Page 7 of Letters to Lily

“Well, that’s something at least. Am I to assume you’ve already cut checks to the builders that need to be stopped?”

“Well,” she hedged. “They’re meeting with your father this morning, and he has the checks.”

“You never learn, do you?” I huffed out in frustration. “Get dressed. We’ll grab you something for your stomach on the way. I hope you have a damn rental car, because I’m not old enough to rent one for myself.”

“Sure, I do.”

I had to drive my mom to my dad’s new house in the rental car that I wasn’t supposed to be driving. My family, I swear, every little thing about them together was just wrong. I just didn’t know why my mom couldn’t see that. I wanted nothing more than to hurry and tidy this mess up so that I could get back to Sasha. My anxiety levels where she was concerned were starting to shoot through the roof. We hadn’t exactly left things on a great note. I knew I was okay with the direction she wanted to go; I just hadn’t had the chance to tell her that yet. Hell, I wanted things to move far faster, but I was afraid of scaring her. Now, I was stuck here, incommunicado, dealing with my parents’ ongoing disaster of a relationship.

When we pulled up at the house there were two trucks. One belonging to the builder, the other was my dad’s, according to mom. Then there was a little red Beamer. I just knew what that would mean. Apparently, my mom didn’t miss the meaning either, since her face turned five different shades of red as she furiously flung the rental car door open and stomped up the drive to where my dad was shaking hands with another man while handing over what looked suspiciously like my mother’s checks.

“Oh, no you don’t, you rotten bastard.” She leaped in between the two men and snatched the check that was still hovering between both of their hands. I chuckled as she proceeded to rip it to shreds.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” A woman, not much older than me, who was holding a toddler on her hip, started shouting.

“You shut your mouth you damn home-wrecking harlot!” My mom yelled. Cue the nosey neighbors who suddenly had to check their mail at nine in the morning, or water their lawns during a lawn-watering ban. The builder, for his part, looked taken aback at first, and then realized what the situation must have meant. He shook his head, disgust riddled in his features. I just wasn’t sure if that particular sentiment was being lobbed at my mother, father, his newest fling, or the whole situation.

“Harlan, we can meet again another day to settle up. Obviously, you have a mess to clean up first.” The man trekked over to his truck, hopped inside, and got the hell out of Dodge. Kind of like how I wished I could run away from the situation. I ran my hands through my hair in frustration before I huffed out a sigh and stepped between my bickering parents.

“How about we all take this inside, so we aren’t putting on a show for the neighborhood?” I suggested, raising my voice a bit to be heard above the three people who were supposed to be the adults in this situation.

For the first time, my dad realized I was standing there. “Kaden? What are you doing here?”

“It’s great to see you too, Dad,” I called back, the sentiment dripping in sarcasm. “How about we take this shit-show inside?”

My dad narrowed his eyes at my obvious disdain for his bullshit, but nodded his head, placed his hand on the small of the young woman’s back that who was standing by his side. She was still clinging to the little girl who couldn’t have been more than two-years-old. My mom huffed at the obvious display, and my dad’s disregard for her altogether.

While the house had looked a little large for the small family from the outside, it was downright ostentatious from the inside. Seriously, there were marble countertops, over the top appliances, fixtures that I wouldn’t begin to know how to price, and just a level of opulence that my father obviously had never bothered to achieve on his own merit. No wonder he needed my mom’s check. He and his diva had allowed their wants to exceed their needs and budget in a major way when picking out all those extras for the builders to include. It looked as though an interior decorator had already been through the place, furnishing it as well.

“I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here, right now, but we need to get one thing straight,” I started while looking my dad in his still narrowed eyes. “My mother will not, under any circumstance, be paying for your new house with your new mistress and her spawn.”

The woman in question took in a sharp breath as if I’d just smacked her. I’m sure it felt that way since I called her adorable little kid her spawn. “That spawn you mentioned is your sister,” my dad snapped back.

I did a double take then, ignoring the whimpered cry my mother lobbed into the air. The cute little kid tucked up into her mother’s arms, looking particularly scared of me at the moment, was my little sister? Wonders never ceased apparently, kind of like how my dad never ceased to procreate. I had heard rumors that he had a kid almost my age running around Vegas too. I never thought to substantiate those rumors, because honestly, I was afraid it would be true. Not that I wouldn’t want to meet my sibling, but I worried what that meant for the kid that got left behind. Also, I wondered what they would feel for me since I was the kid he stayed with. It wasn’t lost on me that it probably had more to do with my mom’s money and not which kid he preferred. All the same, when I’d heard the rumors a few years ago, I chose to ignore them rather than look any closer at my family’s cracked and dented outward appearance.

“Okay, we’ll come back to that little nugget of information in a minute, because I’m assuming up until this week you’ve had a working phone number for me. It’s the same damn cell phone number I’ve had since I was 15.”

My dad just shrugged his shoulders, “I wasn’t sure.”

“Well, you know how to be sure? You call it!” I had to take a minute to calm my composure, because I was seriously about to hit something or someone. That someone being my callous, good for nothing father. “Regardless of whether that kid is yours or not, she’s not my mother’s responsibility. It’s damned insulting that you would even think of dragging my mom into this mess because you can’t afford the ridiculous house you built. How about you grow the hell up, live to your means, and try taking care of one family at a time for once. God only knows how many more siblings I have out there.” I rolled my eyes as I voiced concern that I’d been reluctant to share earlier.

“There’s just one more. You remember Sandra?” Sandra had been our neighbor when we lived in Vegas before. I only knew of her because of pictures that I found in a family album once. She had moved to the other side of town when I was still small, but there was a picture of me playing with her son in a sandbox. We were damn near the same age.

“Please, tell me you’re lying. The kid from the picture in the sandbox?”

“You bastard!” My mom yelped out on a heaving sob. “You promised you wouldn’t tell him.”

“He’s a grown up, now. No more protecting him from my other life.” My father’s tone was still heartless, although I thought I saw a flicker of regret in there somewhere.

“Fantastic, so somewhere out there, I have a brother who has to be damn closed to my age, and now, I have a sister, who can’t be too far out of diapers.” I flicked my hand at the whole damn mess my father created and turned as if to leave. “Mom, let’s go!”

“Wait,” the woman called out. “Kade, don’t you want to get to know your sister at all? I wanted to tell you, before we left Northbrook, but your dad didn’t give me a chance.” I turned and really looked at her then. Damn if this wasn’t the same girl my dad had an affair with that broke up his marriage to my mom for good. This was the girl, Angie, who had graduated a whole two years before I did. When I was a junior in high school, and she had been one year out of school, she’d run off to Vegas with my dad and apparently had been knocked up. I guess at least some of the rumors had been true.

“Fantastic. Angie, was it?” She smiled up at me. “If I decide it’s necessary to have a relationship with my sister, I will let you know. Apparently, I didn’t miss out on a whole hell of a lot with my brother back in the day, so I doubt that will happen.” The smile on her face faltered just as quickly as it had warmed to me when she realized I remembered her name. “You helped him destroy our family,” I said to her, “if you think that earns you any respect from me because you happened to get knocked up while doing it, you have me pegged all wrong.”

“Kaden Andrew Miller, you will not speak to my wife like that!” My dad shouted with what he thought was authority over me.

“Your wife?” My mom gasped. Angie smirked. I shook my head.

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