21. Anna #2
I shake my head even though he can’t see me.
“No, I think she just didn’t want to be lectured.
Nana had always wanted my mom to marry this real estate broker who lived on the ritzy end of town, and when he divorced his wife, my grandma just kept pestering her to go out with him, even though she was still married to my dad.
Anytime the fridge broke or the washing machine wouldn’t turn on, Nana would tell her, ‘That sort of thing wouldn’t be an issue at Henry’s place.
’ But my mom loved my dad too much to ever divorce him, and because money was a sensitive topic with Nana, she wound up driving a car with the warning lights flashing for months while she waited to save up enough money to pay for it to be serviced.
” I have to blink several times to fend off the tears burning behind my eyes.
“The engine cut out when she was driving through an intersection. It was rush hour in January, and the roads were icy.”
I let his imagination fill in the rest because, even now, I can’t bring myself to think about what she must have experienced. Not fully.
All I knew was that it had been bad. Closed-casket bad.
“Extended family?”
“Anyone from my dad’s side of the family that’s alive is in prison, rehab, or a crack den, and my mom didn’t have any siblings.
After she died, I went to live with my grandmother, but she passed away a couple of years ago.
What about you? Does your family approve of your extracurricular activities? ”
I’m not sure if I’m referring to the grand larceny or stalking, but either way, it earns me a soft chuckle.
“Wouldn’t know. I’m in the same boat as you. My old man passed away four years ago, and my mom the year before that.”
When I ask for more, he hesitates, likely thinking better than to give me more clues as to who he is.
“It’s okay,” I reassure him, running the pad of my thumb over the bicep resting under my head. I know well enough not to push.
Silence ensues, but it’s not an awkward kind. I can almost hear the gears in his head working, sorting through what he should or shouldn’t say.
After another minute, he finally admits, “I didn’t know my father growing up.
Mom never talked about him, and when I would ask, the way she spoke made it sound like he was dead.
I didn’t find out who he was until I was fifteen, when I was going through a bunch of paperwork.
My mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer the year before, and she wasn’t doing well at the time, so I tried to take care of her as much as I could.
The insurance company was disputing half of the shit she needed to have done, and we were drowning in medical debt, so I was in the middle of trying to find all of her health records when I came across some envelopes buried in the bottom drawer of her desk.
As it turns out, my old man was very much alive and had been trying to reach out for years.
From the letters, he made it clear he wanted to pay child support and even for my education, but she evidently refused. ”
“Why?” Growing up, I knew many single mothers who would have been thrilled if their child’s father so much as bothered to show up for a t-ball game. To have one willingly offer financial support and without prompting?
“That’s the thing you have to know about my mother.
Her family life growing up had been pretty rough, and though she may not have had a lot by society’s standards, it was a hell of a lot better than what she came from.
And she worked her ass off to get there.
She told me her only mistake in life was meeting my father.
Not because she ended up pregnant, but because she unknowingly fell for a married man. ”
Oh…
Any hope that it was just a misunderstanding dies as he clarifies, “My father later admitted that he lied to her. Said he was separated from his wife and preparing to divorce. He was fifteen years her senior, financially well off, and lavished her with the kinds of gifts she couldn’t even comprehend.
She fell—hard—but when she found out she was pregnant, that’s when shit hit the fan.
Word got back to his wife, and as they say, ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ She had been a small-time model barely out of high school when she had married my father and thought she was God’s gift to the world, so to learn that her husband had knocked up his older, lower-class mistress didn’t sit too well with her.
“He had tried to divorce her, but she wasn’t about to give up her lifestyle and chose to blackmail him.
His family had been pillars of the community for generations, devout Catholics, and had never gotten so much as a parking ticket.
If my dad walked out on her, she would go public with the affair and completely ruin his image, not to mention she’d take him for all he was worth.
When all was said and done, let’s just say my mother got the short end of the stick.
She refused to be his dirty little secret that he paid off to keep quiet and, therefore, wanted nothing to do with my father.
And she was an exceptionally proud woman.
Refused to accept so much as a birthday card from him.
Granted, I didn’t know any of this at the time, and even if I did, I don’t think I would have done anything differently.
“I looked him up online to see what I could find out about him, and it was clear he had money. Lots of money. Meanwhile, we were struggling to keep food on the table amid paying for her treatments. I figured the best-case scenario would be that he’d probably just write a check to get me out of his hair, but he was genuinely interested in building a relationship with me.
I knew my mom would be pissed, so I kept it quiet and lied to her about the insurance covering her appointments, letting him discreetly pay for them.
When she eventually found out, she lost it. ”
He goes silent for a moment, and even though I can’t see his face, I can almost feel it.
The way he’s lost in thought, in a memory.
“My mom refused further treatments if he was the one paying for them, and for a time, I was so mad at her, so mad that she couldn’t see past her own pride to fight for me.
I was still a teenager, for fuck’s sake.
I needed my mom. Instead, I had to just stand by as the cancer ate away at her body.
And all the while, she kept telling me to stay away from my father, that nothing good could come out of it, that I didn’t understand just how dangerous that family was.
I figured it was just my mother’s wounded ego talking.
She had been a scorned lover, but I was his kid.
And my father never treated me differently than his other son.
He even tried giving me money so that I could go to college, but like an idiot, I turned him down.
“I didn’t want to feel like a charity case, either.
I didn’t want him to think I was only keeping the relationship alive because of what I could get from him.
My old man understood that. He liked that I earned everything that I had, even if it wasn’t much.
That’s why he showed me his will. I had an equal share in it.
As far as he was concerned, I wasn’t a bastard or his dirty little secret.
I was his son. And that opinion never changed. ”
My stalker’s constant use of the past tense is enough of a warning that the other shoe is about to drop, but I can’t say I’m prepared for it.