“College!”
“Meyah! Are you going to listen or not?”
I felt like my heart was going to explode, and my brain was beginning to hurt. I wondered if Mom would be offended if I started taking notes so I could remember this all later. But I decided it was probably better if I listened and tried to take in as much as possible.
Making a show of zipping my lips closed, I waved at her to continue. She narrowed her eyes at me skeptically, but I just smiled.
“Yes, he was part of a club. But I’m telling you this now, Meyah, going looking for him would be a really bad idea,” she warned, her eyes glistening. “They aren’t like your uncle, and his friends, they’re more the ‘if you look at me wrong, I’m going to pack you into the trunk of a car and bury you in the desert’ kind of guys. I’m not giving you this information so you can use it. I’m giving it to you because I know you’re curious, and the other night I made a mistake. I’m hoping this will help you understand why I was so upset.AndI’m hoping that just maybe you will be satisfied with what I have to say and not go looking.”
She looked completely serious, maybe even a little frightened.
“I can’t promise that until you tell me everything. I want to know everything that happened. Especially why he chose not to be in my life,” I reasoned, knowing there was much more to tell. “I’m not a little girl anymore, Mom. I need to hear it all. And I need you to tell me the truth. You made your choices, it’s time for me to make mine.”
I could tell she wanted to argue, possibly try to send me to my room for talking back, but she didn’t. She held her tongue, and I finally felt like we were getting somewhere which gave me the courage to ask the question which had been floating around in the back of my head for days. “Why didn’t he want me?”
Tears welled in her eyes, and I was shocked seeing this woman I looked up to, who comforted me when I was feeling sad and destroyed, on the verge of melting down. “He doesn’t know,” she whispered.
My mouth went dry, and a hot flush washed over my body. “You never told him?” I accused in a whisper trying not to focus on the way my stomach was churning.
“I went to talk to him when I found out about Mom and Dad’s accident. I needed to get home to Kim,” she explained through tears refusing to let go of my hand when I tried to pull it away in shock. I needed answers.
“And what did he say?” I croaked, trying not to cry or think any less of the woman who raised me, who loved me more than the earth itself.
“Nothing. Because he wasn’t there.” She looked up at me from beneath her lashes, and I saw it, the pain she was reliving. “But his wife was.”