Cheryl picked up the story from that point. "At first, we lived in a tiny apartment on the second floor. There was an elevator that never worked, so we always had to take the stairs." George, once a mechanical engineer in the aerospace industry designing and testing high-performance engine components for Rolls-Royce, had walked away from the life he'd built to hide him and his little girl away from a world without Colleen. At some point—Cheryl couldn't recall exactly when—he started fixing things around the property, starting with the elevator, and eventually, he was hired on as the grounds and maintenance person for the forty-unit complex, and they'd moved into a larger apartment on the ground floor where Colleen had her own room and a tiny postage stamp of a back yard to play in. When it was time for her to start school, George opted to homeschool her to keep her close. "My physical world was very small for awhile, but over the years, people got used to me showing up with Dad on repair calls, tagging along beside him while he showed apartments and handed out notices, or sitting in front of him on his riding lawn mower. I'm sure there were all kinds of rules he broke having me as his sidekick, but he was fiercely protective of me, and for whatever reason, no one turned him in." Her voice softened so that Gia had to strain to hear it. "I know now that he was afraid of losing me, too. In many ways, those were sweet times, mainly because I was too young to realize that our life wasn't exactly normal. I mean, it was our normal, right?"
"You were their miracle, Cheryl," Granny G said, her voice so kind. "They loved you so much."
I was their miracle, too. The thought careened around Gia's mind like a tantrum-throwing child, but as she listened to Cheryl talk, it was getting more and more difficult to ignore the waves of compassion surging up in her. While she'd been slow dancing at her own pity party for the past several months now, Cheryl had been figuring out how to survive on her own. Maybe even for the past several years. Her next words confirmed it.
"By the time I was twelve, I was pretty much homeschooling myself. I may have been sheltered, but I wasn't blind, and surrounded like we were by families of all different kinds, I knew how things were supposed to be. Which meant I knew things weren't right in our home. Oh, no, don't look at me like that." Who was she talking to? Ren, most likely? She had such a strong Mama Bear reaction to hurting children. "He never harmed me in any way, and I know he loved me the best he could. But he was simply ill-equipped to care for a teenage girl. He made sure I was safe, fed, and had a roof over my head, that all my needs were met. But I took care of my education and my plans for my future."
The room had grown terribly quiet, and Gia could hear Cheryl's words like she was in the same room with her.
"In many ways, I lost my father sometime during my high school years. He was there in body, watching out for me, but his heart, his spirit, had given up the battle, and by the time I finished my dental hygiene program, he was sick. I think once he knew I would be okay without him, he gave himself permission to let go. I used to hear him talking to my mother like she was sitting at the other end of the table, or beside him on the sofa." Her voice had thickened, like she might be trying to hold tears at bay, and she cleared her throat. "In the end, when he could no longer work, I took care of him. He was my father and I loved him." She released a short, sharp sound that couldn't quite be called a laugh. "Even though part of me wanted to hate him, I just couldn't. I loved him."
"Oh, Cheryl, that's so hard for us to hear." Yep, Ren. A stranger might not recognize the censure behind the gentle words, but Gia knew her sister so well—
She knew her sister so well. She knew all three of her sisters so well.
"My sisters," Gia whispered, her voice rough with revelation. Not just one sister, but three amazing older sisters who loved her and watched out for her, who'd stepped in when they'd all lost their mother—because yes, Simone had been Gia's mother in every single way. She'd had Granny G, too, and Gramps, who'd become a father figure to them all. A loving man who'd been more than just present in body like Cheryl's father. Gia had so much, a life bursting at the seams with people who loved her, while Cheryl had endured the loss of her own parents all alone.
"I know," Cheryl said in response to Renata. "It's hard to say it. I feel guilty even for thinking it, no less putting it all out there for everyone to judge. I know you must think my father some kind of monster, but he wasn't. He was just a man so much in love with a woman that he couldn't live without her. I truly believe that."
After a few more moments of silence, Ren spoke again. "I think that might just be the scariest thing about giving yourself over to loving someone completely. A parent, a child, a lover." Gia held her breath, realizing that her sister was sharing something she might never have said aloud to anyone before. "Sometimes you love someone so much you really don't believe life can go on without them."
"And when it does, you punish yourself by wallowing in guilt and shame and regret." It was Phoebe, and Gia knew she was thinking about Lily, about the years she'd spent under the burden of her secret.
"Fear," Juliette added. "You're just afraid to live, to be happy again."
Tugging gently on Ricky's hand—she wasn't going to let go of him now—Gia rose a little unsteadily, and made her way from her bedroom and down the hall, knowing she needed to be with her sisters, her family. Ricky stayed right by her but said nothing, because he knew without her having to tell him that she needed him.
"Or self-pity," Gia said as she moved into the room to stand close to Phoebe, who leaned back against Trevor, his arms wrapped like armor around her. She kept her gaze lowered, not quite able to meet Cheryl's eyes. "Feeling so sorry for yourself that you think you're alone even when you're not, and you lose sight of all your blessings, of all the good things that make living an adventure." With her fingers still laced through Ricky's, she lifted his hand over her head and draped his arm around her shoulders. "I wish they'd told us." And then she lifted her head and looked right at the girl who might be her own reflection. "I wish I'd known about you a long time ago, Cheryl."
"I'm hungry, Mommy." Judah pushed between Gia and Phoebe, and charged across the room to Renata. "I'm starving like a shark and my mouth wants to eat everything." He wrapped his skinny little arms around her waist and bent back to scowl up at his mother, but his little sister blocked his line of sight. "Better move that baby out of the way, or I might bite her butt, cuz I'm so hungry."