“I have noticed that and I just figured I got more of mom.”
“And you never questioned how you hardly resemble her, either?”
“But I just… I never questioned it because I never had a reason to doubt it.”
Dad lets out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry, Squish. I know this isn’t easy to take in.”
“Not easy to take in?” I shriek before mimicking his tone. “Morning Squish, hope you’re feeling better. Oh, by the way, I’ve been lying to you your whole life.”
Dad’s eyes nervously flick towards the door. “Keep your voice down,” he scolds, not appreciating my attitude, but what did he expect? He knows me well enough by now to know that when in doubt, my sarcastic flare comes out. Hell, I know I certainly got that from him.
“You have to understand the reasons I’ve kept this from you,” he tells me. “We had a happy life with your mom. It wasn’t the best but it was good. I had no reason to rock your world with the truth and it didn’t matter because no matter what, you were my child and you were loved.”
“But I wasn’t,” I tell him. “I’ve had two mothers walk out on me.”
“You can’t look at it like that. Your real mom… she wasn’t your mom at all. She’s just some woman who shares your DNA, and Kelly, Aria’s mom, she did her best, but in the end, she just couldn’t cut being a mom. That much is clear with the way she failed Aria. You are better off without them both and you know that. Deep down in your heart, you know that.”
My head drops as my head starts to ache. This is too much.
“So, you waited nearly eighteen years to tell me the truth?”
“Does it make a difference?” he questions. “Knowing that Kelly isn’t your real mom? Knowing that you don’t share the DNA of a junkie?”
“I guess,” I mutter, “but all that does is tell me that I share the DNA of a woman who wasn’t strong enough to be my mom and that the very first thing to ever happen to me was being given up by the one person who’s supposed to love me the most.”
“Don’t say that,” he tells me. “It’s taken me a while to come to this realization, but what it means is that your mom, your real biological mom is probably one of the strongest people I’ve ever met.”
“This has got to be good,” I grumble, showing off my award-winning sarcasm again.
Dad ignores me. “How many people do you know have what it takes to admit that they’re not good enough? That someone else could do a better job at raising their child than they could? Because that’s exactly what she did. She knew she wasn’t going to give you a good life so she handed you over, knowing that you had a better shot with me. Every single day I thank her for making such a difficult decision. Now, I know you don’t have fancy cars and expensive clothes, but I did everything I could to make sure I gave you the best possible life.”
“I’m not complaining about my life, dad. I’ve had a great life. I love my home and the people I have around me. I have everything I could have asked for, it’s just…I guess it’s a lot to take in,” I tell him. “I mean, who is this woman? Does she even look like me?”
Dad smiles. “Her name is Gina and you’re the spitting image of her,” he tells me. “I haven’t seen her since the day she came knocking on my door, she would have been around twenty years old, but you look just like she did that day. It gets me every time you walk by me.”
“Really?” I ask. “Was she at least…I don’t know, a nice, decent person?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Couldn’t really tell you, Squish, but I like to think she would have been tough, just as you are. She didn’t strike me as a woman who would take shit from anyone.”
“So, Kelly?” I question, shaking my head, still trying to work it all out.
“She’s nothing to you. I met her when you were five months old and we instantly hit it off. She thought the fact that I had a baby was adorable and by the time you started talking, you were calling her ‘Mom.’ We didn’t think to correct you and from there, it just stuck. She became your mom and you, as a child, absolutely loved her.”
“I guess that didn’t last long,” I mutter wondering how this is going to affect my abandonment issues. I mean, two moms abandoned me. That shit is going to sit inside my head and fester until I can’t take it anymore. This is the kind of stuff that would put the sanest person in therapy and considering how screwed up I already am, I’ll probably end up in a strait jacket.