Page 5 of Broken Secrets
“I already told you; I don’t know anything about his family’s medical history.” Her tone goes flat and defensive. “It never came up.”
“It never came up?” I stand, the chair scraping against the tile. “You were married to him. You had a child with him. And you never once discussed family medical history?”
“It was different then. We were young.”
“Stop.” I hold up my hand. “Stop. I’m not stupid, Mom. The story doesn’t add up. It never has.”
She turns back to the stove, but her hands shake as she plates the burgers. “Let’s just eat, okay?”
“Can I eat in my room tonight?”
“Yes, fine. Grab the mustard and ketchup, please.”
I yank them from the fridge and slam them onto the counter louder than necessary. The silence stretches between us, thick as the grease in the pan.
“Mom.” I try one more time, my voice softer now but with steel underneath. “The cardiologist is going to ask about his medical history. I need real answers.”
She twists her bun tighter, then scrubs at the greasy pan like she could scrape away the question. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Will we? Or will you have another convenient emergency when I need you to come with me?”
This time she does turn, and for a moment, I see something crack behind her eyes. Fear, maybe. Or guilt. But then she composes herself, pulls the mask back up.
“Not fair, Olivia.”
“Isn’t it?” I take my plate and head for the stairs, each step heavier than the last. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’ve been avoiding talking about my father my entire life. And now it might actually matter for my health.”
At the top of the stairs, I turn back to look at her. She’s still standing at the sink, shoulders curved inward like she’s protecting herself from something I can’t see.
“Mom?”
She doesn’t look up. “Yeah?”
“Whatever happened between you and my dad, whatever reason you have for not talking about him, I need you to know I might actually need this information. Not want it. Need it. For my health.”
The silence stretches so long I think she’s not going to respond. “I know,” she says quietly.
In my room, I kick the door shut and sink to the floor against my bed, plate balanced on my knees. The burger tastes like cardboard, but I eat it anyway, staring at the photo on my nightstand of me and Mom at the pier last summer, sunburned and grinning in matching floppy hats. She looks radiant. I look clueless.
I pull out my phone and stare at the blank message screen. Somewhere out there, probably in Michigan, is a man who shares half my DNA. A man whose medical history might hold the key to understanding what’s wrong with my heart. A man my mother refuses to talk about for reasons she won’t explain.
The medical forms sit on my desk, half-completed. Tomorrow I’ll go to school and Derek will ask how things went with my mom. Maya will worry about the cardiologist appointment. Coach will wonder why I’m still missing shots.
And somewhere in this house, my mother will continue keeping secrets which might literally be a matter of life and death.
Funny how you can love someone so much and still be furious at them in the same breath. Funny how secrets can live in a house this small without being spoken aloud. And funny how aheart can race with anxiety about the one person who might hold the key to fixing it.
CHAPTER TWO
I stareat my phone until the screen goes dark, then flip it face down on my nightstand. The burger sits half-eaten on the plate beside me, cold and unappetizing. Through my bedroom walls, I can hear my mom moving around downstairs, dishes clinking, the dishwasher humming to life, her footsteps on the hardwood.
Normal sounds of a normal evening. Except nothing about this feels normal anymore.
“We’ll figure it out.”
Her words replay in my head, but they sound less like a promise and more like another way to avoid the truth. How many times has she said that over the years? When I asked why I didn’t have grandparents on Dad’s side. I wondered why there were no photos of him anywhere in the house.
We’ll figure it out.Translation:I’ll keep making excuses until you stop asking.
