She didn’t raise me. I was a bad part of her life that she’s been trying to forget.
She clears her throat, uncomfortable. “Did Jonathan tell you anything?”
“Not much.”
“Well…what do you want to know?”
The open-ended question takes me aback for a second. What do I want to know? Everything. I want all the answers that have been kept from me. “What happened?”
“I was a teenager…” She glances over her shoulder for a minute and then says, “I was young and was easily drawn to a guy like Jonathan. We slept together once. That’s it. And I was careless, and that’s why you’re here.”
Something nasty sits on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow down the more spiteful retort. I sweat through my shirt, so fucking hot. I wipe my brow and say, “So that’s what I am to you then?”
Her eyes flit past my body. A neighbor across the street stares hard from his mailbox, and I wonder if he’s trying to place me—figuring out where he recognizes me from.
“You can invite me in,” I offer.
She shakes her head and clears her throat again. “No. It’s best if you stay outside.”
“Right.” That’s all I can say without yelling, without screaming everything that weighs on my chest. Why didn’t you come back for me? Why didn’t you fucking care? I’m your goddamn son! I spent years without a mother, without that maternal figure. The most I had were the people who paraded in and out of my house in the mornings. Makeup-smeared, half-dressed women who had no words of wisdom for me, no answers to my problems, no sweet, nurturing voice to ease me to sleep.
“You have to understand…” Her eyes fall to the ground. “I didn’t want you.”
“Yeah, I got that,” I say sharply. My father was right. I shouldn’t have sought her out.
“I was in high school,” she says. “I was just a girl, and I planned to go to college, to have boyfriends and a life. You were going to take all of that from me.”
You were going to take all of that from me. The words ring in the pit of my ears.
I stare at the bright sky, just staring, just looking for something that will never reveal itself to me.
What the hell am I doing here? Not just here, at this house. I feel like I was born to destroy people’s lives. I did it before I even came into the world. And I did it after. You were going to take all of that from me.
“Out of respect for Jonathan, I told him that I was going to an abortion clinic.”
I shut my eyes, and a hot tear slides down my cheek. I wipe it. Exhale. “I wish you went through with it,” I suddenly say. Because then I wouldn’t have to bear this pain. My face wouldn’t twist this way. Lily wouldn’t have spent her childhood in my broken house. Her mother would have loved her as much as she did her sisters. Ryke would have grown up with two parents instead of one. My existence ruined so many people, so many things. Life would have been easier without me.
“What?” Her velvety voice spikes.
“You heard me,” I say, no longer nice. “I wish you would have killed me.”
She pales. “You don’t mean that.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
She touches her lips for a moment, just staring at me. “Because…your father, he gave you everything.”
You have everything, Loren. Don’t be such an ungrateful little shit, Loren.
“Yeah,” I nod. “He gave me everything.” Before she can speak, I ask, “So what stopped you? Your parents? Some religious belief? Cold feet?”
“Jonathan stopped me,” she says. “He was furious with the idea of losing his child. We came to an agreement. I would have you, and then you would be his entirely. I would get the life I planned, and you’d grow up in luxury, something I wouldn’t have been able to give you on my own. I thought you would be happy.”
“Yeah, I’m still working on the happiness part.”
I wait for the flash of regret to fill her eyes, but it never comes. I’m the spoiled rotten heir, the one who drinks until he’s wasted. The one who went to rehab like it was some publicity stunt. And I have a sex addict girlfriend.
Emily quiets as a school bus rolls to the curb. The doors open and middle school kids dart out. A girl with my light brown hair and my nose adjusts her backpack, walking towards the house.
Emily forces a smile for her daughter. “Hi honey, can you go inside please?”
Her daughter squints at me, fixing her large round glasses on her nose. “Aren’t you Loren Hale?”