Page 90 of Wish I Were Here
“In about ten minutes, I think.”
It’s now or never. I step back, bracing myself. “Dad, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me anything, Kitty Cat.”
“The thing is…” The crowd mills around us, laughing and talking. Music blasts from the speakers. “I know you said I shouldn’t. But—I found Melanie. I went to her condo, and I got my birth certificate back.”
Dad takes it well. Better than I was expecting, honestly, and instead of reacting at all, he just kind of stands there silently for a moment, nodding and processing the whole thing. Finally, he meets my eyes. And then he says, “I know.”
He knows?
“Wait.” I hold up a hand. “How do you know?”
He pushes his hands into his overall pockets. The left one won’t quite fit inside, and when he pulls it out, he’s holding a yellow juggling ball. “She reached out last week. I guess it was the day after you and Luca met her at the hospital.Excellent work on the food poisoning ruse, by the way. I’d honestly pay money to see you and Luca pull that off.”
“You don’t have any money,” I point out. But then I focus on the other part of the conversation. “You’re saying you knew I met her a week ago, and you didn’t tell me?”
Dad shrugs. “It wasn’t my place. I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.” Which is just such a veryDadthing to say. For most of my life, I might have been annoyed by that and taken it as a sign of his complacency.
Whatever you want to do. Whatever makes you happy, Kitty Cat.When I told him about studying math in school, and getting my PhD, and moving to the DeGreco.Whatever makes you happy, Kitty Cat.
But maybe—like so many other parts of my life lately—I was looking at it all wrong.
He’s never told me what to do or injected his opinions. He just let me be me in his own quirky way, even if that meant I turned out to be a rule-following mathematician instead of a happy-go-lucky juggler.
Which reminds me of Melanie.
“What did she say when she called you?”
He gives the juggling ball a couple of short tosses into the air. “Well, first, she had a really hard time believingI’draised you.” His amused expression fades. “And then she said…” His voice drops, and his words are cut off by the music and noise from the crowd.
“What?”
“Some other things.”
“What other things?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I huff out an indignant breath. “Why are you still covering for her? I mean, I get it that she didn’t want a kid knocking on her door. But that doesn’t mean that you had to go along and agree to change the birth certificate so she could be nothing but an egg donor. It takes two to—” I wave across the room, where Mrs. Goodwin is warming up with a kick step double spin combo. “You know. To Carolina shag, so to speak.”
“She didn’t want to be involved, and I didn’t want to force her.”
Whatever you want to do. Whatever makes you happy.
I sigh.
“Besides…” Dad starts tossing the ball higher. I don’t think he even realizes he’s doing it. “She wasn’tcompletelyjust an egg donor.”
I grab the bright yellow orb from the air. “What doesthatmean?”
“Well…” He shoves a hand back into his pocket. “We had an agreement.”
“What kind of agreement?” This is the first I’m hearing of this. Melanie certainly didn’t mention an agreement.
“Melanie’s family is rich. Very, very rich.”
I nod, remembering the expansive front porch and stately columns on the mansion where Luca and I had our stakeout. The well-dressed older woman. “I think I met my grandmother once.” The door slamming in our faces. “Very briefly.”
