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“Dad? Doesn’t know?” she repeated as questions again. “How can he not know?” she shrilled and I shushed her again.
“It’s a long story,” I said in a flat tone, despite my racing heart. I knew I had to tell her what happened, but also to keep my emotions at bay to get through my confession.
For the following hour I went on to tell her about how Mom insisted I conceal my pregnancy, the arrangement between Aunt Lydia and Erin’s parents, and how they took me to private hospital for induction.
Marnie sat with tears rolling down her face, silently shaking her head as I told her in hushed tones the events leading up to the adoption, and how my life had been since. I also told her I’d been meeting with Erin and had been pressing our mom to tell them because Erin was excited to meet the rest of her family.
Looking stunned, she pressed her lips together before casting me a sideward glance. “There’s no way you can tell him, Tricia.”
My heart sank at her stern instruction. “All of that, and that’s all you’ve got to say?”
“No, it’s not. I have plenty to say, but you’ll have to give me time to digest this. All my life I’ve seen you as this corporate high-flyer type, too busy making money and having fun to have kids. Getting my head around that sweet sixteen-year-old you were, with a baby, is going to take some adjustment.”
“Huh,” I huffed, disappointed because her reply was more like something my mom would have said than the warm, heartfelt reaction I’d gotten from Billie when I’d told her about Erin.
“Don’t. Don’t you dare do that, like you think I don’t care,” she admonished. “Can you take a step back for a moment and think how you’d feel if this had been true in reverse, and I had told you this today? We buried our mom today, for fuck’s sake. And now I’ve had this emotional powder keg blow up in my face.”
“I’m sorry if the timing of this is inconvenient for you—”
“Tricia, what you’ve told me is horrific. To think our mom did that to you and you’ve carried that around on your shoulders for all this time, it was deplorable of her. How can anyone be that evil? I’m… so glad she’s dead, because if I’d found this out and she’d been alive, I’d have killed her myself. I can’t imagine for a minute what you went through—what you’re still going through—now that Erin’s been in touch.”
I felt light-headed with relief that Marnie hadn’t turned her back on me. “Since James and I have been together, I’ve been in therapy. He was the first person I’d ever told or spoken to about the baby since she was born.”
Marnie came over, hugged me tight, and quietly sobbed into my neck. “I’m so sorry you felt you couldn’t tell me. You must have been so frightened. Didn’t Mom take you to counseling afterward?”
“Nope, I hadn’t even recovered when Mom sent me back to school a week after,” I replied. Marnie leaned back and looked at me, and I saw the pain she carried inside for my plight reflected in her eyes.
“What about Donnie, did he know?”
“Not that I went on to have the baby. You have no idea what I went through.”
She straightened up again, her shoulders tense. “I guess that’s why you and Brad broke up?”
“Yeah, I broke up with him on the phone straight after. I was disgusted with myself. There was no excuse, I cheated—let him down badly—I let myself down.”
“You were a baby at sixteen, Tricia. I’m not excusing what happened, but you had no idea how alcohol could make you feel. You had no idea about sex for that matter, unless you—”
“No, we’d fooled around but never had sex,” I stated, feeling oddly bashful to admit that to my sister.
“It was your first time? Fuck. And our mom did all that to you? It’s a wonder you have the relationship you have with James now.”
“No, it’s because of James I have the relationship we have now. Before him, I could never see myself living with any man. I never thought I deserved to be happy… or have children since I’d been so ignorantly passive about giving my baby up.”
“You didn’t just give her up, you were young and confused, and dare I say, bullied into a decision you may still have made had it been handled more sensitively. Nevertheless, knowing our mom, you were never given the choice.” Marnie’s hands were balled into fists by her sides, her anger radiating off her.
“That’s true. I was told this is what’s going to happen, but when it came down to the actual event, it was nothing like she had described. Aunt Lydia and Mom ran the show, and by then I was so worn down, afraid, and exhausted I’d have done anything to be out of the whole situation.”
“Fuck. Why didn’t you call me? I’d have helped you,” she asked, spinning on her heel and sat down again to face me.
She placed her hand over mine. I glanced down at it, thankful for the show of solidarity in her touch.
“What would you have done, Marnie? You were a young single girl yourself; a soldier overseas, how could you have helped?”
She shrugged helplessly, because she knew I was right, there was little she could have done.
“I feel sick that you went through all of that without the loving support of us, your family. That’s what we’re supposed to be here for.”
She fell quiet for a few minutes and we sat together, united in the tragedy of my situation before she looked up at me again with fresh tears welling in her eyes.
