Page 50 of There Are No Words

And maybe it wasn’t what I’d had in mind, but perhaps it was what Mom had in mind from the great beyond. I wasn’t sure anymore.

I turned around and walked to the front door, knocking before I used my key. Inside, my footsteps echoed. “Dad,” I called, fully expecting to find him in his home office, even on the weekend.

Lo-and-behold that was exactly where he was. I pushed the heavy wooden door open the rest of the way. “Can I come in?”

He rubbed his eyes and looked up at me from behind his desk. “Allegra. Did you have fun last night?”

I nodded. “Thanks for letting us use the house.”

“Anytime,” he returned and closed his laptop. “Where are your sisters?”

I sighed, not sure how to answer, so I decided to answer vaguely. Truthfully, but vaguely. “They had to run after shopping.”

He smiled. “You pick up any new clothes?”

Shaking my head, I gave him a weak smile. “No,” I responded, which got his attention if I hadn’t already had it. “Hey, Dad, I want to talk to you about something.” I pulled out the chair opposite his desk and sat down.

“Is this about Brady? I promise to give him a chance, but he better not be a deadbeat father, otherwise he’ll have to answer to me,” he said, a fist shaking in the air. As if my father would hurt a fly.

I laughed. “It’s not about Brady.” I just wasn’t sure how to get the words out. My mouth was suddenly dry. Bone dry. Would Dad even know what I was about to ask him? Would I be telling him something he had no clue about? Or would he be able to tell me the whole story? “Actually, last night we went up to the attic,” I started and immediately noticed Dad tensed, his back going rigid.

“The attic?” he asked, his voice coming out hoarse.

Nodding, I looked down at my hands and blurted out, “We found an old trunk. It was Mom’s.”

Inhaling deeply, he wove his fingers together and rested his hands on his chest as he sat back in his chair. “Did you open it?”

I wasn’t sure why, but I had a feeling he was hoping I’d say no. But I couldn’t, as you well knew. “Yes. We found a pregnancy journal. It was Mom’s, but the dates don’t line up with any of us. Do you know anything about it?” I wasn’t sure if I hoped he did or didn’t. I supposed it’d be better if he did because then he’d be able to explain what Mom couldn’t.

Clearing his throat, I could tell my father was fighting hard against going pale. “I do. You clearly opened it, but did your sisters notice what you did about the dates?” he asked, composed as ever, but also obviously distressed.

I nodded.

“Why aren’t they with you?”

“They have mixed feelings on the topic, but I believe I was meant to find it. Especially at this time,” I said, gesturing to my belly and smirking. “Can you explain it?”

The sun was shining in through the office window, but it might as well have been midnight on Halloween for how eerie this whole thing felt.

After a few seconds of silence, Dad closed his eyes and began, “I met your mother in college, and we married right away and had Maria within that first year. But Maria wasn’t her firstborn.”

“She was pregnant by another man?” I asked, needing to make sure I understood.

My father opened his eyes and nodded in confirmation.

I had so many more questions but let him continue. This time, he kept his eyes open, and they looked sad as he spoke, the corners of his mouth turning downward. Even his tone was melancholy. “Your mother and her high school boyfriend—the boy her parents wanted her to be with—had a baby. But your grandmother, may she rest in peace, was insistent that they wed, or Regina give up the baby.” I didn’t dare interrupt him, but this made so much sense. Grams and Mom had never really been close. Not like she’d been with my sisters and me. “You remember these days were not the same as they are now, getting pregnant out of wedlock, especially as a teenager in high school, was unheard of.Especiallywhen you were the daughter of socialites as your mother was.”

This was a lot to swallow, but I was taking it all in. “Okay, so obviously they didn’t get married, right?”

He shook his head. “No, they did not. His parents forbade it, and the two families had a falling out. Your mother gave birth to a baby girl, and her mother arranged an adoption for her.”

“And you knew all these years?” I asked. It felt like a silly question because obviously he knew, but it was a littleunbelievable to imagine they’d kept this secret and for as long as they had. “You never said anything. Mom never said anything.” I tried my best to understand where they might have been coming from, but didn’t my sisters and I have a right to know? I raked my bottom lip through my teeth and pushed without being disrespectful, “Why?”

Leaning forward on his desk, Dad looked me straight in the eyes. “She told me right away, not wanting us to keep secrets from each other, but she was very clear that she didn’t want anyone to know. It was too painful for her.”

What I appreciated was that when faced with the reality that we’d found out (apparently much to our parents’ dismay) Dad was honest about it, not holding anything back. It was the Morelli way. We may have swept a lot under the rug, but when confronted with something, we dealt with it head-on. And, if we were so fortunate, we did it as a family. There was strength in numbers. Which was ironic because here I was, party of one.

“Why didn’t Mom look her up when she got older and was away from Grams?” I felt like that was something Mom would’ve done, but then again, I wasn’t entirely sure I knew everything there was to know about Mom. It was a sad, depressing thought, but I kept remembering what my psychic had said. I could only hold on to the hope that learning the truth would bring me closer to Mom.

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