Chapter Six
Sam finally spoke. ‘Yes, you are my daughter, Keisha.’
I was amazed. Was it a lie or some stupid sick joke?
‘You’re telling me the truth, aren’t you?’ I managed to whisper.
‘Yes – yes, unfortunately I am.’
I didn’t know what to do, what to think.
And for the first time in my life I felt such hatred for her.
Her skin was inflamed, her eyes so red I was scared they would start offshooting blood.
It wasn’t the face I was used to looking into.
It was the face of a stranger.
I wanted to shout out all the words swirling around in my head but I couldn’t. My mind was teeming full of crazy obsessions, an army full of brutal occupation.
There was an open CD case on the coffee table I had to close.
Fingermarks tainting a film of dust on the TV I had to clean off.
A DVD case lying down in the cabinet I had to fix.
It took what seemed like hours of deep breathing before I could respond. How was I to fathom out something as unexpected, as mentally incomprehensible as this? It didn’t fit into my orderly life. It wasn’t something I could count. It wasn’t something I could use as a ritual. It was a disturbing aberration.
Like the cracks in the pavements.
Like the ants under my pillow.
Like my mind all over.
‘I – I er don’t know what to say. Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ I whispered because it was all I could manage. I lifted my gaze from the coffee table to look at her. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘It wasn’t that easy, Keisha. I’m twenty-nine. You’re sixteen. What age did that make me when I had you?’
‘Thirteen.’
‘Yes, exactly. To have a baby that young makes me look like a slut, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, what else are you if you’re not a slut?’
‘I guess you have a right to your own opinion.’
‘Why didn’t anyone tell me earlier?’
‘Because of what it looked like. Because it was much easier for Mum to bring you up as her own even though I always wanted to take care of you myself. Mum and Dad didn’t want anyone to know.’
‘And what about Jessica and Alex? What do they think about it?’
‘Only Jessica knows. That’s why she tends to leave you and me alone. Alex was too young to tell. She thinks Mum was your birth mother.’
I sighed and buried my head in my palms. ‘I just can’t believe it. All these years. Sixteen years and no-one’s ever told me! Why? Why, Sam?’
Tears cursed her eyes again.
Tics cursed her bottom lip.
‘We couldn’t tell you because Mum was always your mother. She was so good with you and you idolized her. You thought she was the most perfect person in the world.’
Then it occurred to me.
The mother I loved and adored had lied to me too.
‘Then why didn’t she tell me?’
‘You don’t understand, Keisha. It’s not as easy as you think. Do you think I wanted to give you up to Mum? Do you think Mum wanted to keep that deep dark secret from you all those years? No, neither of us wanted to hurt you like that, but what were we to do?’
‘What made it so hard?’
‘A lot of feelings were involved, Keisha. Most importantly, we had you to consider. If we told you when you were young that I was your mother, you would have felt so hurt by the woman you idolized and thought was your real mum, you probably would’ve neglected her. We just couldn’t tell you, Keish, as much as we wanted to.’
‘But why wait until now? I understood things when I was ten. I think I was pretty mature then, so why didn’t you tell me then?’
‘You wouldn’t have understood. You would have been really hurt. Look at you. You can’t take it now.’
What did she expect?
Did she want me to go over to her, give her an enormous hug, a kiss on the cheek, look lovingly into her eyes and say, ‘oh, Sam, thank you so much for finally telling me after all these years you’re my real mother when I always thought you were my sister. I’m really proud of you. You just don’t know how much’?
Unfortunately I couldn’t do it.
I would have been more comfortable walking through pile upon pile of fresh vomit or being held prisoner in a bed full of ants, or even being forced fed a piece of steak that a bum (I felt dirty) with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of phlegm had spat on.
Reluctant tears tumbled from eyes.
Unwillingly I was sounding like an animal in pain.
But I managed to bark, ‘how do you expect me to act? You have just told me that you are not my sister but my mum!’
