Yes, let’s meet up today for a girly chat. What time are you free?june
I swam lazy laps back and forth across the school swimming pool. I swept my arms up and then down, pulling my body slowly through the water. The smell of chlorine was strong in my nose, the cool water slipping like satin around me.
At the end of the lane I crunched my body, lifted my feet, and spun underwater. My feet connected with the wall. I pushed off, arrowing my arms ahead of me. I pulled my right arm back and kicked. Then bam, head up for my first breath, and back down.
This was what I liked about swimming: the rhythm of it, the consistency, the freedom. At its core, swimming was about me being free to be me. I didn’t have to worry about all the shit outside. I knew this feeling would be ruined once I started competing again in the fall. Sometimes I thought about quitting. I just didn’t want to let anybody down. My coach, my teammates, my mom.
When I pulled myself out of the pool and draped my towel around my shoulders, I heard my text message indicator going off from my bag. I dried my hands and rummaged around for my phone.
It was Aunt Sarah replying to my earlier text. Hi sweetie! What a lovely offer from my favorite niece! Yes, let’s meet up today for a girly chat. What time are you free?
I typed a quick response. Just finished swimming. How about now? I’ll be home in fifteen.
She replied right away. Ok, see you then.
I put my phone away and pulled my bracelet out of the safety compartment in my backpack, securing it around my wrist. Swimming was the only time I took my bracelet off. I didn’t want the chlorine to ruin it.
Then I headed toward the showers. I knew Mom would be gone for a couple hours—she ran the eight-mile beachfront loop every Saturday—so I had lots of time to get some answers from Sarah.
I’d only just gotten home when I heard the crunch of tires outside. I threw open the door and stepped onto the front porch. The gravel in the driveway was pitted with dirty puddles. My aunt stepped carefully around them, trying to keep her white ballet flats clean. Her cropped tan pants and pink, lace-edged Banana Republic top shouted suburban mom.
“Hi!” She waved enthusiastically.
I waved back. Sarah was always overly cheerful and friendly; she was sort of the opposite of my mom. My mom’s nice—it’s just she’s pretty shy. I always feel like I need to protect her a little bit.
Sarah and I went to the kitchen and I sat in the breakfast nook, which looked out over our backyard. It was slightly overgrown: a square of lawn bookended by rosebushes and lavender. The lonely weeping willow at the back sent tattered fronds chasing the air.
“Your mom out for a run?” she asked.
“So, what’s up, sweetie? Is it a boy?”
I almost rolled my eyes. Like I’d talk to her if I had boy problems.
“No,” I said. “That’s not it.”
She set her massive mom purse on the kitchen island and leaned forward to smooth my hair behind my ears. Irritation sparked in me. Could nobody see I was sixteen, not six?
I took a deep breath and clasped my hands together on my lap, hoping Aunt Sarah would answer my questions. I didn’t want to hurt Mom’s feelings. There was just so much I wanted to know. Like, if my dad was actually alive.
Growing up without a father had been hard. At Christmas it was just Mom and me hovering around the corners of Sarah’s house. And Father’s Day was just code for Fake Day. Mom was always extra smiley, trying to make up for what I was missing.
Madison said you couldn’t miss someone you’d never met, but she was wrong. There was a giant dad-shaped piece of me missing. I would never be whole if I didn’t find out who he was.
“I can’t get Mom to tell me anything,” I began. “That’s why I’m asking you. I have a right to know, and I’ve found out some weird things, so I really want the truth now.”
“Okaaay.”
“This is going to sound totally random, but . . .”
“Olivia, out with it.”
“Is my father Gavin Montgomery?”
Sarah’s eyes widened. Her upper body moved backward, as if blown by a sudden wind.
“Wow.” She laughed nervously, her eyes darting around the room. “Where is that coming from?”
“Will you just answer me?”
“Olivia, you know it’s not my place—”
“Mom won’t talk to me about it! We saw him on TV the other day, and I asked her about him and she looked like she was gonna faint, and then she told me she’s never heard of him. He’s a politician. Of course she’s heard of him! She’s lying about something.”
“Well, maybe there’s a reason for that.”
“No good reason! I mean, all it does is make my imagination go crazy. Like, did he rape her? Am I that kid that came out of rape? Or is he you guys’ long-lost brother and he molested her? Or did she, like, kidnap me? Or . . .”
Suddenly I was so angry that this had been kept from me. I jumped to my feet, eyes blazing.
Sarah shook her head and stood slowly. “Olivia, you’re right, you’re letting your imagination get away from you. Of course she didn’t—”
“Stop!” I cut her off. “I don’t want to talk to you until you’re honest with me. I’m sick of being lied to!”
