Page 53 of The Secrets We Keep
“I warned her, ‘Amber, now is not the time.’
“I think it was more my saying that than her mom actually spitting out the truth in slurred words that caused Heather to stiffen with shock. She eyed me, her lower lip quivering. ‘What’s she talking about?’ she asked me.
“I told her, ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. She’s drunk. She’s crazy. Go to bed. We’ll talk in the morning.’
“But Amber was having none of it. As Heather stood frozen on the stairs, she called up to her, ‘He’s your dad, honey. You’ve just been too stupid to realize it all these years. He was able to get it up for a woman at least once.’ She laughed bitterly. ‘But he didn’t want you. So he gave you to us, like a castoff. But it’s time you knew. God knows you’re old enough.’
“Heather stared at me. And only at me. I could see the shock on her face, the pain in her eyes, and it just about killed me. ‘Is this true?’ she whispered.
“I closed my eyes. My gut was churning. I always thought that, someday, the truth would come out. But not like this, never like this.
“All I could do was nod my head.
“Heather turned and rushed away.” Rob grew very quiet. He rolled away from Jasper.
After a while, he said, “That night was the last time I saw her until her funeral. Days later, she up and moved to Chicago. She let us know she was safe and where she was, but there was little communication after that.”
Jasper pushed on Rob’s shoulder, forcing him to roll over and make eye contact. “Younevertalked to her again?” Jasper could barely get the words out. He was literally afraid he would vomit. “You didn’ttry?”
“She didn’t want to hear from me, Jasper. I sent emails, texts… everything went unanswered. Her phone always went to voicemail.”
Jasper sat up, feeling chilled, his stomach churning. “Why? Why didn’t you come to Chicago, make her see you? It’s what I would have done. I would have done whatever it took!”
“I was giving her space. It was a big shock.” Now Rob sounded defensive. Jasper didn’t care.
“Giving her space?” Jasper numbly repeated. “Foryears?” He thought of how betrayed she must have felt, how lied to, how hurt. How she, essentially, no longer wanted to be herself. It made sense. The trauma of this revelation turned her into Lacy—and he’d never had a clue.
The secrets! The lies. Jasper couldn’t fathom Lacy’s pain, the enormity of it. He, all at once, understood her despair, her withdrawal.
And why she loved him.
Jasper reached over and switched on the lamp on the bedside table. He got up and began picking up his clothes where they lay scattered in disarray on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Rob asked. “Jasper, please….”
“I’m getting dressed. I need to process this.”
Rob sat up and then moved toward him.
Jasper held up a hand. “Don’t. I can’t. Not right now.” He thought of Lacy in her bed, alone, that final night. Jasper had left her alone, clueless yet again about the depths of her despair, about what she needed. He tried to tell himself that it had just been that night—a night like many others—and that made the knowledge both a comfort and a horror.
In a way, it was her father who’d truly left her alone.
No. Don’t think that way.
Even though Jasper wanted to be sympathetic, to be kind, he couldn’t help feeling a kind of disgust at Rob.
“Why did you give her up?” Jasper struggled into his jeans and pulled his shirt over his head. He almost fell over getting into his shoes.
“I was a kid, Jasper. I was fooling around, experimenting. By the time she was born, I knew I couldn’t be a dad to her. Hell, I could barely parent myself back then. My brother and Amber had been trying to have a kid, and failing, for so, so long. I was trying to do the right thing.”
“Butyearswent by, Rob. Years! You grew up, didn’t you? I can see letting someone else raise her if you weren’t ready, but why did it have to be a lie? Why couldn’t you just tell her and be a part of her life as a father? None of us can have too many fathers!” Jasper thought for a moment of his own dad, his silence, his lack of attention, but also of the last time they’d spoken and how he’d said, “I love you.”
“It would have meant so much more to her if you could have been there!” Jasper didn’t know where his fury was coming from. Well, maybe he had some idea, but he couldn’t let the notion rise higher than his subconscious.
The thought came anyway, even though Jasper wanted to push it away—with force.Neither you nor Lacy had fathers. Different stories. Same end result. No wonder we saw in each other the same thing—the walking wounded, hungering for love.
Jasper stood now at the door. “You betrayed her. You could have done more, and you didn’t.” Again, he thought he could be saying the same words to his own father.