15. Liv #3
“This is about you being a liar!” my father roared.
“Now, Russ, there’s no need to get ugly. The neighbors—” my mother tried, but it was too late.
“The hell with the neighbors. Shut the damned windows if you’re so concerned.” More slamming and rattling. “Olivia, what’s happened to your common sense? Is that man blackmailing you in some way? Because otherwise, I can’t begin to understand what you’re thinking.”
Of all the absurd accusations. “No, Theo isn’t blackmailing me!”
“That’s too bad.” My father had stopped yelling.
Now his voice was frigid, the way it got when he’d moved beyond anger and into flat-out fury.
“In that case, I don’t know who you are, Olivia.
Because no daughter of mine would be so ungrateful as to jeopardize our entire family by pulling something like this. ”
No daughter of mine echoed in my ears, even as part of me worried that he was right. Was I as unappreciative and entitled as he thought I was? Had I made a terrible mistake?
“Can’t you move beyond this stupid feud?
” I said, fighting to keep my tone level.
“It happened almost a century ago, for God’s sake.
Theo wasn’t born when Grandma was kidnapped.
His mom wasn’t even born. And our family got what we wanted.
Grandma Ella came home. The Dresslers are the ones who lost a daughter. Can’t you be a little more empathetic?”
“No, I can’t.” My father’s voice was arctic.
“How many times have I told you that blood will out? The same people who leveled those ridiculous accusations against our family are the ones who raised your new friend. Truth is irrelevant to them. Can you imagine the media firestorm if these baseless allegations were dragged into the light again? How would that reflect on us?”
“If the accusations are baseless,” I argued, “then why does it matter?”
“Really, Olivia?” It was my mother’s turn.
“You know that, in your father’s line of work, image is as important as reality.
The slightest hint of a scandal and gossipmongers will have a field day.
Do you want to destroy your father’s career?
Embarrass us in front of our friends and the charities we support?
Perhaps it’s different for you, but appearances matter to us. ”
“Why is it different for me, Mother?” I said, stung into voicing what I’d never dared to speak aloud before.
“Because I’m not really a Carter-Brentwood?
Because I come from poor white trash, and no matter how much you try to Eliza Doolittle me into one of you, it never quite turns out how you’d imagined? ”
Her harsh intake of breath hissed across the line. “How can you say such a thing? Of course that’s not what I was insinuating. Once again, you’re making this all about you, in order to avoid taking responsibility for your actions. Quit throwing a pity party and grow up.”
Unbelievable. “I’m not taking responsibility for my actions? I’m the one who wants to find out what the hell really happened to Ella Carter!”
“Language, Olivia!” she scolded. “And we know what happened to her. Your feelings about your own background are no reason to drag your grandmother into a melodrama of your own making!”
My only response was a wordless shriek, muffled quickly so as not to wake Chloe up.
“Enough of this!” my father snapped. “Turning us against each other is exactly the tactic that vultures like the Dresslers try to employ. I’m not surprised he lied.
What I am surprised about is that you went along with it.
” He gave a snort of disgust. “How many years of school did we pay for? Twelve? For a straight-A student with a fancy PhD, you sure let yourself get suckered. I guess we wasted our money.”
I wondered when he’d begun to think that investing in me was a waste.
Right from the start, when he brought home a baby with a pedigree unbefitting a Carter-Brentwood?
Later, when my tastes ran to political protests rather than garden parties—not that I ever marched in any, for fear of their disapproval?
Or right now, when all my years of postgraduate education, the accolades I’d won, and the clients I’d helped boiled down to being a fool?
“I’m sorry,” I said, forcing the apology past the lump in my throat. My voice was smaller than I wanted it to be. “I know it was wrong to bring him into Grandma’s house under false pretenses. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
“It was beyond wrong.” My father’s voice was tight. “Hasn’t your grandmother suffered enough? Don’t you think she deserves a little peace?”
Keep it together, Olivia. “I know she hasn’t had it easy,” I said in my best I’m A Reasonable Therapist voice, ignoring the tears that scalded my eyes.
My dad hated when I cried. He called it histrionics.
If I stayed calm, maybe I could still fix this, figure out a way to pitch it so that he understood.
“But on the off-chance Grandma Ella might really be Lily Dressler, maybe it would be amazing. A gift! Theo told me his grandmother—Lily’s older sister, who was with her right before she disappeared—is still alive.
If there’s the slightest possibility we’re wrong, wouldn’t it be incredible to be able to reunite her with her family? ”
“Christ, Olivia!” He was back to yelling again. “Use that big brain of yours. Most men my age are retired by now, you must know that. But I’m still working. Why do you think that is? Because it’s certainly not for my health!”
“I—”
“It’s for us! Everything I do is for our family. You have no idea the sacrifices I’ve made. And you’re willing to throw it all away, just like that. How can you even suggest that this disaster of yours would result in a happy reunion where we all ride off into the sunset? Are you that na?ve?”
“I never said—” I tried again, but he interrupted me.
“The hell with being a therapist. I think you need to see one!” There was a crash, then the unmistakable sound of breaking china. “And I know I need a drink. This conversation is over.”
The tears fell harder now. I didn’t trust my voice, and my mother stepped smoothly into the breach. “Look what you’ve done to your father. Look how you’ve hurt your grandmother. Is this what we get, after all we’ve done for you?”
I wanted so badly to contradict her, but when I opened my mouth, nothing came out.
I’d never openly defied my parents before, not like this.
Sure, I’d married Gray, but that could be written off as youthful irresponsibility, nothing that a prenup and a good lawyer couldn’t solve.
This was different. It flew in the face of what I thought of as the Carter-Brentwood Commandments: You will not mention upsetting issues.
You will respect your elders, regardless of whether you agree with their opinions.
Family comes first, and you will protect ours above all else.
What if this made my parents decide they were done with me?
What if they decided they didn’t want me anymore, and by extension, Chloe?
Surely our bond wasn’t that fragile. But what if it was?
“If you’re not going to answer me,” my mother said after a long, fraught pause, “then your father’s right. This conversation is over. Goodnight, Olivia.”
And then, for the first time in my life, my mother hung up on me.
I stared at my silent cell phone in disbelief. Should I call them back and apologize again? Offer to replace whatever it was my father had broken? Tell them I’d drop the whole thing?
I’d dialed half their number before I thought better of it. Their closed-minded attitude, their suspicion of Theo, their refusal to consider they might be wrong—all of it was exactly why I’d agreed to open Pandora’s Box without telling them in the first place.
I thought of my two-year-old grandmother, cold and scared and alone. Of my biological mother, dead before I ever got to see her face. Of Chloe, and how devastated I would be if I lost her, and someone else tried to claim her as their own.
And then I thought of Theo, saying Please, Olivia, in that raspy voice of his. Of how hurt he’d sounded when he talked about the way he’d grown up. Of his grandmother, convinced she was responsible for the destruction of their family.
It wasn’t a choice. Maybe it never had been.
I knew what I had to do.