“It’s okay,” he assures under his breath.
But Burrowes interjects, looking at me. “I show you on the log as the last person, other than the janitor, to sign out and leave the school Friday evening,” she tells me. “Now that’s not unusual, since you stay late to teach swim lessons, but then it occurred to me that you have a key. And then I remembered the company you’ve been suddenly keeping.” She glances at Misha. “Did you take her key?”
“No!” I answer for him.
“Yes,” he says.
Oh, Jesus.
“It’s okay,” he says again. “I’ll be fine.”
She leads him away, and I throw up my hands, feeling helpless. Why didn’t he just walk out like last time?
He doesn’t have to protect me, and he knows I won’t let him take the fall.
What is he doing?
“Sit down.”
I prefer to stand, but I’m guessing I may as well settle in. I take the seat in front of her desk.
“After the fights and your behavior the past few weeks, I’ve been calling the phone numbers on file,” she tells me, closing her office door. “None of them work or they’re wrong numbers. You want to tell me what’s going on?”
I stare at her as she takes her seat behind her tidy, little desk. Unbuttoning her suit jacket, she scoots in and opens a file, undoubtedly mine. It’s nearly empty.
But I keep quiet.
“If you had a concern about Trey, you should’ve come to me,” she demands. “Not break into the school and write horrible accusations on the wall.”
Accusations? Were the pictures she found in her bedroom not clear enough?
“Where is he?” I ask.
She straightens. “I’ve sent my stepson home for the day, while we sort through this mess.”
I feel like smiling, but I don’t. I simply stare at her. With the amount of upset students outside her door right now, I’m guessing the mess will take quite a while to sort through.
“Where are your parents?” she asks.
“My father lives in Thunder Bay.”
“And your mother?”
“Gone.”
She exhales a sigh and folds her hands on her desk. She knows she’s not going to get anywhere like this.
Reaching over, she picks up the phone receiver and holds it to her ear. “Give me your father’s phone number.”
My fingers curl, but I don’t give myself away. This is it.
“742-555-3644.”
“What’s his name?” She punches in the number. “His real name.”
I hear the line start ringing, and my heart pounds painfully, but I remain stoic.
“Matthew,” I answer flatly. “Matthew Lare Grayson.”
She suddenly goes still and darts her eyes up to me. Her breathing speeds up, and she looks like she’s seen a ghost.
Well, she remembers his name. That’s something, at least.
My father’s voice comes across on the other line. “Hello?”
And she looks back down, and I see her swallow the lump in her throat, blinking nervously. “Matthew?”
“Gillian?”
She hangs up the phone like it’s burning hot and covers her mouth with her hand. I almost want to smile. Just to add to the taunt.
She raises her eyes, locking on mine and looking like she’s scared of me. “Misha?”
Yep.
And awesome. She remembers my name. Two points for Mom.
Now she knows. Me choosing to come to this school and sit in this office had nothing to do with Trey. It was about her.
“What do you want?” she asks, and it sounds like an accusation.
I laugh to myself. “What do I want?” And then I drop my eyes, whispering to myself, “What do I want?”
I raise my chin and cock my head, sitting across from her and holding her fucking accountable. “I guess I wanted a mom. I wanted a family, and I wanted you to see me play the guitar,” I tell her. “I wanted to see you Christmas morning and to smile at me and miss me and hold my sister when she was sad or lonely or scared.” I watch as she just sits there silently, her eyes glistening. “I wanted you to like us. I wanted you to tell my father that he was a good guy who deserved better than you and that he should stop waiting for you. I wanted you to tell us to stop waiting.”
I flex my jaw, getting stronger by the moment. This isn’t about me. I’m done being hurt and asking myself questions when I know the answers won’t be good enough.
“I wanted to see you,” I go on. “I wanted to figure you out. I wanted to understand why my sister died of a heart attack at seventeen years old, because she was taking drugs to keep her awake to study and be the perfect daughter, athlete, and student, so you would come back and be proud of her and want her!”
I study her face, seeing Annie’s brown eyes staring back, pained and turning red. “I wanted to understand why you didn’t come to your own child’s funeral,” I charge. “Your baby who was lying on a dark, wet, cold road for hours alone while your new kids,”—I shove at a picture frame on her desk, making it tumble forward—“in your new house,”—another picture frame—“with your new husband,”—the last picture frame—“were all tucked safe and warm in their beds, but not Annie. She was dying alone, having never felt her mother’s arms around her.”
She hunches forward, breaking down and covering her mouth with her hands again. This can’t be a surprise. She had to know this was going to happen someday.
I mean, I know she hasn’t seen me since I was two, but I thought for sure she would know me. That first day, seeing her in the lunchroom, I felt like she was going to turn around. Like she’d be able to sense me or some shit.
But she didn’t. Not then, not when she pulled me into her office for a “Hey, how are you?”… and not any time after that.
She deserted us and moved away when Annie was just a baby. After a time, I heard she went to college and started teaching, but honestly, it barely hurt.
I could understand being young—twenty-two with two kids—and not to mention the cut-throat family she married into. But I thought she’d eventually find her way back to us.
And later, when Annie and I found out she was only one town away, married to a man who already had a son, and she’d started a family with him and still hadn’t made the slightest effort to seek Annie and me out, I got angry.
Annie did everything in the hope our mother would hear about her or see her team in the paper and come for her.
“Now…” I say, my tone calm and even, “I don’t want any of those things. I just want my sister back.” I lean forward, placing my elbows on the tops of my knees. “And I want you to tell me something before I leave. Something I need to hear. I want you to tell me that you were never going to look for us.”
Her teary eyes shoot up to me.
Yeah, I might’ve convinced myself that I came here to collect the photo album of my sister’s school pictures and newspaper clippings Annie said she mailed her here that I found in her file cabinet and my grandfather’s watch, but really, part of me had a shred of hope. Part of me thought she might still be a good person and have an explanation. A way to tell me why—even in death—Annie’s mom still didn’t come for her.
“I want you to tell me you don’t regret leaving and you haven’t thought about us a single day since you left,” I demand. “You were happier without us, and you don’t want us.”
“Misha—”
“Say it,” I growl. “Let me leave here free of you. Give me that.”
Maybe she missed us and didn’t want to disrupt our lives. Maybe she missed us and didn’t want to disrupt her life. Or maybe that part of her life is broken and over, and she doesn’t want to go back. Maybe she doesn’t care.
But I do know that I can’t care about this anymore. I stare at her and wait for her to say what I need to hear.
“I wasn’t going to look for either of you,” she whispers, staring at her desk with tears streaming down her face. “I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t be your mother.”
I slam my hand down on her desk, and she jumps. “I don’t give a shit about your excuses. I won’t feel sorry for you. Now say it. Say you were happier without us, and you didn’t want us.”