Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
POLLY
The day when love is stronger than fear is the day we’ll begin to discover our true power.
April White, Marking Time, The Immortal Descendants
I fell asleep holding Jace’s hand in our makeshift tent next to my children.
We didn’t sneak upstairs and make passionate love after saying we loved each other for the first time. We didn’t post about it on social media. We simply kissed, my heart and body trembling, my soul light.
In the middle of the night, Ryla tapped me awake to use the bathroom, which woke up Max, so Jace and I, giving each other contented, happy looks, helped the kids up to bed. Ryla was wired, requiring back rubs and singing to fall back asleep.
The hallway was empty when I left her room a half hour later, but saw there was a small light on in my room. Going to the doorway, I saw that Jace was sleeping on top of the covers on my bed, a small lamp on.
There was a note on my e-reader.
I didn’t open this.
I thought we could open it together, tomorrow.
Turning off the light, I grabbed a fleece blanket to put over us and burrowed into Jace’s side, not waking until morning.
* * *
When I opened my eyes the next morning and registered that it was Sunday, I wasn’t immediately filled with the normal dread of seeing my father. I was high on love, and I wasn’t going to let anything bring me down today, which included, my father.
I wore a flowery midi dress with spaghetti straps and yellow wedges. I knew my father wouldn’t approve of the colorful pattern or neckline. But I felt beautiful in it. That was enough.
“I’ll call you after brunch when I’m on my way to your parents’ house. What time are you getting there?” I asked Jace as I walked into the kitchen. He was coloring with the kids at the kitchen table. While driving to our hiking spot yesterday, Jace’s parents had called to invite us all over for brunch this morning. At that point, since we had already discussed telling them about us anyway, we thought we’d take them up on their offer.
“Around eleven-thirty. And you’re sure?” Jace asked, pausing his crayon masterpiece of a rainbow-colored kraken.
“Anything is better than having brunch with my father. Besides, you already told them I’m coming. No backing out now.”
I kissed my two little loves, then paused next to Jace. Deciding to hell with it, I leaned in close and brushed a very quick kiss over his lips prompting kissing noises from Ryla behind us.
“I’ll see you soon,” Jace whispered, eyes soft and adoring. It’d be nauseating if I didn’t find it so goddamn sexy.
When I arrived at the club a half hour later, my father predictably frowned as he half stood when he saw me approaching the table.
“Polly.” He nodded, sitting back down.
“Sir,” I responded, then picked up my menu. I was thinking about ordering the twice-baked French toast again, but this time with a side of bacon, when I heard my father clear his throat.
“Polly, we need to speak about a serious matter.”
“Ok,” I answered plainly, though I was wary. This wasn’t his typical pattern. He’d usually attempt small talk then spring things on me when I was swallowing. Perhaps this was preferable as it carried a significantly smaller risk of choking to death.
“A member of the community has come forward to describe some unprofessional behavior you’ve displayed as well as some indelicate comments you’ve made, in public, about the school system. I have been advised, in no uncertain terms, that should your behavior continue, any funding to my campaign from this source will immediately cease. I have assured this person, with absolute certainty, that your behavior and opinions will be nothing but appropriate and professional from now on. After all, that is how you were raised.”
My father must be referencing the meeting I had with that sniveling, conniving, evil leprechaun Brad Goldenstein. Brad failed to mention that he’d donated to my father’s campaign when I’d met him. But to essentially tell on me to my father? For what? Being a responsible purveyor of evidence-based medicine and social policy? Is this the third grade?
That sweaty, smarmy tattletale.
I was trying to piece together a logical, calm reply when he continued to speak.
“It has also come to my attention, that you are involved in,” he shifted in his chair, “an inappropriate relationship with the young man in your employ. Furthermore, that you have conducted yourself in unprofessional and vulgar behavior with this young man. If you continue this relationship, I will have no choice but to publicly disassociate from you, which would expose what you’ve been doing to the public. I cannot be associated with that type of behavior. Now, I don’t want to do this, but you will have forced my hand. Certainly, no one will want a doctor, much less a doctor for their children, who engages in such improper behavior.”
I laid my menu on the table in front of me with deliberate gentleness. I couldn’t be trusted to have anything in my hands when I was thinking such murderous, enraged thoughts. Because my father had to be talking about my relationship with Jace, yet nothing else about what he said made sense. Vulgar behavior? How in the hell did he even know about us? We’d never done anything outside of the privacy of the house. The house had a security system and camera surveillance at the front door, but that was it, wasn’t it? Horror snaked its way down my spine as the creepy portrait from the library, with my father’s unsettling eyes, popped into my mind. As terrifying as the thought was, spying on Jace and I in private was the only thing that made sense.
“Have you—” I paused to swallow; bile was rising in my throat. “Are you spying on us?”
My father busied himself arranging his water glass and silverware. “I did what was necessary. I learned what I needed to know and will only continue to do so to ensure my rules are followed.”
