Page 7 of No Turning Back
She nods. “Nineteen.”
I stare at her. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because she was at the service today. The mother” She swallows. “And I’m afraid she might show up at the house.”
I scoff. “What for?”
“She came to your father looking for child support,” she says, voice tightening. “She might also think her daughter deserves a piece of his estate.”
I frown. “Seriously?”
“Sweetie,” she says, her voice lowering like we’re sharing state secrets. “Times are tough. And she did… well, she looked like someone who’d want her due.”
I narrow my eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She was Black,” Mom whispers, as if that explains everything.
Jesus Christ.
“Sorry, African American,” she adds quickly, then looks out the window like that makes it better. “I just don’t know what your father was doing with someone like that.”
My spine stiffens. “Markus is African American, Mom.”
“That’s different,” she says instantly. “Markus is a good boy. He’s in the service. He fights for this country.”
“And this woman’s… what?” I ask.
Mom’s silence says everything. I look at her hard.
“Maybe it has less to do with her skin colour,” I say slowly, “and more to do with the fact that Dad slept with her.”
“Quinn Reed Barnes,” she snaps, scandalized. “I did not raise you to talk like that.”
I don’t answer. I just stare out the window, biting down the bitter taste climbing my throat.
My father had another kid.
Growing up, I always wanted a sibling. Technically, I had two, but they never got the chance to grow up. Now there's this girl I’ve never met. A stranger. My half-sister.
“Are you okay?” mom asks, breaking the silence.
I give her a thin smile. “I’m fine.”
But I’m not sure either of us really is.
The rest of the ride is quiet, the weight of unspoken things pressing down on us both.
My parents' marriage didn’t end all at once. It cracked slowly, quietly when instead of leaning on each other after two losses, they leaned on other people. Well, my dad did. And my mom just… pretended.
She kept pretending, right up until the day she walked in and caught him with another woman. That ended the illusion and the marriage. What followed was a long, brutal divorce where I became the rope in a tug-of-war neither of them wanted to drop.
And then they got back together. After that, it became a cycle. Rinse. Repeat.
Looking at her now, all tense and guarded, I can’t help but wonder if this woman wasn’t just some fling during one of their “off” periods. If maybe, just maybe, this was more than just a brief mistake my mom had long since convinced herself to ignore.
Because whatever this is… it’s different. It’s not just about the past anymore.
It’s about the fact that the past came back. And it might have brought family with it.