Her bottom lip continued to tremble as she leaned forward and palmed her hands together. I didn’t know if I was more put off by her being my mother or the tics in her lip.
‘I’m so sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean to say that the way it came out. What I am trying to tell you is that at whatever age I had told you about Mum not being your real mum you would’ve taken it badly.’
‘Okay, I can see what you’re saying, so if that’s the case, why didn’t you tell me sooner?’
‘We just kept putting it off, hoping that if we ignored the issue for long enough it would just go away.’
‘Something like that never goes away. You should know that, Sam,’ and I leaned back in my chair. ‘How did Mum feel about the situation?’
‘She wasn’t happy about it of course, but with us being Catholic I certainly couldn’t have an abortion and there was no way I could have had you adopted, so I had to go away and live with Mum’s sister and her husband until I had the baby. Then Mum told everyone you were hers.’
‘How did she feel about that? She must’ve been pretty old and to have a baby at that age could’ve made her sick. Plus, what did you do about school, and how could Mum all of a sudden have had me without being pregnant? It would have looked a bit odd.’
Sam laughed quietly.
Yes, I found it humorous too her telling me she was my mother and that she had lied to me for sixteen years.
‘I took a year off school. We told the teachers I was sick, and Mum was big anyway, as you know, and so people weren’t surprised when they saw her with a baby after nine months.’
She sipped her coffee and continued. ‘And you never made Mum sick. We were lucky you were a good baby. You slept through most nights and didn’t wake up until seven every morning. I helped out when I could.’
She walked over to me and knelt below my feet.
Just close enough to show me kindness.
Just far away enough to show me coldness.
‘I really didn’t want it to be like this, honestly I didn’t, Keisha. I love you. I love you more than myself.’
‘Would you have told me at all?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So you might never have told me?’
She put her head in her hands and said, ‘maybe,’ then paused for a while before saying, ‘I was going to see what Jessica and Dad thought I should do. Of course I wanted you to know, but I was considering your feelings. I didn’t want you to get hurt.’
‘So you prefer I found out this way? I’m not some stupid kid who has no understanding, you know. It’s one thing to hurt because something in your life isn’t what you thought it was, but it’s another because you’ve been completely lied to.’
‘Don’t you think I realise that? I’m not proud of what I’ve done Keisha, far from it, but I did what I thought was right. Okay, it might not have been the best decision in the world but I did what I felt at the time.’
‘I think I should’ve been told before Mum died because right now I’m feeling betrayed by her too.’
‘You’re right, and we did want to tell you, but Mum died all of a sudden.’
And suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
‘I – I’m going to my room,’ I croaked.
Once inside I slammed the door and leaned against it.
My mind was full of nothing.
That was a change at least.
I looked at my CD rack. Each CD was in its place, arranged in alphabetical order. I had thought about arranging them to colour match because that would have looked neat, but it wasn’t practical.
Then I looked down my bed and the thick snug quilt which I always tried to smooth over but which was never smooth enough. And I looked at the Salvador Dali painting called The Sacrament of the Last Supper that usually gave me such comfort but certainly wasn’t right now.
‘Why do you like that painting so much?’ Sam asked me one day.
‘Because I love thinking about it and what it means. It’s so mysterious, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, but it’s a bit morbid looking with everyone’s faces bent low like that, and that person in the middle looks like he or she’s dead.’
‘True, but look at how symmetrical everything is. It’s amazing. Salvador himself said “it’s an arithmetic and philosophical cosmogony based on the paranoiac sublimity of the number twelve”.’
Twelve was my favourite number.
It was even and safe.
Like the twelfth night.
Like the epiphany I tried so hard to reach.
I wanted floorboards in my room. I knew they were cold but they had their advantages. Firstly, you could keep them cleaner than carpet so they didn’t retain germs. Secondly, they looked far nicer and more modern than carpet.