“That doesn’t include recording people in the privacy of their own home without their consent! You of all people should know that’s illegal!” I whisper-hissed.
Jerking back in his seat, my father scoffed with indignance. “I can assure you I did nothing of the sort.”
Heart hammering in my chest, breathing fast, I tried to calm down, but rage made it hard to think rationally. Forcing myself to take slow, even breaths, I tried to think of other ways my father could be spying on us. Could he have stopped by the house unannounced and seen us through a window? That seemed unlikely. He’d never resort to lurking outside his own home. That wasn’t his style.
My eyes narrowed on my father as I realized just what his style would be, the judge wouldn’t do the dirty work himself.
“Jeffrey,” I said flatly, thinking about the black SUV that almost rear-ended me. The same black SUV that I’d seen pulling out of the high school parking lot this Thursday as Jace, Max, Ryla and I walked out of Young Wills rehearsal.
A stiff nod from my father confirmed that it was indeed Jeffrey that had been following me, spying on us. How he knew what Jace and I were doing behind closed doors, I had no idea. I didn’t have time to appropriately process the sickening invasion of privacy because apparently, my father wasn’t quite finished.
“Your mother would be ashamed of you.”
I closed my eyes, jerking back as if I’d been slapped. Instead of hurting me, his words finally woke me up. I opened my eyes and blinked, seeing a stranger in front of me. His skin was sallow and sagging. He looked angry, but underneath that, I could see the sadness. He looked hollow. Empty. Like someone living with a broken heart. By saving the worst for last, my father had just dealt me the blow that made everything worse and, yet, easier at the same time.
This, his supposed authority over me, ended now.
“No,” I whispered. “She’d be ashamed of you.”
It was his turn to flinch.
“You know, I was thinking about Momma—” My voice broke, and for a second, I didn’t think I’d have the strength to say this, but then I thought of Leah. My kick-ass best friend who loved me no matter what, and I began again.
“I was thinking of Momma the other day?—”
I thought of Max. My brave boy. And Ryla. How she doesn’t have any fear of being unapologetically herself.
“—and how much she loved me. And I’d forgotten something. I’d forgotten how she’d told me to feel bad for people who are perfect. That if you’re always perfect, never making a mistake, you can’t really have fun.”
I thought of Jace. My love and my friend. Who would bury my father in the hills of East Tennessee if I asked him.
“She said that it’s the mistakes we make, the fun we have, that make us feel the most alive.”
But most of all, I thought of twelve-year-old Polly, struggling to breathe, struggling to survive, who thought the only way to love herself, was through this man’s approval.
“That’s what happened, wasn’t it? When she died, all that light, all that laughter, went with her. I look at my kids, and I see that light. I see her spirit living on in them.”
My father’s face was pale, like he’d seen a ghost. I took a deep breath, in and out, continuing to gather this newfound courage.
“I’m sorry that happened to you—that you had a love like hers and lost it. And I’m sad that I never got to meet that version of you. The version of you that Momma saw. I wonder if I would have liked him. I wonder if he would have liked me.”
He looked so bereft, I almost reached across the table to lay my hand atop his.
“You had no right to treat me as you did. To make me feel as though I had to win your approval, to win your love, by being perfect. That’s not love. That’s control. And frankly, I’m ashamed it’s taken me this long to realize that I was letting you do it. Jace and I have done nothing improper in public or private between two consenting adults. I am done giving you this power over me. Like my kids and I are merely pawns for you to move around however you want. So, I will make this incredibly easy for you. As of now, our deal is off. I ask that you give us one week to move out of the house. After that, we’ll be gone, and all of your problems will be solved.”
He looked to be trembling with anger, the vein in his forehead prominent and bulging.
I, on the other hand, felt a calm settle over my shoulders like a reassuring hug. Like I could feel my momma’s spirit around me, smiling.
I’d love to say I left then, never to see him again. But that’s not actually how life works.
The judge had been saving the worst for last; he just hadn’t gotten there yet.
“I don’t think you’ll do that considering what I’m about to tell you,” my father sneered. “I’ve been informed that Jace Vargas has recently applied to college so that he may work in education. Well, I have a family willing to vouch that he conducted himself improperly, in a criminally negligent fashion, in the presence of a minor on school property.”
A brief sense of depersonalization came over me and I shook my head back and forth slowly, as if the picture in front of me was some sort of trippy Etch A Sketch, wishing I could shake it and it’d be gone. But no amount of shaking could make this go away.
“Should you continue this relationship with him, move out of my house, or act in any way that I deem inappropriate, I will have no choice but to have this family come forward. While it may not be legally substantiated without physical evidence, the damage to his reputation will be done. He will never be allowed to work with minors, your ability to work with minors will be threatened due to your association with him, and you and your children will live in ruin.” He paused, lip curling maliciously. “Think very carefully, Polly.”