Somehow it made sense, and somehow it made the years of sex with this man a tiny bit better, but still, I felt sick to my stomach.
I looked up at him. I really looked at him like I hadn’t in many years since I didn’t have the nerve. I took in his facial features and his dark-brown eyes. Then my thoughts rushed to Sydney and her green eyes and then my mom… Her eyes were green as well. And just like that, everything was clear.
“You’re not. Oh my God, you’re not my father.”
He didn’t deny it. “It doesn’t matter. I raised you.”
“You abused me my entire life!” I yelled.
As soon as the words flew out of my mouth, he hushed me with the back of his hand. My face stung and my ears rang.
“You’ve always been a selfish girl, Patience. Do you know that?” He dug his fingers into my cheeks and forced me to look at him. “Are you so selfish that you’d tell your mother something like that so close to her death? Do you really want her to die with that on her chest? Let it go. You liked it as much as I did.”
And then he turned and walked away. I stood there and let everything sink in and then I crumpled to the floor with melted bones and cried until I fell asleep.
The next day I stayed in my room for most of the morning. I debated on whether or not to go to my mother and demand to know why no one told me the governor wasn’t my real father, but just like I’d never tell about the sexual abuse, I’d never tell her that I knew. It wouldn’t change anything, and with my mother on her death bed, I didn’t want to give her any reason to not die peacefully.
Then the memory of my mother telling me about her first love sank in. Maybe that was her way of telling me. Maybe that was her way of getting it off of her chest. My real father was a bad boy named Robert that she’d been forbidden to see. How fitting that I’d be in love with a bad boy myself. It was in my blood.
The man I’d been calling Dad my entire life wasn’t my dad, but he was definitely Sydney’s. She looked just like him, with the exception of her eyes. All these years, I’d been worried about him going to Sydney, and all these years she was really his while I wasn’t. Maybe that’s why it was so easy for him to do things to me. Maybe the thought that my blood wasn’t his own made it okay in his mind to have sex with me. Either way, I’d still keep a close eye on Sydney. The man was obviously sick and sick people aren’t picky.
Later that afternoon, the man who was working on Zeke’s guitar called and said it was all finished. He didn’t want to see me, but I knew what I had for him would make him happy.
I drove to the man’s shop. The little bell above the door sounded like my name when it rang. I pressed my forearms against the front counter and fidgeted as I waited for someone to help me.
A little gray-headed man came around from the back with a smile.
“What can I do for you, sweetie?”
“I dropped off a guitar and you called and said it was ready.”
I gave him my name. When he came out from the back again, he had a black guitar case in his hands.
“Here you go, little lady,” he said as he set the guitar case onto the counter.
He popped open the little latches on the side and opened the case. Inside was the black Fender I picked out. The bits of Zeke’s old guitar were intricately added to the front of the new guitar beautifully, especially the part where his mom had signed her name. It was personalized just for him.
He had no idea I’d picked up the broken bits of his guitar. I still felt like it was my fault that his most prized possession was destroyed. The least I could do was replace it, and I thought using pieces of the precious guitar his mother bought for him was a perfect idea.
I paid the man behind the counter an obscene amount of money and then walked to my car with the guitar