Roberta couldn’t breathe. The muscles requiring this to happen failed to work. Her chest was filled with pain and she swayed, dangerously close to fainting as she took shaky breaths. Strong arms held her steady. She needed to concentrate on processing one word at a time.
Bob. Is. My. Biological. Dad.
A volcano bubbled below the surface, and within seconds, it erupted. All her anger was vented towards her mother. Every event in her life led to this moment. Every difficult moment between them. Each time her mother looked at her with that look Roberta could never decipher. Now, it all came rushing back. “You knew this?” she spat, her voice filled with disbelief.
“I … I’ve suspected it.” Lily’s voice wobbled.
“Suspected it! What, since the day I was born?”
Lily offered a slight nod, her fingers a cruelly knotted mess in front of her stomach. “When Bob first phoned me, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. He suggested I get hair samples DNA tested, along with his. It’s … it’s a match. But I … I already knew it would be.”
Roberta sucked in more air, her chest hurting as she struggled to speak. She was vaguely aware of Nate’s continued, reassuring grip on her arms. Otherwise, she might’ve collapsed by now. “You sent me up here for what? You told me nothing, leaving that small bit of information out. Why? I knew there was more I needed to know, but why let me believe Billy was my father? Why not tell me the truth before all the bullshit I went through?”
Lily fought back, growling. “You were supposed to find the sapphire and come back home. But oh no, not stubborn and headstrong Roberta. You had to open the hornet’s nest behind my back, go it alone, get it all wrong right from the start. Upset everyone.”
Roberta’s eyes widened in utter disbelief, unable to comprehend what she was hearing. “You’re saying this is all my fault? Like somehow, I was involved in this deception?”
Her mother swayed, but Bob held her tight. The scowl dropped, changing to forlorn and sad. “Oh, Roberta, I have held onto this forever. It’s torn at me every single day, but there was no way I would ever hurt Sam.”
“Sam! Dad! He loved me like his own daughter,” Roberta wailed. “I loved him, but you’ve lived a lie your entire married life. How could you?”
“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I haven’t mulled over my actions every single day since you were born? I made a mistake. Hell, I made many mistakes, but not once did I ever regret you coming into my life.”
Roberta sagged back against Nate, her body exhausted. “But we were always at odds, like I was the bad kid.”
“I didn’t want you making the same mistakes I did. You were always so wild. Some days, I doubted myself and wondered if you really were Billy’s child.”
“But you knew, didn’t you? The minute I was born and didn’t have the blonde hair and blue eyes, you knew I was never Billy’s child?”
Tears trickled down Lily’s cheeks, and her face fell sombre. “It made it so much easier for the world to view you as Sam’s child. For some absurd reason, God looked down on me with pity instead of anger and gave you Bob’s features, which easily passed as Sam’s. But now I realise it was only a temporary reprieve. One day, I would have to pay for the secret. I can’t lose you, Roberta, you’ve got to know that. You’re my everything, and I’m so proud of you. I love you. That will never change.”
Roberta wasn’t game enough to look at Bob, couldn’t look at her mother. Couldn’t process anything past the anger still simmering towards her. What she once considered to be a perfect childhood, a haven, her backdrop, her family security, was now a mishmash of confusion and uncertainty. Like the earth had been stripped from underneath her. Who was she?
“How about we all sit down?”
Nate’s sensible suggestion grated. Nate with his perfect, loving family. She was so out of place in his life she almost burst out laughing. She needed something to break the trance she was in.
Lily came closer and tried to wrap her arms around Roberta, but she shrugged her away. She wasn’t ready for that. Nate tried to guide her to the table, but she fought back standing firm. She wasn’t budging an inch. Only when she was ready. An awkward silence filled the small room, but the buzzing inside her head grew louder. Until it reached bursting point. Until it shot through the top like molten lava and she stumbled a step back. “I have to leave. Can’t be here, in this room with all of you.”
