Madison laughed too. ‘Okay, maybe that girl’s your dad’s daughter.’
‘My dad’s dead, Mad.’
‘I know, but maybe he had another family before he died? Or he was cheating on your mom? Or’– she widened her eyes dramatically –’maybe he isn’t dead.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘You really need to lay off the soap operas.’
‘Get woke, Olivia. You’re so naïve. Sometimes people lie, and you don’t even know why,’ Madison replied.
I flinched as the insult hit me. ‘I really don’t think my mom would lie to me about my dad.’
‘How do you know? Sometimes the truth hurts.’
‘So do lies,’ I said under my breath.
× × ×
That night, Mom came home with an armful of groceries and announced she was going to cook. I cringed. Martha Stewart she was not. Usually her cooking experiments ended in disaster.
Once she tried to bake these Cornish game hens with this gross, gloopy sauce, but she turned the oven on broil instead of bake. Within a half hour the whole house was filled with a smoke so thick you could almost chew it.
I wished we could just order pizza.
‘So, what’re we making?’ I put my game face on and started unpacking ingredients from the paper bags. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or anything.
‘Spaghetti bolognese.’ She reached for the other bag and pulled out fresh basil, a bulb of garlic, an onion, one carrot.
I smiled. Mom hated carrots, but I loved them. She always got one and cooked it up to put on the side for me.
‘Okay, I’ve got a good one,’ she said, peeling the skin from an onion. ‘Knock knock.’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Puma.’
‘Puma who?’
‘Hurry up or I’ll puma pants.’
‘Eww, yuck, Mom!’ I laughed. ‘That’s totally gross!’
She chuckled. ‘Thought you’d enjoy that.’
‘So. What’s the occasion?’ I waved at the ingredients.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ She shrugged and laughed. ‘I’m off work early, and you’re going to be a senior in high school pretty soon, and I’m just so proud of my girl.’ She pulled me in for a hug and kissed me on the forehead.
My mom was a toucher. She patted my shoulders, stroked my hair, kissed my cheek, hugged me. She held my hand when we crossed the road until I was ten and started getting teased about it. Once I asked her why she always touched me and she said, ‘I guess it makes me feel more connected to you.’
Sometimes it felt weird hugging my mom, like I was too old for hugs, but it was nice, too.
‘How was your day?’ she asked as I minced garlic.
‘Good. I got an A on my history test, and we finished the layout for the yearbook.’
She’d stopped chopping onion and looked at me intently. She had this way about her where she really listened, even to the most trivial things.
Soon the scent of garlic and onion sizzling in butter mingled with the rich smell of hamburger. The diced carrot was boiling in a small pot on the stove. Mom popped the french stick in the oven to warm, and we piled our plates high with pasta and took them to the dining room table.
‘Mom.’ I dumped my carrots over my sauce and stirred them in, trying to seem casual. ‘Can I ask you some stuff about my dad?’
A noodle slid off the edge of Mom’s fork and landed with a soft plop on her plate. She stabbed at it and cleared her voice.
‘Sure, sweetie. What do you want to know?’
‘Well . . .’ My mind whirled.
Usually she didn’t want to talk. Not that I asked often. She’d always get this funny frozen half-smile on her face, like she was in pain. But since seeing that girl Kendall, I don’t know, I guess it got me thinking more about him.
‘How far along with me were you when he died?’
Mom took another bite of her pasta and screwed up her face into her thinky look – lips twisted to one side, eyebrows down, eyes up.
‘Only a few weeks. I never got the chance to tell him.’
‘Was he hot?’ I smiled slyly. ‘You know, when you first met him, did you get all fluttery inside?’
‘Very!’ She fanned her face with her hand and laughed. ‘He made my knees weak. All that blond hair and those brown eyes. I could just fall into them.’
I paused, my brain jamming on that one word. ‘Brown?’
‘Yeah.’
I stared at her hard. She’d told me before that his eyes were green, just like mine. I remembered the day, the very moment, she said it. I’d held that nugget of information in my heart since I was thirteen, proof that I was connected to the father I never met in some tangible way.
I waited for her to retract it, to assure me she wasn’t lying. But she didn’t.
I stared at her, scrambling to untangle the threads overloading my brain.
‘Did he have, like, another family?’ I asked finally.
Late-afternoon sunlight flooded in through the open curtains and beamed across the dining room table. The light fell on Mom’s face, landing in lines carved so deep she suddenly looked twenty years older.
Mom burst out laughing. ‘No, of course not! What on earth gave you that idea?’
I watched her carefully, looking for any cracks.
‘Well, like, maybe I have brothers or sisters out there I don’t know about.’
For a moment the prospect of her reply opened under me like a gaping hole. What she said now, I knew, could change everything.
Suddenly she jumped up, eyes wide. ‘Oh my goodness! The bread!’
She threw the oven open and a cloud of black, acrid smoke billowed out. I slipped the oven mitts on and grabbed the charred french stick, tossing it in the garbage while Mom threw open the sliding glass door and started fanning the air with a kitchen towel. Chilly spring air blew through the house, dissipating the smoke. But the bitter smell of something burning remained.
Mom pushed at a lock of blonde hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. ‘I’m sorry, sweetie. I guess we won’t be having bread with our pasta.’
‘It’s okay. It wouldn’t be a homemade dinner if we didn’t burn something,’ I joked.
She laughed sheepishly. ‘Why don’t you tell me about school? Not too long and you’ll be a senior. How does that feel?’
Her words tumbled out too fast, her voice edgy as a serrated knife.
‘Mom, you haven’t answered my question. Did my dad have other kids?’
A puff of clouds rolled over the sun, shifting the light and casting sporadic shadows over Mom’s face. I felt a quiver in the air, a vibration like electricity that weaved its way through the burnt toast smell.
Mom met my gaze, her blue eyes innocent. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Your dad died before he even knew about you and he most certainly didn’t have any other children.’
I stared at her smooth face, trying to get a handle on the emotions rolling