Page 112 of Lucas & Melissa Falling in Love
“Melissa? What a big surprise,” my mother answers and I see her standing in the doorway as we round the corner.
Rushing forward, I give her a hug and she hugs me back in that sedate, confident way she has. Feeling her small sturdy frame, smelling her familiar perfume, touching her soft graying hair, I’m reassured that I do belong to someone. That she is mine and I’m hers after all. Then we break the embrace and she has a smile that grows larger when she sees Lucas standing behind me.
“No, I’m not here to make any big announcements about Lucas and me.” I smile to soften the blow and she looks a little embarrassed. But she turns and goes back into the TV room, holding my arm.
“Come in and sit. Tell us what the occasion is.” She moves a throw aside to make room for Lucas and me to sit on the couch with her. My father is in his lounge chair, leaning back, unmoved.
“Hello, Melissa. Lucas,” he says. And I know he knows why we’re here. The sudden stammer of my heart, the tension, the iron grip I have on Lucas’s hand all tell me he knows I’m right.
My mother looks at me expectantly, innocently and I realize this is going to impact her whether she knows about the deal with Stuart already or not. I reach out and put a hand on hers. Then I look at my father and gather my courage even as I feel like I’m going to throw up, even as my throat feels constricted by a boulder and my chest tightens against the pounding clatter of my heart.
“You said you didn’t know anything about my birth parents. And I believed you.”
Staring at him, focused on the stony reserve of his face, the dear face that I drew strength from all these years, I wait tick after excruciating tick of the grandfather clock. Aware of my mother’s puzzlement—I can see her from the corner of my eye—I didn’t move.
Finally, my father, whom I’ve always thought of as myrealfather even after I found out I was adopted, lifts the remote and clicks the television off.
“We made a promise, Melissa.”
“Don’t drag Mom into this.” I try to modulate my voice, but it shakes. My mother looks alarmed.
“You’ve found your birth parents?” she says, eyes wide with disbelief.
“Yes,” Lucas says, calm and confident, in a bold voice that pervades the small room, not with volume, but with vibrating ominous finality and truth.
“You can’t have found Stuart,” my father says, trying to match Lucas’s tone, but his voice vibrates more with emotion than confidence. “He’s dead.”
“We know,” I say. “No thanks to you.” I lash the words at him, but they seem to ricochet off him and hit my mother. She cringes.
“Oh Melissa, everything we’ve done we’ve done because we’ve thought it best for you.”
“I believeyou did,Mom.” I soften my gaze as I say this to her, but then I harden it again when I turn back to my father. This is all on him. It was his friend. He made all the decisions on how the adoption would be handled. I know him. I know my parents.
“We both did, Melissa. Surely you know that. We’ve cared for you all these years—”
“Then why did you place keeping the secrets of your dear friend Stuart over my needs? And—” I stumble here, but I have to ask. “Why did you turn down the money he offered to help take care of me? Was your damn pride even more important than my welfare?”
“No. You’ve lacked for nothing. We didn’t need his damn money, did we?” His voice is angry now and Lucas leans forward slightly and stares him down as if he’s protecting me. I hold onto his hand more fiercely, if that’s even possible.
“You betrayed me, lied to me. I begged you to tell me everything you knew.” I can’t help the tears now, but it doesn’t matter, I don’t bother trying to stop crying.
He’s betrayed me in so many ways I can’t think straight. He refused the money because of his damn pride. The thought chokes me. I understand it, understood how he feels, but I have the practical streak of my birth mother—of both my mothers—and feel betrayed by the loss of opportunity, of the advantages I could have had.
“You betrayed me most of all because you put your damn pride ahead of me. You kepthissecret fromme, the one person with a right to know. Your daughter, who should come before a guy you knew in prep school.” This was something I’ve never seen him do before.
“I understand you see it that way, but it’s not right, not how it is. You’re upset with me now, but you’ll see things differently when you cool off—”
“Don’t dismiss me,” I shriek the words.
In all my experience growing up, my father had put me first. Always. Except for the one time he didn’t, when it counted most, when my birth father offered to give me financial support, he’d turned it down. He put his pride before my best interests. And I’d bet my bottom dollar my mother argued with him about it—if she even knew.
Now staring at my father in the comfortable little TV room, I turn to look at my mother. She says nothing, but she looks pale. And horrified.
Standing abruptly, I can’t stay, can’t hear any more and know better than to say anymore.
“Let’s go,” I say. Lucas stands with me.
My father finally moves from his comfortable chair. “Melissa, don’t leave like this,” he says and it’s the first thing that penetrates my anger, finding a crack in the hurt.