And with those last hurtful words, I raced up the stairs and slammed the door to my room.
I flopped on my bed, heart pounding wildly in my chest. I felt like it would crack open or burst into flame or explode into a thousand pieces.
Only a couple minutes had passed when Sarah knocked softly on my door. She peeked her head in without waiting for me to answer.
“Sweetie?”
I sat up and pulled my knees to my chest and glared at her, stubbornly refusing to speak.
She slid into the room, leaned her back against the wall. Her hair was in a ponytail and she stretched both hands back to tighten it.
“Listen.” She pulled a packet of cinnamon gum from her back pocket, popped a piece in her mouth, then offered me one. Sarah always had cinnamon gum with her. She’d been smuggling me pieces since I was a kid. My mom hated it, thought I’d choke or something. But I’d beg and beg and eventually Sarah would give in.
I ignored the gum. “I’m already pretty sure he’s my dad, so you might as well tell me the truth. I just want to know why Mom said he was dead.”
“I don’t know.”
I glared at her.
“That’s the truth. Your mom never told me. In fact, she’d kill me if she knew I was talking to you about this.”
She let her legs fold and slid down the wall until she was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Look, your mom was no angel in high school. I mean, she had a tough childhood, you know?”
I nodded. Mom had told me how her mother left her on Sarah’s doorstep, then went home and killed herself. It was, like, movie horrible.
“Well, your mom had a bit of a . . . reputation with guys. She went from one to the next and was a bit, you know . . .” She looked away, not wanting to say it out loud.
“Easy?” I asked, shocked.
“Yeah.”
I shook my head, speechless. That didn’t sound like Mom at all. She’d never even gone on a date in the whole time I’d been alive.
“Don’t judge her too much. She was extremely insecure and very, very vulnerable, and things were really tough for her. She was looking in the wrong place, but all she wanted was to be loved. Just after she graduated, she started seeing someone. She stopped hanging out with her friends and partying. I didn’t know who he was because she kept it really quiet.”
Sarah looked out the window and nibbled the edge of a fingernail. Finally she dropped her hand into her lap and looked at me.
“Listen, Olivia, are you sure you want to know this? Sometimes the truth isn’t what you expect. You know, when I was in college there was this experiment we did in one of my psychology classes where our teacher asked us what we’d prefer: happiness or truth. Most people chose happiness.”
“Not me,” I said stubbornly. “Besides, that’s stupid. Truth brings happiness.”
She shook her head. “Not necessarily. In fact, sometimes it brings the exact opposite. Or the truth isn’t even what you thought it would be. It just opens up a whole can of worms you wish you could shove back inside.”
I clenched my jaw and wrapped my hands around my knees. “I don’t care,” I said. “I still want to know.”
Sarah sighed, resigned.
“Well, like I said, your mom started secretly seeing this guy the summer after she graduated. One night I stopped by her work to give her a ride home and saw her get into someone’s car. When they drove past me, I saw it was Gavin Montgomery.”
Sarah unfolded her legs and crossed her ankles. “She dated him two, maybe three months. Then, as suddenly as it began, it was over. He left Portage Point and never returned.
“What I do know, Olivia”—she fixed me with a flinty gaze—“is that your mom loves you and would do anything for you. If she hid who your dad is from you, she must have a good reason for it. You should keep that in mind.”
× × ×
After Aunt Sarah left, I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling for a long time. A tiny spider was busy knitting a new web in a corner of the ceiling. After a minute, it disappeared into a crevice.
So many emotions jostled in me that I felt a bit sick.
Gavin Montgomery was my dad.
My mom had lied to me my entire life. Who cared why. My dad was alive. I’d been robbed of the chance to know him.
I flopped onto my stomach and my eyes landed on a photo of my dad that Mom gave me when I was little. I picked up the picture from my bedside table, ran my fingers across the smooth wooden frame.
I looked at the face of the man in the picture. He was in his thirties with blond, thinning hair and light eyes, deep dimples in both cheeks. He was looking just off camera, smiling at whoever was taking the picture.
This was not Gavin Montgomery. The picture had probably come in the frame.
An overwhelming sadness washed over me and tears welled in my eyes, tumbling out of me like broken promises. I’d never physically had a father in my life, but I’d always thought I had this man, whoever he was. I felt like I was losing that now.
I wiped my eyes, a sudden, rising anger burning away the sadness. I sat up and lifted the picture and smashed it hard against my bed frame. The glass cracked but didn’t shatter, so I flipped up the metal flaps at the back and lifted out the picture. Then I meticulously tore it into tiny pieces and stuffed it under my bed.
Now I understood what Sarah had been telling me. Sometimes even the truth was a lie.