Laura had offered to come with me. I had said no because I thought I was strong enough.
I was wrong.
“What?”
My mother pressed her lips together.
“We adopted you when you were three weeks old.”
“No.”
It was stupid. A child’s answer. But it came out anyway.
“No.”
My father sighed, irritated even now.
“Daniel, don’t be dramatic.”
I looked at him, and something ancient in me recoiled.
“All my life,” I said slowly, “you let me believe I owed you for being born.”
My mother reached for me.
“We loved you.”
I stepped back.
“You used me.”
Her hand fell.
My father’s face hardened.
“We gave you a home. Food. Education. Our name.”
“And the bill came due every day after.”
He flinched.
Good.
My mother began crying then, quietly.
“We were going to tell you.”
“When?”
No answer.
“When I paid off your mortgage? When I funded Vanessa’s business that never opened? When my children were old enough for you to treat them like servants too?”
“Vanessa doesn’t know,” my mother whispered.
That surprised me.
“She doesn’t?”
My father scoffed. “Of course not. Your mother thought it would upset the family balance.”
Family balance.
I almost laughed.
A whole childhood explained by two ugly words.
I looked at my mother.
“Did Anna give me up?”
She closed her eyes.
“Not exactly.”
The snow thickened.
“What does that mean?”
My father said, “Enough.”
But my mother spoke over him, and for the first time in my life, she sounded afraid of something besides embarrassment.
“She was young. Alone. She worked for my father’s company. She got sick after you were born. There were complications.”
My pulse beat in my throat.
“Did she want me?”
My mother cried harder.
That was answer enough.
But I needed words.
“Did she want me?”
“Yes,” my mother whispered. “She wanted you.”
The world went very quiet.
My whole life, there had been a hollow place inside me I could not name. I had filled it with obedience, money, achievement, usefulness. I had thought if I became good enough, calm enough, generous enough, my mother would finally look at me with the softness other children seemed to receive for free.
But somewhere, once, another woman had held me.
Wanted me.
Lost me.
“What happened to her?”
My mother looked at my father.
He said nothing.
“She died when you were six months old,” she said.
I gripped the porch railing.
The metal was cold enough to burn.
“Did she ever see me again?”
My mother swallowed.
“Once.”