Chapter Seven
‘What’s going on in here? I heard you both arguing from outside.’ I turned around to see Jessica.
She looked different.
Brighter somehow.
Radiant almost.
‘What have you done, Jessica? You’ve got makeup on,’ Sam said trying to compose herself by wiping her eyes and smiling.
‘Yes, I had a facial, but more importantly what has been going on here? I’ve never seen you both so mad at one another.’
‘Sam told me, Jessica,’ I muttered.
‘Told you what?’
‘She told me she’s my biological mother and that she was raped when she was thirteen.’
Jessica frowned and stared into Sam’s eyes like she was looking through them. ‘You never told me you were raped, Sam. You didn’t tell any of us.’
‘I couldn’t tell you all that, or Dad. I told Mum though. We didn’t want to worry you and Dad more than we had to. He had enough supporting four girls. Can you imagine what he would’ve done if he found out I was raped anyway?’
‘Yes, I know, but that’s still no reason not to tell us. How could you have coped with that at thirteen? You told us you got pregnant by a boy you were going out with at school.’
Jessica walked over to the couch and sat down.
I had never seen her so involved with us.
‘You really should have told us, Sam. We might’ve been able to help you. So which guy at school was it?’
Sam went to sit on the couch next to Jessica, and rubbing the back of her neck she said, ‘it was just some guy I didn’t know very well. Doesn’t matter. I don’t want to think about him.’
Jessica turned to me. ‘So, how are you in all of this?’
‘As good as can be expected, I guess, but I really want to meet my dad.’
‘Hopefully he’s in prison now,’ she said.
‘Even if he is, I still need to see him.’
‘Well, it’s up to you, but I can’t imagine he’ll be a nice person, Keisha, not if he could rape your sis– um, Sam like that.’
‘I don’t want Keisha to go looking for him,’ Sam said.
Jessica turned to her. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t want her to get hurt, and it’ll cause a lot of trouble for the family. We’ve had enough trouble already.’
‘I agree, but if Keisha needs to see him surely she can, even if it’s just once.’
‘No, she can’t, and that decision is final.’ She stood up quickly and ran upstairs.
I normally chased after her.
This time I didn’t.
My own pain had taken over.
Jessica walked over, sat on the arm of the couch and put her arm around me.
So unlike her.
I burst into tears.
‘Come on, let it all out,’ she whispered before making those ‘shh’ noises mothers make to get their babies to sleep. I thought about Sam.
I felt sad for her. It wasn’t her fault she was raped at thirteen and had a baby. It was just the lies I hated.
Then I realised it.
Jessica had lied to me too.
She had continued the whole sisterly charade just as Sam and Dad had. I ran up to my room leaving Jessica to call out after me.
Back in the organised sanctum, I stood against my door before throwing myself down on the bed.
On top of an unsmooth quilt.
It was all going to get worse now.
I thought about my father. I really needed to see him.
I wanted to know what he looked like.
I wanted to know what he was like as a person.
Theoretically, I had half his genes, half his mutations.
Maybe Sam was hiding something.
I had to ask her.
I heard her in the bathroom.
‘Sam, please let me in. Come on, I need to talk to you,’ I said, knocking on the door.
‘No, Keisha, you’ll keep on insisting you see him.’
‘I won’t, okay. I just need to talk to you.’
There was a pause and a quiet click. I turned the handle and went inside. She was sitting on the edge of the bath, looking out the window.
There was only the toilet seat to sit on. I put disinfectant on some toilet paper, rubbed the top of the seat and washed my hands, then sat down.
‘You know, when I was younger I used to look up at those stars and think they were my guardian angels. As soon as I saw them I knew I was safe. I knew nothing would ever hurt me because wherever I was I saw them and knew,’ she whispered.
She had the tics again.
She was crying now too.
Then she continued in between sobs. ‘But the stars were still there when he came to me that night. They didn’t look after me then.’
I walked over slowly and put my arm around her. She cried louder. She cried like I had done in Jessica’s arms.
‘So the boy came to you at night?’ I asked.
She looked up at me quickly.
Her face was so inflamed.
The tics were getting worse.
I wondered if she’d ever be the same again.
She nodded. ‘Um, yes, he did.’
Her stars story made me sad. She had placed so much trust in the stars and they betrayed her. Her stars were like my family.
There were noises downstairs.
The front door opened.
Silence.
Then feet running upstairs.
‘Hi Dad,’ Sam said looking up towards the doorway where he stood.
‘Jessica told me what happened. I’m so sorry it had to be like this, Keisha,’ he said.
He bent down to hug me but my body resisted. I was a stiff board in his arms.
‘Keisha, will you look at me?’ he asked.
It took me some seconds before I could. He was frowning and his eyes were red. He had aged ten years since I saw him last night.
‘I am really sorry we didn’t discuss it sooner, Keisha. I really am.’
