Chapter 56 Chapter 55:

Chapter 56 Chapter 55:
Clara:

I haven’t left my house in two days, I haven’t left my bed in the last thirty-six hours, my phone rings every time and I know it’s my sisters trying to check up on me, they have been so worried about me and I feel like utter shit.

Why can’t I just do anything right?

Today, I force myself to leave my bed and walk to the kitchen. My hair is a tangled mess. I am wearing an oversized sweatshirt that has a hole in it, I’ve been meaning to replace it, but who cares? My socks covered feet drag along the kitchen tiles as I make myself black coffee.

“Don’t cry, don’t cry.” I say to myself, inhaling sharply but tears are already starting to coat around my lashes, I feel pathetic, like everything I’m doing is somehow not ending right. And Axel, damn it, I have been thinking about him too much, he hasn’t called or texted since he knows that I need space and time.

Time to fix myself up.

“Hello, are you dead yet?” I hear a sharp voice from the living room and my ears perk at the voice.

“Mom?” My voice breaks as I rush to the living room only to see my mother standing there, a tiny smile playing on her lips. She’s dressed in a navy blue female suit, her almost greying hair tied into a neat bun, she has that ‘don’t fuck with me’ kind of look and it just makes me smile bitterly.

We stand there, staring at each other for a brief period of time before she outstretches her arms, and I run towards her, instantly, she gathers me into her embrace, running her hands along my hair. “What has my baby been up to these days, huh?”

I sniffle, feeling the warmth of her embrace, “I thought you were in London for a business deal.”

She lets me go, furrowing her brows. “Well, just this morning, I received a call from your sisters, they told me they were really worried about you and that you look like a vulnerable pack of potatoes, their words, not mine.” She chuckles and I have a feeling that it’s Chloe’s words. “So I can’t be in another country, talking with people knowing that my own daughter needs me.”

“I missed you,” I say through tears and she tsks, shaking her head. 

“I don’t want to see any tears from you, young lady.” She takes her suit jacket and hangs it on the edge of the chair; she looks around the house and sighs in displeasure. “Darling, I love you, but if your personality were wallpaper, yours got lost in shipping.”

For the first time in a while, I laugh because only my mother can roast me like this and still make it feel like a warm hug, this is our thing and I miss it so much, growing up, our mother was always so busy, today it was France, the next day, Ireland but whenever she could make time for all of us, it felt like she was exactly where she needed to be, with us.

“I like things simple,” I sigh, leading her to the seat. She flops on it without hesitation and squints at me.

She waves her hand, “Your house looks like someone who eats cereal with a fork because all the spoons are in the sink.”

“What does that even mean?” I snort, holding back my laughter.

“Sweetheart, trust me, you don’t want to know,” she hums.

I laugh harder than I should have. And despite her dramatic flair, I know this is her way of saying ‘I miss your spark. Where’d it go?’

“What happened, darling?” She asks, making me freeze on the spot. This is the moment where I have a long talk with my mother, it was always like this between us. She would ask what happened, and we would talk all day. I sit on the sofa, hugging my knees to each other.

“I am vulnerable, mom.” I look into space, afraid to meet her eyes because I think she will look at me in pity and tell me that I’m not, I just can’t take that anymore, instead she doesn’t do any of that. She shifts closer, and jerks me playfully with her elbow.

“We humans are all vulnerable; we all get scared, we all are afraid to try out new things. But that’s what makes us unique; you were always different from your sisters. I didn’t think anything was wrong with you, you love in your own unique way, and I know that when you love, you love hard.”

“I fucked up, mom.” I place my face in my palms, “Anna won’t let me go.” The thought of Anna alone sends a bone chilling shiver down my spine, anytime I sit down to think about it, I am scared to accept that she manipulated me, used me. I guess I was aware all the time of Anna’s deed, but I couldn’t surrender the truth to myself because I felt like I was only useful to her.

That maybe, somehow in some sort of a fucked up way, I would feel lonely if she left me alone. I know, I am so pathetic. 

“You have to let her go, friendships aren’t supposed to be this toxic,” My mother says, sighing. “You are bigger than that; everything you are going to do is in your hands. If you chose to quit, then you can quit. But if you want to fight, you will have to fight. Love is something I never quite understood and I don’t think any of us will.”

“You have been married to dad for like thirty years.” I glance at her, surprised. “You are happy.”

She smiles faintly, her eyes distant. “It’s not always soft music and butterflies doing cartwheels in your stomach, it’s deeper than that,” she continues, her voice low. “Sometimes, it is about walking out of your comfort zone and a lot of time, you have to fight for it, even when it’s messy and complicated and makes absolutely no damn sense. Let me ask you a question, this guy Axel, right?”

“Yes,” I nod my head.

“Does he make you happy?”

I nod my head, “How do I know he’s the right person for me, mom?”

She half-smiles, her eyes crinkling at the corner, “You just know, you are going to feel that magic, that spark that you won’t feel with anybody and honestly, that magic never dies.”

I think deeply, do I feel that same spark with Axel? Damn it, I do, since I was seventeen, I have always felt that magic whenever I was with him and I don’t want to lose him.

“I know what I am going to do, I am going to get myself together, march to his house and tell him that I need him.” I breathe in sharply and my mother smiles.

“That’s my girl.” Mother smiles.

\--

Daphne:

Today is going to be another normal day after work, since it’s Wednesday, the release of season two of whispers in the walls comes out today. I am giddy, which is why I brought a bottle of Korbel Brut wine, it’s under twelve dollars, so that’s a plus.

I pull into the curb of my house, sighing at my own loneliness. For a moment, I sit there, staring at the flickering lights of my porch. I used to imagine coming home to warm laughter, perhaps someone already home, cooking dinner for me but these days, I am used to it. Being an assistant to Devon means I have a hefty schedule. 

