper ready to strike. And in that very instant, I knew exactly what that strike would be.
I stood and clutched her hand in mine. Her smile confirmed she expected all the rotten history to be behind us now.
“I can’t say it was nice seeing you again, Mother.”
Her expression melted. Realization settled onto her face.
“Talking to you has made me understand who the most important person in my life is.”
Her eyes dazzled.
“It’s me.”
Releasing her hand, I snatched the newspaper and photo of Rob, and shoved them and the wooden box into my pack.
“Goodbye, Mother.” I tugged the strap over my shoulder, turned on my heel, and strode from her bedside.
“Daisy! Get back here, you fucking bitch.”
I reached the elevator, aware that they were probably the last words I’d ever hear from my mother.
It didn’t hurt me one bit.