Page 23 of It's One of Us

“What are you doing home?”

Scarlett opens the fridge, gets out a bottle of lemonade and a piece of string cheese.

“I feel sick.”

Darby stands with a sigh. “Let me get the thermometer.”

“Not sick like that.” She sits down at the table, gestures for Darby to do the same. An eyebrow raised, her mother sits.

“You’re missing a quiz in chemistry, you know. They might not let you make it up.”

“This is too important. We need to talk. I need your advice.”

Darby is clearly trying not to detonate. “On your little Discord group? My God, Scarlett. How dare you go behind my back like this?”

“How dare you snoop in my room?” Scarlett shoots back. “I thought we were past that.”

“I wasn’t snooping, I was getting your laundry. I was doing you a favor, and what do I see? You’ve been hiding the truth from me, living a secret life, and God knows what else—”

“Don’t you dare, Mom. I haven’t done anything wrong. I wanted to know who he was, that’s all.”

“And you couldn’t have come to me, made a plan with me? You went online and confided in a bunch of strangers? This could all be some sort of huge lie, some sort of scam, you realize that. To prey on donor kids.”

“It’s not. I’m not an idiot. And see, that’s the problem right there. You won’t ever say anything about him other than calling himyour donor. Your donor, your donor, your donor. He’s my father. I’ve always wanted a father, and you tore that dream away from me, and now I have a chance to meet him, and I bet he loves me more than you do.”

They are both shocked by that outburst.

“Want to take that back?” Darby asks.

“No,” she cries, lower lip stuck out like a petulant five-year-old, though the tears are coming, her lip wobbling, and Darby sighs and pours herself a glass of water while Scarlett erupts into a shower of tears.

“Why couldn’t I have a father? Why did you have to do this alone? All I ever wanted was to be a proper family, and instead it was the three of us and people laughed and said nasty things and—”

“They did?” Darby puts the water pitcher back into the fridge.

“Yes.”

Darby hands Scarlett a tissue. “What did they say?”

A shuddery sigh. The fight has gone out of her as quickly as it arose. Her mother is so calm, so logical, so unruffled all the time. She doesn’t fight with passion like Scarlett. She’s almost robotic. It’s infuriating. Sometimes Scarlett wants to scream and smash things. The pressure builds inside until she needs to explode. When she was little, she’d punch or bite the kids around her, completely out of control, but as she’s grown older, she’s learned to master her feelings. She usually takes it out on her pillow, or on the pitch, against the soccer ball. Right now, though, it’s come to a head, and she’s forcing it away. They have bigger problems than her own emotions.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“If it hurt you, honey, it matters. People talk, people say things, because they don’t understand other people’s choices, especially on something as personal as building a family.”

“Didn’t you want a husband? Or a wife? I mean, a partner of some kind?”

Scarlett claps a hand over her mouth. This is as close as she has ever come to inquiring about her mother’s sexuality.

“I assume there’s been talk?” Darby asks evenly.

“Speculation is more like it. Because people are cruel and can’t mind their own damn business. But I never knew what to say. Not that it matters, Mom. People were just curious.”

Darby runs a long finger across the top of her water glass. It sings a tiny note of squeaky joy. “I wanted kids. I wanted you. You know my dad wasn’t the greatest, right? I’ve told you I had a rough upbringing. He drank, and he hit, and he threatened, and my mom wouldn’t walk away, and she was always so miserable. I couldn’t do that to myself. I never wanted to be beholden to someone else for my happiness. I decided early on that I was going to be a single mother, and I never strayed from that.”

“But aren’t you lonely? I mean, it would be so hard to be alone all these years.”

“How could I be lonely when I have you and your brother? You’re my world, and always have been.”