Chapter Twenty-Four
Brittany
It was more than just humiliation that I was feeling. It was pure, unadulterated hurt. The only reason why it was affecting me so badly was because I thought I had stopped caring a long time ago. And if that had been true, then his words would have lost the power to hurt me. But they still cut like a knife, and I was that sad ten-year-old again, craving for her father’s love and approval.
I sat next to Talen, trying to calm the shaking and hoping that he wouldn’t notice how distraught I was. But I could sense him glance over at me every few seconds, and I knew I hadn’t fooled him. When he pulled up outside my building, I gave him a glance without meeting his eyes.
“I… I can’t really talk right now,” I mumbled.
“I understand,” Talen replied.
“Thank you for coming with me,” I said weakly.
I got out of the car and headed inside. I didn’t hear Talen leave, but I wasn’t paying much attention anyway. I walked up the stairs in a daze, fumbled with my key, and dropped it twice before I finally managed to get the door open. Then I walked into my tiny apartment, sat down in the dark, and stared at the blank wall where my television used to sit.
The darkness was oppressive, and it created a canvas for memory. I kept reliving the same moment over and over again. That bite in his voice, that cold unfeeling indifference in his eyes when he told me he wasn’t going to give me a cent. I saw it all and somehow it seemed worse now than it did then.
Was I really so hard to love? Was I really such a terrible child that my own father couldn’t find it in him to tolerate me?
I wanted something to hold on to, something to keep me from drowning, but I was alone. I was completely alone in the dark. And then suddenly, a noise caught my attention, and I turned as my front door creaked open.
“Talen?” I said, sitting up a little straighter.
He walked inside and closed the door behind him. “I know you don’t want to talk,” he said. “And, we don’t have to talk. I just…want to sit with you. Is that okay?”
His tone was gentle and his eyes were so kind, and that was exactly what I needed just then. I nodded slowly as he sat down beside me and drew me into the circle of his arms. I rested my head against his strong, broad chest and breathed in and out in slowly. I felt him kiss the top of my head and that one gesture alone was enough to soothe me. My tears didn’t dry up, but I didn’t feel like I was going to break, either. I turned my face up to his.
“I think I’m ready to talk now,” I told him.
“You don’t have to,” he said. “I’m happy to just sit here with you.”
“I know,” I nodded. “But I think I want to talk… I think it might be cathartic.”
“Okay,” Talen nodded. But he didn’t prompt me. He just sat there holding me, waiting for me to speak when I was ready.
I took a deep breath. “My mother’s name was Lucy,” I started. “She was a natural blonde, and she had brown eyes. That’s how I used to describe her in school when we wrote essays about our mothers. But when we wrote essays about our fathers… I didn’t really have much to say. I’d never really met my father. My mother and I lived alone in this tiny one-bedroom apartment above this rat-infested Chinese restaurant.
“The thing is… Mom talked about my father a lot. She told me that he was a handsome man who lived in a beautiful place with trees in the front garden and big cars in the drive. So, I grew up knowing I had a father and knowing he was out there. I just… I’d never really seen him.
“One day when I was seven or eight, I demanded to be taken to him. I was convinced that Mom had made him up and wanted to know for sure. She was hesitant at first, but then she nodded, got me all dressed up, and then we headed over to this amazing house in the city.
“I couldn’t quite believe my eyes… I had never seen anything so beautiful before. We stood outside his door, we were shown into a massive drawing room and we were told that Fletcher McMillian would be down shortly. He showed up half an hour later. When he saw my mother… He wasn’t happy, I can say that much. He asked her why she had come and why she had brought me.”
I felt Talen’s arms enclose around me, and I knew he was trying to give me comfort. “You see, they had an agreement in place… My mother was a poor waitress in a local restaurant, and my father was the rich businessman who got bored one day. They spent one night together, and I was the product of that unfortunate pairing. When Mom tracked him down and told him she was pregnant, he told her to get an abortion. She told him she had come because she wanted to let him know she was keeping me.
