“What?” I said, loud and accusatory.
She turned to me, her eyes glistening with threatening tears. I felt my stomach tighten. I had spent the last twenty-four hours in a paralyzing depression caused by my psychotic father, and here my mother sat, crying for his safety. My blood began to rise in a slow boil as frustration mixed with disappointment in a way I had never experienced before.
“He left us, Mom,” I said. “He doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, honey.” I could hear the longing in her voice, and I shied away from her. “I know it must be so hard for you to understand; you are still so young.”
“I understand he left us. What more is there?” I could feel my anger rising in me. Most of the time I could squash down my outrage, but this time, I didn’t want to. This time, I wanted to feel it. I wanted to yell, and I wanted everything that had been balling up in me to come crashing out. I needed it to.
“There is a lot more, sweetheart; more than I think I could ever make you understand.” Her voice was pleading, and it only set me off more.
“Try me,” I growled.
She hesitated, our eyes locked onto one another in some sort of death match. I could tell she was trying to gauge how much she could tell me and how I would respond, just as I had done to her a few moments ago.
Her arm moved back around my shoulders, pulling me into an awkward side-hug. “When I met your father, we were in college. We were young and he was dashing.” She sighed and looked away, lost in her memories.
“Some people say young love is fleeting, but I think that’s wrong. I think young love is perfect. It’s pure and full of hope and desire, but it’s more than that. Young love—true love—changes you. It’s like something deep down inside you grows and becomes part of the other person. It only takes a moment, but in that one fleeting glance of space and time, you change. You want to be with that person, and with no one else.”
My fuming began to lessen. I had never heard my mother talk like this before, her voice so soft and light. The way she spoke, I could see my parents meeting, the love she would have had in her eyes. All of a sudden, my anger began to lull.
“That’s how it was when I met your father. I couldn’t be without him, and in that one moment, when he first kissed me, I knew I never had to be. He was mine, and I was his. I know it sounds crazy, and you don’t have to believe me, but I still feel that way for him. I love him, Joclyn. Even though he left us, I still love him. I think you do, too. That’s why it hurts so much that he didn’t want to see you.” She scanned me as she pleaded for me to understand.
I knew she was right, but at the same time, she was so very wrong. He did want to see me. He had sent me a gift and tracked me down. What hurt so much, and what had broken my heart, was that he had betrayed me. He had used my blasted mark against me, told the world, and created some fabricated story that turned me into a science project.
“So, you’re happy he’s alive, and not mad because you still love him?” I could feel the bile rising in my throat.
“Honey, I—”
“No! That’s not okay, Mom. He left us. He left you. He saw his broken daughter and bailed so he wouldn’t have to fix her. He didn’t even care enough to try! Where was his love for me? Where was his commitment to either of us?” The bottled emotions of eleven years returned and came flooding out of me in a rush, my tongue barely able to form words through the threatening tears.
“Joclyn! Don’t say that. He thinks he left out of love—”
“Which only proves that he didn’t love us! That he didn’t care.”
“But he does,” she pleaded. “Don’t you see? He came to your grandparents; he asked about both of us, I’m sure. It only proves that he does love us; he does care.”
This time, I kept my anger in check. This time, I slowed my heartbeat. I had to; I couldn’t tell my mother the truth. Her words were so desperate. The truth that she had somehow been waiting for him to return all this time made me sick to my stomach. I glanced toward the garbage can where the ripped-up letter laid, the weight of my lie feeling like lead in my gut. I stood up, the forgotten cell phone tumbling to the ground.