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Missus Vasser’s fake smiles and syrupy, sweet Southern charm-laced Bible bullying still made my skin crawl, causing my shoulders to shudder back at him. “I can’t believe the woman hated me so much that she would make up such an elaborate damn plan. God, I was stupid to buy into any of it.”
Nodding back at me, he beat his fingernail onto the table. “You were in way over your head when it came to dealing with her. Yes.” He reached out for my hand and squeezed. “But that’s not your fault. She’s just a horrible human being who gets off on making people feel like garbage, and that’s not something a normal person does.”
Opening and closing his mouth, his fingers slid off me again. “I tried never to lie to either of you. But the whole thing was such a complicated minefield to navigate, I wasn’t sure how to lead any of us out of it.”
As he pinched up both his shoulders, he backed away and breathed out the guilt he’d been holding onto for so long. “I’m not trying to defend her in any way, Faith, but we all do what we think is in our children’s best interest, right or wrong.” Jerking the side of his mouth, he flipped his hand over. “For whatever reason, she thought you were wrong for him.”
When my mother left my dad, she took half his money and left me behind. To say I grew up poor was an understatement, and Missus Vasser never let me forget how pitiful I was with her ‘Bless your hearts’ and ‘They say God loves the working folks.’ “Yeah. I guess I dodged a bullet by not having her phony, meddling ass as a mother-in-law.”
Dominic was a thought that never left my mind, and seeing him again only stirred up things I feared I’d never feel again. I didn’t know if there’d be a future for us, but Dom would always be a friend of mine, and I was so angry about what happened to him, too. “But what about what she did to him? How can someone do that to a child they claim to love so much?”
Shaking his head back at me, he hooked his coffee cup with his finger and dragged it to him. “I can’t say what she was thinking. But if I thought for a second Dom would ruin your life, I may have done the same thing.”
The transformation of his once silky black hair to a coif of pale silver was complete, and it fell over as he sighed into his coffee. “I’m not proud, but it’s the truth. I wanted the best for you both, and I think it worked out for the best, despite how it came to be.”
How adults always assumed kids were their little puppets to do whatever they wanted with never made any sense to me. “What are you talking about?”
Like I didn’t have a thought or feeling of my own just because I was a teenager when it happened, he basically admitted he felt like nothing I went through affected me in any kind of negative way. “You two old fibbers did ruin my life. Nothing worked out the way I wanted it to.”
His forehead wrinkled back at me as he shifted his chin. “How’s that?”
A finger uncurled from his arm with everything Dom and I accomplished separately. “You graduated college at the top of your class. Have a boatload of cash socked away. Traveled the world. And Dom’s a well-respected doctor.” Bending his hand away to show me where I came from as he looked over his house, he arched his brows. “It doesn’t sound like either of you did too bad to me.”
Shaking my finger at him, I shoved my hips back to push out my chair. “To you, I bet it does sound good.”
My parents were already grown up and married with a home of their own by the time they had me. They chose to bring me into the disappointing lives they settled for. So when either of them hinted that anything held them back from a better future other than their own choices, it just infuriated me. “But I’m miserable — absolutely freaking miserable.”
I closed my eyes and caught the tears dripping from them with my fingers. “You may have wanted to go to school and travel the world. But it’s not what I wanted for my life.” I was so busy building a future from the nothing I started out with that I never made the time to actually chase the things that made me happy. “All I ever wanted was to be his wife and a mother, and you stole that from me.”
I lifted a finger from the table as I opened my eyes again. “I have no kids.” Another finger came up as I shook my head at him. “No husband.” My hands chopped away from each other. “No other family in this world except for you. And when you’re gone, I’ll have no one.” My palm met the center of the table as I leaned over to him. “So no, things have not worked out for the best, in my opinion.”
Pointing at him as I passed him, I stomped off to the hallway. Reduced to my teenage hissy fits, I yelled out to him from the stairs until I flung my door open. “I’m seeing Dom tonight. So, don’t wait up for me.”
I closed the door behind me, and the boy in the photograph seemed to smile a little brighter this time. Ready to face the world and the truth with Dom for once, I smiled back and blew him a kiss on my way to the closet. “See you soon, baby.”
20
What Belonged to Me
Dominic
Until I looked over the in-law suite in my mother’s backyard that evening when I got home from work, I’m not sure I understood how sad my life was.
Frozen in time as the kid who did whatever she told me to get her off my back, I still came to her house every day for dinner.
How she’d orchestrated a whole symphony of lies to keep me under her roof forever was obvious now. Shaking my head at how blind I was to it all this time, I pushed the back door open. “Hey.”
Wiping her hands on her apron, she smiled as she reached up on her toes to kiss my cheek. “You’re just in time. Everything’s still hot.”
Scoffing at the table full of food she set out, I waved her off. I was so sick of her that I’m not sure I could be in the same room with her for much longer. “Yeah. I’m not staying.”
Twisting her mouth in suspicion as she narrowed her eyes at me, she bent down to open the oven door. “What’s wrong?” She peeked over her shoulder at me as she pulled out the dinner rolls. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
My finger gun shot out at her as I pulled a glass from the cupboard. “Funny you should say that.” After filling it half full with water, I rested my hip against the counter and put it to my lips. “So, I ran into Faith Bennett at the hospital today.”
She froze momentarily before setting the baking sheet on top of the oven. “Really?” Busying herself with things that didn’t need to be done to avoid my eyes, she shrugged back at me. “Is she here visiting her father?”
After I sucked back the entire glass in a swallow, I laid it in the sink because I didn’t want to miss her face when I told her. “No. She’s going to be working with me at the hospital from now on so she can be closer to him.”