‘Discuss it? It’s not a matter of discussion. You should have told me, Dad.’
I was looking into the face of a stranger.
That stranger I had called ‘Daddy’ for so many years.
He was no longer my Daddy though.
Someone else was.
‘I know we should have told you, but we didn’t want to hurt you. We didn’t want you to think your mum and I were your parents for all those years and then take that away from you.’
‘So, why didn’t you tell me when I was old enough? I’m not stupid.’
‘I don’t doubt that at all, Keisha. We just didn’t want to hurt you. I know it probably seems like we were all thinking of ourselves, but truly we were only looking out for you. We did it wrong, and I’m so sorry you had to find out like this.’
I wanted to believe him.
I wanted to forgive him.
My mind wouldn’t let me though.
I felt like one of those cats stuck up a tree, wanting to jump down but being too scared. Not that I would have gone up a tree in the first place because ants liked crawling into the bark.
I remembered a time at school when my best friend and I were peeling the bark off a thick stick. All of a sudden she had jumped up shouting, ‘ants! Quick. There are ants in it!’ We ran away screaming and shaking our dresses.
‘Did you know Sam was raped?’ I asked Dad.
His eyes widened and he looked at her. ‘Is this true, Sam? Were you raped?’
‘Yes – yes, Dad.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything? I thought you were in a relationship with this boy.’
‘I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to worry you, and no, I wasn’t in a relationship with him at all.’
Dad’s bottom lip began to tremble.
Now I knew where Sam got her tics from.
He put his arms around her and held her. They rocked backwards and forwards and
cried. Jessica came and stood in the doorway.
‘Hi, I’m just letting you know Alex is here. Her boyfriend just dropped her off and she’ll be in the door any minute now,’ she said.
Dad sighed, let go of Sam, and stood up.
‘Well, I don’t know how this is going to affect her. I guess it depends on the mood she’s in. She will take it either seriously and act all emotional or she will act like she doesn’t even care.’
And he left the bathroom.
Dad and Alex were downstairs for half an hour. I sat in the bathroom with Sam but we barely said a word to each other.
Sam stared at the stars.
I studied and counted the tiny tiles.
Jessica went to her room.
Eventually, Dad called us to come down.
‘Well, now that Keisha’s real paternity is out in the open, I think we have to consider the consequences.’ Sometimes Dad made up for not working in an office by talking office language.
‘All four of us need to be here for Keisha to support her because she is going through a really tough time at the moment.’
I looked at Alex.
She hadn’t been crying.
Just as I thought.
Her tears were reserved for a broken nail or discontinued lipstick line.
‘I want to meet him,’ I said quickly.
Dad looked at me and gave me the same stare Jessica gave Sam earlier. ‘Why do you want to meet a man like that, Keisha? He was a rapist. He could be in prison for all we know.’
‘Did you know him, Dad?’ I asked.
‘No – no, I didn’t meet any of Sam’s boyfriends when she was at school. Maybe if I had have - maybe if I was a better parent - this would never have happened.’
Jessica put her arm around Dad’s shoulder and said, ‘you can’t think like that, Dad. Whatever happened was something no-one could’ve prevented, you or Mum.’
Jessica was odd.
She was austere at times, soft-hearted at others.
I hated unpredictability.
‘Did you even know his name, Dad?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘Well, I guess I’ll just have to go through the old school albums and see if I can find him myself. It shouldn’t be that hard.’
‘I don’t think that’s wise, Keisha. You don’t know what you’re going to find,’ he said.
Alex huffed, stood up in her usual elegant fashion, and said, ‘I’ve got to go and make a call. It’s getting late and I don’t want to keep anyone awake when I’m on the phone.’
She might as well have said, ‘oh well, boring, I can’t stand this any longer.’
Sam made eye contact with Jessica and Dad. She clearly wanted time alone with me.
‘Well, I’m going to make some dinner,’ Dad said.
‘Yes, I’ll help you,’ Jessica smiled and followed him into the kitchen.
Since when did she help cook?
‘Keisha, I really don’t want you to try and find your father. I know how much it means to you, but honestly, it isn’t going to make things better. If anything it’ll make things worse.’
‘I have to, Sam. Please just stop asking me.’
‘Keisha, if you go and find him you will regret it, I promise.’
‘And why’s that, Sam? Why will I regret it?’
‘You just will, okay. He isn’t the man you think he is.’
‘And how do you know so much about this man if you haven’t seen him since you were thirteen and raped by him?’
She cried.
Those dreaded tics again.
She shook her head, almost violently. ‘No – no, Keisha. You are not going to look for him and that’s final!’
I stood up and clenched my fists.
I stormed out of the lounge.
She followed me upstairs and grabbed my arm. ‘You can’t look for him because your father isn’t some boy at school. I lied.’
*****