Instead I had this awful cream coloured carpet that reminded me of poodle’s fur and had so many stains on it you could join the stains up. Maybe I could join them up to make a symmetrical picture. One day, when I was a famous writer or geneticist, people from all over the world would come to look and say, ‘that’s what Keisha Morgan did when her sister broker her heart. She’s come such a long way since then.’
There were no noises from downstairs.
Sam was probably crying quietly or staring at the wall contemplating her sins. At least I hope she was.
I went over to my bed and curled myself up into the fetus position. I wanted to suck my thumb but I was too old. I wanted to fall asleep but I couldn’t.
So I counted my teeth.
I tried to hypnotize myself into a tranquil sleep.
It would never happen though.
I eventually felt myself dozing off and entering a hypnagogic adventure. I learnt that word, ‘hypnagogic’, in one of my philosophy books. It refers to the state of drowsiness we enter before we sleep.
In my dream I watched Mum and Sam argue.
Mum was shaking her saying, ‘who’s the father, Sam?’ over and over.
Suddenly I woke up.
It hadn’t occurred to me until now that Dad was not my real father. How was I so stupid not to think of that?
I got off the bed and ran downstairs. Sam was sitting in the lounge staring at the wall.
‘Who’s my real father?’ I asked, trying to compose myself.
She continued to stare.
She had the tics.
I was beginning to worry they wouldn’t go.
‘I wondered when you’d ask me that,’ she whispered after a long pause.
‘I’m surprised I didn’t think of it earlier. I must’ve been in complete shock.’
‘Yes.’
‘So who’s my father then? Some teenage boy you had a one night-stand with?’
She shook her head and started sobbing.
‘Well, who is it?’
‘I – I was raped, Keisha,’ she said looking up at me.
I was the product of a rape?
That was sickening.
My father was a rapist.
I didn’t know how to react. Part of me felt sadness but another part felt betrayal.
‘That’s how I had you. I’d never even kissed a boy before it happened.’
‘So do I know the person who raped you?’
She was quick to answer. ‘No, no it was a boy at school.’
‘Were you in love with him?’
‘No, he just did it.’
‘That’s disgusting. Did you tell anyone about it? Mum or Dad? A school counsellor?’
‘No, not at first. I told Mum eventually and she was really upset. She didn’t want to see her thirteen year old daughter with a baby. I didn’t tell Dad, and Mum didn’t want to worry him so he never knew I was raped.’
‘But what did she think about you being raped?’
‘Oh, at first she thought I was making it all up and that I was really having sex, but then I had a physical and it was confirmed I’d been raped. I was checked for diseases and luckily I was free of those.’
‘What happened with the guy then?’
She looked at the rug and smoothed a corner with her foot.
Stress does some strange things to you.
Obsessive behaviour being one of them.
‘I don’t know. I can’t remember, Keisha. It’s so long ago.’
‘Have you got contact details for him?’
‘No! He raped me, Keisha. Why? You think I should tell him about you?’
‘I want to meet him, not now but eventually.’
‘You can’t meet him. Why on earth would you want to meet a guy who raped me?’
‘He raped you and for that I’m so sorry, but he is still my father, Sam. I need to meet him, even if it’s only just the once.’
‘You can’t meet him, Keisha. I don’t even know where he is. He could be in prison for all I know.’
‘Well, I still need to see him, even if I have to go to prison to visit him.’
She stood up, slapped a hand on her thigh and shook her head. ‘No, Keisha. It’s totally out of the question. You can’t see him.’
‘I will see him, Sam, whether you want me to or not. If he went to your school he shouldn’t be too hard to track down. Even if I have to hire a private investigator I’ll find him.’
‘You’re too stubborn for your own good. You are sixteen, Keisha, and you cannot go and find him until you are eighteen. That’s the law.’
‘I won’t give up. I can’t. I’m sure you must still have his name. And you haven’t answered my question – did Mum and Dad meet him?’
‘No, they didn’t, okay.’
*****