“Plans change,” I say flatly, but reality is wrapping itself around my heart and squeezing until I feel like I can’t breathe.
“Obviously.” He stands, giving me a nod, as he plants his cane on the tile. “I wish you luck with those plans. I will pay this bill and see that you have through the end of the month at your apartment. After that, you will need a better plan. Perhaps, one that doesn’t change.”
“You’re just going…” He’d threatened me with this since I was old enough to drive. I’d always suspected it was a way to make sure that I came home.
“This is your choice,” he says, starting toward the door. “I am not the villain of this story. I offered you my help. I offered you solutions. You chose to refuse that help. I’m just glad that your mother isn’t alive to see this. It would kill her.”
“No, it wouldn’t. But I guess we’ll never know since you killed her.”
He turns sharply, nearly stumbling from the effort. “Keep your voice down. People will hear you.
“I hope they hear me in the hallway. I hope someone sells the story to the tabloids.”
“Why not you?” he says in disgust. “Pay for your bastard.”
“I would never disrespect my mother’s memory that way.” I can’t believe he’d accuse me of selling out the family. Not after I’d covered up what he did. I’m just as complicit as he is. But, more than that, I can’t stand the idea of my mother being remembered as the heart of a scandal instead of for the amazing person she was. “And you’re wrong. Mom would say to turn this into a diamond. She’d be there for me. She’d find a way to help me. Because she knew how to love unlike you. I wish you’d been the one to die that night. I wish she was here now.”
“Do you think I feel any differently?” he roars. “I can’t change what happened.”
“You could learn from it!” And that’s the real issue. It’s not that he made a mistake. It’s that he can’t admit it. “You call me a whore, but you’re a murderer. What choices did you have? Go to jail? Lie? Pay people to turn a blind eye to what really happened? Who cut you off? Who took away all your power when you made a mistake? No one. No one ever takes anything from Angus MacLaine.”
“Money is power, Adair. Money buys second chances.”
I shake my head. “Don’t you see? You can’t buy a second chance. Second chances are given. And you’ll never get one, because you killed the only person who would ever consider it.”
He bangs his cane on the floor. “This is not about me.”
Everything’s about him.
“Is that what you want?” he continues. “A second chance? Why would I give you that?”
“Because you’re my father, and you’re the only parent I have left.”
This finally stops him. He stands near the door, and for the first time in my life, my father looks small. Maybe I’ve finally bent him. Or maybe I see him differently now that I’m carrying my own child.
“I don’t have to wait for her to be here,” I say, placing my palm on my stomach, “to know that I will always put her first. If that means losing my inheritance, you can take it. You want the family name? I’ll take mom’s maiden name. I’ll go to the public hospital. I’ll sell whatever I own. I will protect her, because that’s what a mother does. That’s what Mom would do. She wouldn’t make ultimatums. She wouldn’t force me to do something I would regret for the rest of my life. She would give me a second chance. Actually, no she wouldn’t. Mothers don’t give second chances. Mothers just love you—the good, the bad. A mother’s love is free. I don’t have a mother to give me that anymore, but I can give that to my baby.”
We regard each other with a silence that feels like it will never end. I can’t help but think this will be how I remember him: quiet, rigid, small. I won’t miss him. There’s nothing to miss. All he’s ever given to me was money and expectations. You can’t miss those things.
His eyes shutter and then he finally speaks, “Adoption.”
“What?” I ask, unsure I heard him.
“There is one more option. You can give the baby up. Stay in London, have the baby, and give it to someone capable of caring for it.”