I guided her to the couch and let her get comfortable while I grabbed us two waters. On the way back, I surreptitiously grabbed a box of tissues as well. I’d known what I was about to divulge to her was going to be painful for us both. When I sat down, I faced her nervously.
“What I’m about to tell you is something I’ve kept a closely guarded secret since it happened. Only a very small handful of people have ever been told, and I thought it would always stay that way.”
“Everything started to change about eighteen months ago, around the time we started talking about retiring. It hit me that I’d been living a lie since I was twelve years old. Worse than that, I finally realized that by keeping everything secret, I was denying the best parts of myself. By letting the story out I’m hoping there’s a chance to make a difference in someone else’s life.”
She took my hand in hers and rubbed it encouragingly. “I’m here for you,” she assured me. “Take your time.”
I nodded, rolling my head from side to side on my shoulders as I chose my words carefully.
“My dad was the boyfriend of one of my mother’s roommates after college. There were four of them sharing an apartment, and of the bunch, the only person my mom didn’t like was Dad’s girlfriend, Margaret. I think it was because she was jealous. Dad played in a band—bass, of course—and my mother had a crush on him. She always told me how impossible it was to believe he was with Margaret when she was right there.
About a year later, Dad and Margaret were on a break. Mom saw her window and decided to go for it. They slept with each other for about a month before they agreed they had nothing in common. Mom was a little slow on the uptake and didn’t realize for quite a while that she was pregnant. By the time she had it confirmed, Dad and Margaret were back together. She’s never admitted it, but I think the primary reason my mom kept me is because she wanted to stick it to Margaret. It damn sure wasn’t because she had maternal feelings.”
I thought back over the circumstances of my birth and had to force myself to hold my temper. My mother had always been a piece of work.
“When Mom had me she didn’t give me my father’s last name. He wasn’t even listed on my birth certificate. Allen is her maiden name. She was a complete bitch, only letting him see me when Margaret wasn’t around. I give him credit—he could’ve walked away in disgust and written me off, but he didn’t. He fought hard, and when he finally started making some money to give to her, Mom started letting him see me more often. I was just a toddler when Dad and Margaret had a baby of their own, my sister Alexandra.”
I could see the surprise as it flickered over her face. If she’d looked into me at all, she’d seen the bullshit bio that said Mom’s husband Laird was my father and I had no siblings.
“My mom and Margaret never got along. Not even for five minutes. Having met my mom I’m sure you’re thinking it was her but in reality, it wasn’t. Margaret was…”
I trailed off, trying to choose my words. There were a million and five things I could say about Margaret, and none of them were kind.
“Insane,” I said finally. “I don’t mean it like she heard voices or was bipolar. I mean she was a goddamn crazy cunt who was created in the bowels of hell.”
Daisy’s eyes widened as she stared at me in shock.
“She was?”
I nodded. “She was a fucking nightmare. Back then shit like I’m about to tell you wasn’t discussed so no one knew what to call it. Her moods were all over the place and she was the world’s biggest control freak. My dad had to cater to her every whim, and she constantly berated him. She was hostile and aggressive—stealing his car keys, letting the air out of his tires, locking him out of the house if he was five minutes late from work, checking his emails, breaking his phones, following him around… it was insane. He’d get fed up and decide to leave, and suddenly she’d turn into an angel. The cycle was vicious and it went on for years.
Most people don’t realize men can be victims of domestic abuse. It’s underreported because of the shame, and that’s how people like Margaret get away with it. She frequently got physical with him and she wasn’t a good mom to Alexandra, either. My dad wanted to leave but she’d always threaten to keep Alexandra and he couldn’t just leave her there. At one point they broke up and it seemed like it was going to stick, but she came crawling back with some bullshit story about therapy and being a family. That lasted for two weeks, and during that time, she got pregnant.”