“He tried to talk her out of it, but she refused to budge. He told her that he wasn’t interested in being a father. I don’t really know what Mom wanted from him, but in the end, they came to an agreement. Fletcher agreed to give her a monthly allowance, child support so to speak. In return, she would live her life separately and he would have nothing to do with…me.
“So every month, Mom would get her money and Fletcher would continue on with his luxurious, childless life.
“Apparently, Mom tried to contact him a couple of times when I was a baby. She tried to send him photos and cards detailing my milestones. He returned them all, reminding her of their agreement. But when I started insisting on meeting my father, Mom said she couldn’t ignore my requests any longer.
“I don’t know what she expected really,” I sighed. “He had made it abundantly clear that he had no interest in being a parent. I think she must have thought that seeing me would change his mind. It didn’t. He looked me up and down as though I was a piece of furniture and then he told my mom to take me and leave.
“She cried the whole way back. I cried, too…though I wasn’t quite sure what had happened at the time. After that, I never asked to see my father again. But I remembered his name and where he lived. When I got older, I used to walk by his neighborhood, pass his house, and every once in awhile, I saw him come and go. He never saw me, though. He probably wouldn’t have recognized me even if he had.”
I stopped talking for a moment. My throat was a little parched, but I didn’t want to get up and get water because now that I had started the story, I needed to finish it.
Talen was silent as stone, but I knew he was listening. His blue eyes were focused, and I could see the twinge of emotion flitting through them. I saw the flicker of outrage, anger, sadness, and derision. I could see that he felt for me, that he was outraged on my behalf. It was nice… It was nice to have someone on my side; it was nice to have someone who understood what it felt like to be an outsider.
“And then when I was sixteen, my world turned upside down,” I continued. “I was in school, and I was called in to the principal’s office. I had to sit there while Principal MacKay held my hand and told me that there had been an accident and my mother was in the hospital. It was only after I got there that they told me she had died.”
Talen looked down at me in shock. I held his gaze for only a moment before I looked away and continued with my story. “I had no one… My mother had been a foster child who had no real family. I had no aunts and uncles, no grandparents, no family to speak of. All I had was my mother’s last will and testament. And in it, my father’s name was clearly stated for the world to see. And just like that, I found myself on Fletcher McMillian’s doorstep again.
“He wasn’t happy, but he had no choice now. He was all I had left in the world, and he was forced to take me in. I lived with him for a year… A full year of feeling unwanted and unwelcome before I finally decided to leave. I packed my bags, dropped out of school and left his house. I was seventeen…”
Talen looked down at me. “Brittany…”
“You don’t have to say anything, Talen,” I told him. “You listened – that’s enough for me.”
He nodded slowly. Then he bent his head down and kissed me gently on the lips. When we pulled apart, I was feeling a little calmer. “Thank you for staying, and thank you for listening. But… I think I need to be alone tonight.”
“Of course,” he nodded.
He kissed me again and then left me to my empty apartment. I sat in the darkness for a moment longer and then I got up, put my jogging tights on, and headed outside for a late night run. I was surprised by how much I had started to enjoy running. It was more comforting than I could have imagined and it actually helped me breathe.
I ran for a long time. I ran until my legs ached, my muscles were sore, and my sides were burning. Then when I had enough, I turned around and started jogging back home at a steady pace. The talk and the run had done me a world of good, and I was starting to feel a little more in control of my feelings.
My financial situation was still the same, but it didn’t matter. I shouldn’t have been taking money from a man like that in any case. Better to suffer and come up on my own, rather than accept money from him and come up the easy way.
I didn’t know how I was going to get myself out of this hole, but I was determined to try. If I had survived a year under Fletcher McMillian’s roof, I could certainly get through this. I was going to make it on my own, and I was going to prove my so-called father wrong, once and for all.