Page 36 of Broken Secrets
Mom sinks back onto the couch, looking exhausted. “What if he disappoints you? What if he’s not the father you’ve built up in your head?”
“Then I’ll deal with that when it happens. But what if he doesn’t disappoint me? What if he’s actually a good person who made some bad choices eighteen years ago? What if Emma and I actually become friends?” I sit back down, leaning forward so she has to look at me. “What if this is good news instead of a disaster?”
“I don’t know how to handle this,” she admits, tears falling. “I’ve spent so many years protecting you from this possibility that I don’t know how to let it happen.”
Robert sits beside her and pulls her against his side. “You don’t have to handle it alone. We’ll figure it out together.”
“What did Emma say about visiting?” he asks me. “Did she mention specifics?”
“They’re thinking about coming to California for spring break. She wasn’t sure about details, but she wanted to know if I’d be interested in meeting them.” I pause. “I told her I would be.”
“They’d want to stay here? In our house?”
“We didn’t get that far in the conversation, but I highly doubt they’d stay here.”
“I can’t see him,” Mom says suddenly. “I can’t see Jeremy. I’m not ready for that. I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready for that.”
“That’s okay,” Robert says. “No one’s saying you have to see him. If they visit, we can work out arrangements so you don’t have to interact with him directly.”
“But Lilly,” Mom continues, her voice getting smaller. “If Jeremy comes, Lilly might come too. My former best friend. The woman who,” She stops, unable to finish the sentence.
“We’ll cross that bridge if we get to it,” Robert says practically. “Right now, this is just Emma reaching out to Olivia. Everything else is hypothetical.”
I pull out my phone and show them Emma’s profile picture. “This is her. This is my sister.”
She stares at the photo for a long moment, and I can see her taking in the similarities between us. The same eyes, the same facial structure, even some of the same expressions.
“She looks like you,” she says quietly.
“Yeah. She does.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“She seems thrilled. Well-adjusted. She does theater now instead of cheerleading, and Jeremy supports her interests. She talks about him like he’s a good dad.”
“I want to video chat with her,” I say, testing the waters. “Soon. Maybe this weekend. I want to get to know her better before we make any decisions about them visiting.”
“And if you like her? If you get along?” Mom asks.
“Then maybe I’ll invite them to visit. And maybe you’ll have to trust that I can handle whatever happens.”
The room falls quiet except for the sound of her occasional sniffles. Robert strokes her hair absently, and I can tell he’s thinking through all the practical implications of this development.
“I need some time,” she says eventually. “To process this. To figure out how to handle seeing Jeremy again after all these years.”
“That’s fair,” I say.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Okay. You can talk to Emma. You can get to know her. And if they want to visit, we’ll… we’ll figure something out.”
“Thank you,” I say, and I mean it. “That means everything to me.”
I stand up and kiss her on the forehead, then do the same to Robert. “I’m going upstairs now.”
As I head toward the stairs, I can hear Robert’s quiet voice comforting her, reminding her that this doesn’t change our family, it just expands it. I hope he’s right.
For years, I’ve felt like half a person, missing crucial pieces of my identity. Now I have a chance to fill in some of those blanks, to connect with someone who understands what it’s like to be Jeremy’s daughter in ways that no one else ever could.
Emma has everything I’ve always wondered about, memories of our father, stories about his personality, knowledge of where we came from. But maybe I have things she’s wondered about too. Maybe being the daughter who stayed close to her father isn’t as perfect as it looks from the outside. Maybe she’s had her own questions about the sister she never knew.