In the middle of the night, I could be off all the way to Spain, so that’s just it. Besides, the topic of love seems so sour to me right now.

I turn off the ignition and reach for the door handle, bracing myself for another night of nothing. Gripping the nylon of cheap wine, I step into the house, however the smell of lavender greets me.

Someone is in my house.

“Anybody here?” I say, it feels like a scene from one of the horror movies I gobble up. Wait, am I going to die in my house? I haven’t even watched season two of whispers in the walls. I haven’t even tasted my very cheap wine!

I am still wrapped in shock when I hear a shrill laughter from the kitchen, then my mother appears, wearing a robe. My robe- the soft, grey one that I usually wear when I’m feeling down, a tub of ice-cream in one hand, and a spoon on another. Her eyes sparkle with amusement and her mouth is full of chocolate mint ice-cream.

“I thought of waiting in the chair, but the ice-cream was waiting for me.” She laughs hysterically and I shake my head, suddenly regretting giving her my house key last year.

She raises her brows, “What? You think just because I’m your mother, I can’t sneak in dessert after dinner, you got yourself wrong darling.”

I burst into laughter, covering my face. The movie begins in like thirty minutes and I can’t miss it.

“You’re insane, mom.” I say jokingly, moving towards the table, and I tear a napkin before handing it over to her. “Why are you here though, at my own house?”

Her face softens as she wipes the corner of her mouth, dropping the tub of ice-cream on the table. “I wanted to talk to you about something important.”

My breath hitches, my heart suddenly pounding furiously. The last time my mother told me she had something to say, my dad had cancer and since then, it was always visits to the hospitals, being there with him. I know it broke my mother, ever since dad died two years ago; she hasn’t been her normal self. She tries to hide it from everyone, but I know her well enough.

She misses him, I miss him so much. Even though we’re surrounded by lots of extended family, I can still tell she feels lonely sometimes. It’s been only us ever since.

“What, do you have cancer too?” I ask, as a lame attempt at a joke, but my mother doesn’t smile at all. She sighs heavily and everything in me crashes into dust.

“You have cancer?” My voice breaks, and tears are already starting to fill my eyes. No, that’s not possible, ‘you are the only one I have’ is what I want to say, but she rolls her eyes.

“I don’t have cancer, babe.” She flops on the sofa, “however, I do think that you have to sit down in order to be able to process this.”

“What’s going on?” What could be worse than my mom having cancer? I sit down, looking her in the eye. “This better be serious, mom, the movie is going to start soon.”

She smacks me in the elbow and mutters something under her breath in Spanish. Her voice is wobbly as she begins, “Pass me my bag, darling.” I do as told and pass her bag on the table.

“You’re scaring me, what’s going on, mama?”

“I was in your father’s study last week.” She swings her feet steadily, “Because I was missing him, so I wanted to feel his presence, you know, that sort of thing.” She seems rather shy to admit any of that.

“I understand, mama.” I squeeze her hand, smiling gently. I miss him a lot of times too, sometimes, I sit down and play songs from the playlists we jumbled up together when I was little. We were so close, and mother used to tease us that we share the same everything, including our horrible crude sense of humour.

“And there was this book that I found and in it was a picture,” she furrows her brows, like she can’t even understand what she’s saying, but I probe her further impatiently.

“And?”

“The picture was dated a long time, and I assume at that time. Your father and I were just in college.” I know the whole story of how my mother and father met, mom got pregnant with me in her last year of college, and now here we are.

She reaches into her bag, and pulls out an envelope. It’s thick and creased, like she has handled it too many times to count. She hesitates for a second before pulling out a picture and handing it over to me.

It was a picture of a girl, maybe seventeen or eighteen. Long waves of blonde hair, sharp eyes that were staring straight into me. I feel intimidated just by looking at her.

“What’s this?” My mind is already running through different possibilities, mom says I do this a lot. I take a case and develop it into different scenarios.

“Your father had a child with that woman when we were in college.”

Time stills for a moment and my breath starts to grow still. “They had an affair?”

“Correct.” Mother says tiredly.

“And he kept this a secret from us?” My voice trembles, and I hate it. “He lied to us, he has another life outside!” My shoulder quakes badly, I’m afraid I am going to break down in front of her. I wish to see him right now and scream why?

Why did he cheat on mom in college?

“I just found out about this last week, I couldn’t tell you yet because I needed time to process what was going on. I hired a private investigator to look into things. Apparently she works in an art gallery, she got a lot going on for her now,” mom says dryly.

“Do they have a child together?” The word tumbles out of me softly, almost pathetically. Father’s child, my half-sibling, for as long as I can remember. It was always Dad, Mom and I, just to think that there are two more people in the story makes my stomach do a nauseous flip.

“She has a son.” I can see the distant look in my mother’s eyes and I wonder how she’s coping with all of these. The man you trusted all your life has another child with another woman. Do we even really know people more than we think we do?

“But she doesn’t know about him. He’s grown now, a bit older than you.”

“Do you have a picture of him?” I can’t even believe I am asking about this.

She nods, and reaches for the envelope, pulling out a neat picture. “You might recognize him, darling. But I don’t want you to freak out.”

Do I know my half-brother? I almost choke out a dry laughter. As she hands the picture to me, I stare at it and all my world crashes in front of me.

What. The. Fuck?

Smokey brown eyes stare straight at me, blonde hair covering his head. My hands are trembling and sweat is already curling at the base of my forehead. No, this can’t be. This can’t be real.

My mother studies me carefully because I am afraid I am showing too many emotions.

“Daphne, don’t freak out.” She says quietly.

“How can I not?!” I say angrily, staring at the picture.

Because there’s no fucking way that Theo Duncan is my fucking half brother.