More Than Lies (More Than #1)(112)
“Who’s the picture of?” He doesn’t answer, but he does start to talk.
“When Katherine and I married, she got pregnant with Trent almost immediately after the wedding. I wasn’t upset about your brother being born, but I would have rather it happened a few years down the road. I’d just started working for a law firm. I wasn’t even partner. I was at the bottom of the bottom, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to afford my now growing family. Katherine was enough work and a drain on my wallet as is, but then you add a baby to the mix. Eventually, I let my worries and stress play a factor in distancing myself from Katherine more and more. I worked more. I had to if I ever wanted a partnership.” His fingers brush over the frame briefly before he continues on.
“A few years after Trent’s birth, I had an affair with my secretary, and it wasn’t just a one-time thing. It continued for four years, and then she called it off when I wouldn’t leave Katherine. It’s not that I loved Katherine, I didn’t anymore. I realized when I started cheating that I had never truly been in love with my wife. But I had a son. I loved my son more than anything, and that’s what kept me married to a woman I didn’t want to be with. The woman I had fallen in love with, the woman that should have been my forever, didn’t understand that. She begged, and that ended up becoming her obsession for a while. Eventually it started fights between us. I couldn’t leave my family, and she didn’t understand why I’d stay if I truly loved her like I claimed.” He chokes up on the last part. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around my father cheating on my mother. It’s not something I’ve ever thought about, but looking back, I’ve never seen them so much as kiss each other.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Just hear me out, sweetheart.” He looks at me waiting for an answer. I nod my head telling him to go on. “The other woman ended our relationship one night out of the blue. She said, she finally understood why I couldn’t leave my child. Then she told me she never wanted to see me again and I should forget all about her. As if that were possible. I was in shock at first, and I left her that night thinking she would come to her senses in a day or two, take me back, and we would figure us out and work around my marriage with Katherine. I was a fool. Her resignation was sitting on my desk when I walked into my office the next morning. She must have moved out of her apartment the same night I left, because she was gone when I came back. She had her phone number changed, too, so I had no way of contacting her. It was seven months before I saw those beautiful blue eyes again.” He looks down at the picture, then lifts his head, and turns his eyes toward me. “But they weren’t hers any longer, they were yours.”
A tear falls from his eye the same time he slips the photo around to face me. I stare down and it’s like looking at myself in the mirror, but I know that isn’t me in the picture. The picture is old.
“The night you were born, I held you in my arms only after about two minutes of finding out you existed. When you opened your eyes was when I saw your mother again, and every time I’ve looked at you since I see so much of her in you. How can I not? With the exception of the dark complexion you got from me, you look just like her.”
“I don’t understand. What are you saying?”
“This is Lynn.” He raises the photo. “Your real mom.”
What do I say to all this? First I have my heart shattered, then I find out my whole life has been a big fat lie—all within a few hours of each other. This is too much to deal with.
“Why are you just now telling me this? Why have I thought and called someone else, Mother, my entire life?” It makes sense now. She hates me because I’m not hers. I never had a chance in hell of gaining her approval, let alone her love. “Why isn’t she in my life?” I take the photo frame from him only to hold it up toward him. “Why am I not calling her mom?”
Where is she? So many questions are running through my brain at once that I can’t catch up. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest I’m sure it’s going to come out.
“She’s dead.” It’s like glass shattering, only it’s not glass; it’s me. You can pick up glass and toss it in the trash, then buy something new. How does that work for a person’s soul? How do I fix this?
My father continues speaking, and I hear every word, but it’s like I’m hearing him at a distance. My mother, my real mother, took her own life a few hours after I was born. She never got over him. She was weak; he thinks he made her so weak that she couldn’t deal with a life without him in it if he wasn’t with her.
“Pam and Lynn were best friends. She called me the night you were born, after Lynn committed suicide. I didn’t learn that until after I met you. Your mom left me a note asking me to take care of you because she couldn’t, and you deserved more than she could give. With the note was the paperwork for your birth certificate. Lynn named you Tara Michelle Evans. I added the Lynn onto Tara before I submitted the papers. Michelle is Pam’s middle name. I know you know that, but you are actually named after her. Pam even tried to persuade me to let her adopt you, but I wouldn’t—I couldn’t. You were my daughter. No one was going to raise you but me, so when I saw the spot for the mother’s name was blank on the birth certificate, I made a decision. I named Katherine as your mother.”