Page 87 of Gone for You

“And you found out, how?”

“Her daughter called me. She claims she never knew anything about you until Valeria was on her death bed. She had been talking in her sleep about you and they thought she was hallucinating from all the drugs she was on. One afternoon, she was alert and admitted everything to her family. They promised to look me up – I think Valeria was hoping for some closure.”

“And did she get it? From you?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “She wanted to know you were okay and I told her what a punk you were.” Dad smiles and Liv gets a look at where I get my dimple from.

“He is definitely a punk,” Liv jokes.

“Right? I tried. Really, I did the best I could.”

“You two done?” I know my voice comes out gruff but I’m annoyed, crabby and ready to get this day over with.

Liv’s eyes dart to me. She’s never heard me speak in a harsh voice before so I’m sure she’s a little surprised. Right now, though, I don’t care.

“Where was she?” I ask Dad.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “She, um, was living in Detroit.”

“What?” I ask, exploding out of my chair. It tips over with a loud bang against the hardwood floor I helped Dad install several years ago. “She’s been living just a few hundred miles away from me for what, myentirelife? Did she even go back to Mexico like you told me?”

If I thought he looked uncomfortable before, I was wrong. Because now he looksreallyuncomfortable. “Yes, she did. But when she came home, her parents disowned her.”

“Why?”

He’s quiet for a while before he says quietly, “Ethan, don’t make me say it.”

“What the fuck is it with my grandparents disowning you and Valeria because of me and my heritage?”

Dad’s eyes soften and he looks down. He can spin it however he wants, he and I both know that if I would have never come along, he would have a relationship with his own parents and Valeria would have had a relationship with hers and not felt the need to flee her country.

“So if they kicked her out, why wouldn’t she come back to you? To us? She came back to the US but didn’t even think that maybe that was her chance to not be an asshole? Did she never have regrets for abandoning her child? And what happened when she got pregnant again? Didn’t she think that maybe her daughter would want to know her brother?”

“Calm down, Ethan. Let me explain.”

“What’s there to explain, Dad? My own mother didn’t want me. My grandparents never wanted to be around me. Apparently just the mere thought of me broke up families.”

“That’s their problem and has nothing to do with you. Their loss, too.”

“Whatever. Just finish this story so I can move the fuck on, already.”

“Eth…” Liv’s voice cuts through the tension-filled room but I give her a look that shuts her up. I can’t even find it in me to feel guilty.

Hands on the back of my head, I look to the ceiling and move around the kitchen. In the last six hours, I’ve learned that the woman who gave birth to me not only lived in the same country as me, which was not what I was led to believe my entire life, but actually lived close by, had another kid – whom she chosenotto abandon –never had the desire to reach out and find me all those years, is now dead and every grandparent I could have had in my life didn’t even want me.

“They missed out,” Dad says, emphatically.

I don’t respond. It’s a hard pill to swallow. Where all my friends had grandparents visiting them at school on Grandparents Day or had mothers helping with projects, I had no one but Dad and sometimes Jessie. But everyone knew Jessie wasn’t my mom. I saw the inside of the principal’s office far too many times than I should have from getting into fights because of kids being jerks about me not having a mom.

I lived my entire life jealous of everyone and not knowing how to deal with my anger. My classmates would talk about visiting their families or spending time with them during holidays and it was always just Dad and I. Jessie, too, sure, but it wasn’t the same. Dad filled that void, did his best, but I still knew something in my life was missing.

By the time I got into high school, I was over it.

Because they didn’t care enough to have a relationship with me, I don’t know how to do the family thing. It’s a realization that hits me so hard, so fast that I stumble. Rest my butt against the counter, then have to lean over with my hands on my knees. Take a few deep breaths which don’t help in the least. I stand back up, pace the room.

All this time, I thought I’d been keeping women out of my life because I hadn’t found anyone worth keeping around. Maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe it’s in my DNA that I’m not meant for the family life or anything permanent. Long lasting.

Every single woman in my life has not loved me enough to stick around. Will that happen again with Liv?

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