Lily and Nate exchanged a knowing look. One that spoke of trying to stop her. She wasn’t having a bar of it. With a sense of urgency, she raced to her room for her handbag and spun around to leave but halted. Having second thoughts, she rummaged inside the built-in cupboard for the duffel bag she came with and shoved everything, including the few pairs of shoes, inside it.
Lily followed her in and stood in the doorway. “Don’t do this, Roberta.”
She ignored her mother and picked up a discarded shopping bag. From the bathroom, she grabbed her toothbrush and other items, piling them messily on top of each other. “Go away!”
“Please don’t drive in this condition.”
“What condition? You’ve been lying to me my entire life. If being pissed off is a condition, then yes, I have it.”
Roberta slung her handbag and duffel bag over her shoulder and stormed out of the bedroom, only to slam into Nate. He not so gently grabbed her by the arm to halt her. “Roberta, please don’t go anywhere. Let’s talk this through together.”
“I’m done with talking.” Evading his hold, she stormed out the front door. She was smart enough not to make a scene outside the cottage because visitors would still be at the lake, and she wasn’t that sort of person. She zipped her mouth, aware Nate followed her every step as she made her way to the top car park.
“Roberta, please don’t drive like this.”
She ignored him until she got to her car, then she spun around, her chest hurting with the exertion of climbing the steps.
“Forget about me, Nate. I’m a mess. I’m no good for you and your perfect family.”
“Perfect family!” he hissed between drawn lips. “Who cares about my perfect family? What about us? You’re going to walk away?”
A low growl escaped, starting deep within her and moving up her throat. “The news didn’t come as a shock to you? Like dirty laundry being hung out to dry for all the world to see?” She kept her voice low, but so much emotion bubbled inside her that she struggled to speak without her voice breaking.
“Only when she asked to come over did I begin to have the slightest niggle.”
“You kept it from me, too?” Her voice rose a notch, but she gritted her teeth to keep from yelling.
“I kept nothing from you. If I did know, it wasn’t my place to tell you.” Nate spoke in a clipped whisper, struggling to keep his voice down too. A family walking past them looked in their direction.
“You’ll regret getting tangled up with me. Go live your life free of all this drama. I’m leaving. I was always leaving. There’s no reason for me to stay now.”
“Don’t go, please. Give us a chance to talk this through.”
Roberta brushed his common sense aside, a barrage of longing only just hanging in there. “It’ll never work, Nate. It’s better if I leave now. I’m such a bloody mess. The last person you want anywhere near you is me. Go live your life. You’re better off without me.” If she didn’t get away now, it would all come rushing out. God knows what she’d do then.
She yanked the car door open, threw her collection of bags onto the front passenger seat and settled in the driver’s seat. Nate loosely held the door from closing. He was so damn fucking nice he would never stand in her way. The realisation he was giving up on her too easily struck hard. Why wasn’t he fighting for her to stay when she needed someone forceful to do just that? And why was she letting her stupid stubbornness get in the way and ruin everything between them? Would she ever learn?
“Roberta, I won’t stop you from leaving, but I wish I could. We had something between us. You leaving is going to hurt. Take care—” His voice broke, and he took a moment before adding in a whisper she barely caught, “I’ll miss you.”
She closed the door on those final heartfelt words and started the engine. The regret of running away from a good man would haunt her for the rest of her life.
In her periphery, Nate didn’t move as she erratically reversed before changing the gears to drive forwards. Only when she was facing away from Nate did heaving sobs tear at her throat as she negotiated the exit from the lake onto the main highway. She was headed for Sally’s place, away from the lake. Away from Nate, her mother and her biological father. Her foot pressed a little harder on the accelerator, the need to find sanctuary for a couple of days before starting the drive back to Melbourne taking up all the space in her head.
Through the blurriness of her tears, she didn’t see the truck that turned onto the highway and was slowly building up speed. Was sure she’d applied the brakes in time. Her scream grazed her throat only seconds before the impact. The sickening sound of crunching metal was the last sound she heard.