Dad had really had it by the time Jason was a year old. I didn’t live with them—they lived up in the Poconos and I lived in New Jersey with Mom and her fiancé Laird. They’re married now. I went to Dad’s every weekend and for the summers. The last summer I was there, I was twelve, Jason was two, and Alexandra was ten going on eleven. My dad had finally kicked Margaret out of the house and filed for divorce. She’d been gone for months and things were looking up. I was hoping I’d be able to move in with him permanently with her gone. My mom’s only reason for not allowing it before was because of Margaret. Everything was good, and then…”
I swallowed sickly as I prepared myself to finish the story and then had to force the words past the lump in my throat. I told Daisy everything, even though it fucking killed me to do it. She bawled her eyes out as she listened, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. When I was finished, I was crying, too.
She climbed into my lap and held on like she’d never let go. The two of us rocked back and forth and cried for what felt like an eternity. By the time we were finished almost the entire box of tissues was wadded up around us.
I took my phone from my pocket and unlocked it before pulling up the photos I carried with me everywhere.
“This is my family,” I said proudly.
She took the phone from me and began scrolling through, gasping when she saw my dad.
“He could be your twin,” she noted.
I let out a choked cry as I nodded. “His name was Jason Alexander McCafferty. Now that I’ve gotten to the point where I’m talking about him, I’m going to do what I should’ve done years ago. It’s time to change my last name to his. My mom was never a parent and it isn’t her name I want to pass on.”
She wiped the tears from my cheeks lovingly. “I think that’s beautiful.”
We scrolled through more pictures of my dad with me as a baby and then we got to my sister. Daisy cried when she came to the first picture of Alexandra and me, then cried more when she saw Jason.
“You all have the same eyes.”
I let out a dry laugh as I nodded. “Yeah. People used to joke that my dad must’ve been descended from wolves.”
It felt cathartic to go through the pictures with her. I told her stories about Alexandra’s obsession with No Doubt and Jason’s larger than life personality. I talked about my dad and how he found rhythm in everything, teaching all of us kids to listen to the heartbeat to find peace.
“Jason had this ugly little bear that played the heartbeat sound for hours every night,” I chuckled. “At first it was annoying but then, I got used to it being there, like some kind of a metronome. Dad said he fell in love with each one of us the first time he heard our hearts beating, because hearing the rhythm made him feel connected.”
I then told her all about why I’d started doing drugs and why I’d almost killed myself with heroin chasing the sound.
“That’s so sad,” she whimpered.
“I was scared as fuck of the sound after that,” I admitted. “And then, I met you.”
She cocked her head to the side and furrowed her brow.
“What about me?” she asked.
“When I took your hand in mine, I heard it. That’s really why I freaked the fuck out and was a miserable prick to you at first. I was scared.”
“You—you heard it? How?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know how, I just know that I do. It happens every day with you at some point. I’m not scared of it anymore though. Now, I look forward to it. I know it means we’re meant to be together. You’re my person.”
Her lips trembled when she smiled at me.
“Can I tell you something?”
I nodded. “Of course, Freckles. Anything.”
“I—I love you.”
I’d been around people who swore those three little words changed their lives and I’d always written it off as being bullshit.
I.
Was.
Wrong.
Daisy telling me she loved me wasn’t just a gift, it was an anchor, a solid weight that I knew I’d be able to rely on forever.
“I love you too,” I croaked before pulling her in close so I could kiss her.
When we finally broke apart, she rubbed her hands over my cheeks reverently.
“I get it now,” she said. “I understand why you don’t want to sleep with anyone in the room and I’m okay with—”
“That ends now,” I said firmly. “We’re going to try it tonight, and every night after, until it just is. If I need to go back to therapy to make it happen, so be it.”
“I don’t want you to feel like you have to,” she murmured.
“I do have to,” I admitted. “I have to know that I can move on. I’ve come so far. I can’t stop until we go all the way.”
That night, we slept together in the same bed. I got one hundred and fifty-three minutes of sleep before I woke up in a panic. Instead of leaving, I stayed. And I continued to stay every time I woke up in a panic after that.
It didn’t happen quickly, but over time I let go of my fear and let love in. Within five weeks, we were sharing a bedroom and I was sleeping through the night.
Love did that for me. It shone a light in my darkest places and thawed the ice block I’d built around my heart.
With her at my side I enjoyed every second of the last tour. Whether it was at the ‘prom’ party we had in England or the walking expedition we took in Italy, I was truly and blessedly content and in the moment.
With Daisy, I’d found something I never thought I’d have.
Love and happiness.