Don't Let Go(57)

She laughed as more tears fell. “You don’t know?” She scooped her hair back and let it fall. “Really?”
“Really,” I echoed. “I never even saw these pictures until today,” I said, irritability bringing my own burn back to my eyes. “My mother—” I took a deep breath and let it go. “My mother had these hidden away.”
Becca’s eyes narrowed, disbelief all over her features. “Why would she do that? Why wasn’t he here? Why would Dad let—”
I was already shaking my head, trying to reach for her but she pulled away. And backed up a step, pointing a finger at me.
“Dad wasn’t the dad, was he?” she breathed.
My throat felt like it was closing up. Nothing was going like I’d hoped. Not that I’d hoped any of it. I’d hidden my life in a box just like my mother had.
“No.”
“Oh, my God,” she said, raking her fingers through her hair. She turned and headed up three steps before turning back to me, disgust contorting her features. “You cheated on Dad?”
“No!” I exclaimed. “It was years before I met your father.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Years before?” she said, bewilderment adding to the gamut of emotions on her face.
Then it cleared. The knit between her eyebrows smoothed as I watched her wheels turn and everything I’d dreaded worked out in her head. She did the math. Nana Mae was right. I should have told her long ago. When she was eight and having a mysterious brother would have been cool, and I wouldn’t be a horrible troll.
“If you had a kid twenty-six years ago,” she said. “You would have been eighteen.”
Oh, my math-challenged baby girl. My chin trembled, but I refused to have yet another breakdown today. I held my head up and tried my best to keep up the parent role, although I was beginning to feel more like the child.
“Seventeen.”
She drew in a shaky breath and shook her head. “You’re such a hypocrite.” With that, she wheeled around and stomped up the stairs.
“Where are you going?” I said, my voice cracking.
“To change my clothes,” she said, disappearing over the top and slamming her door.
“Shit,” I muttered, pressing my palms against my pounding temples. Harley sat on the bottom step, looking upward, and I lowered myself to the one above her. “This went well, don’t you think?” I asked her.
I needed to tell her the whole thing so she’d get it. So she’d understand my choices and my reasons—but who was I kidding? Becca wasn’t going to understand those things. Ever. You had to live it, and even then I wasn’t totally clear on it. And I never wanted her to have to make the decisions I’d made.
Two minutes later, changed into all black—clearly the wardrobe choice of the day—and eyeliner fixed from her momentary emotional slip, Becca came charging down the stairs. Her expression was cold and glazed over.
“I have to go,” she said.
“You’re not leaving right now, Bec,” I said, sitting there with Harley like we were some sort of wall.
“The hell I’m not,” she said, her face never breaking its mask.
Oh, how she knew what buttons to push to piss me off. I rose in one move, and even Harley seemed to catch the mood. She got up and headed out back through her doggie door, not wanting any part of the scene about to ensue.
“I told you we need to talk,” I said.
“I told you I have plans.”
“You don’t tell me anything, Becca,” I said, raising my voice. “And you don’t talk to me this way. As long as you live in my house—”
“Then I won’t,” she said, glaring at me. “I’ll go live with Dad.”
My blood felt like it was on fire. The classic manipulative tool in every divorce kid’s arsenal. She’d never played it before.
“Go ahead,” I said softly. “But be damn sure of your decision, because you only get to use that card with me once.”
Her eyes glazed over again. “Whatever. I don’t care what you say anymore.”
“Becca Ann, I know you’re upset right now,” I said, trying to rein my own anger in. She knew how to light me up and seemed hell-bent on pushing me to the limit. “But you watch your mouth. You are not my equal, young lady. Remember your place.”
“And what is that?” she yelled. “Only child? Second child? Daughter to a lying hypocrite?”
Fire blazed hot in my brain and my hand came up before I could stop it. The smack across her cheek made us both suck in our breaths. I felt like my eyes were as wide as hers as we stared at each other in disbelief, neither of us breathing.
I’d never hit her before. Not like that. Not in anger. She’d gotten swats on her hands or bottom when she was little and being disciplined, but I’d never slapped her like that.
Her eyes filled with tears again as she palmed her cheek, and everything in me broke. The day descended on me with the weight of a tank, crushing any resolve I had left. A sob escaped my throat and I gripped the stairway railing.
“Go,” I choked out, emotion taking me over.
She didn’t move, just stood there, shocked and crying silently, holding her cheek. I shut my eyes and clamped a hand over my mouth, wanting the stairs to open up and swallow me. To take me away somewhere dark where I could come apart in solitude, where I wouldn’t have witnesses and couldn’t wreck anyone else’s lives.
“Leave,” I said through my fingers, my sobs pulling the last bit of energy from me.
Finally, she moved. Slowly, robotically, she stepped around me, sniffling. Walked out the door, closing it behind her with a click.