I see my dad coming back down the stairs. “Where is mom?”
Grace asks my dad as he walks in the living room. “She is coming.” My dad says
as he looks at the stairs. My mother has clearly been crying. She sits down
right next to my dad on the couch. “Cahira please come sit.” My dad ask
me. I go and sit next Grace on the other
side of the U-shape couch. My mother hands me a photo album. It’s clearly hand
made from the side stitching to the beautiful cursive on the front. I open the
album and wonder why my parent called this a book. There is a picture of my
mother and another lady pregnant together. The women in the picture looks so
much like me. I look up and my parents. “I’m not yours am I?” I ask my parents who aren’t answering me. “You
are mine.” My dad says. I look back down at the picture. “Wait are you saying
Cahira isn’t moms?” Grace asks. My mother stands up and walks behind the couch.
“Cahira you are my daughter. I just didn’t give birth to you.” My mother says
to me. This is the big secret that I am not her child. I wish I could say I am
surprised but I always felt a certain disconnection to her. I just sit here
looking at the picture. “Wait she look almost as big as you.” I tell my mother
as I notice that their baby bumps are very close in size. IF that is the case
they lied about when I was born. “We couldn’t say you were 3 months younger than
Grace. So we said you were just a big baby.” My mother explains. I can’t
believe my age has been a lie.
“She
is the only one to know about you.” My dad says as he points at the picture of
my birth mother. “Who is she?” I ask. “She is…” My mother taps my dad on the
shoulder. “Stop. We will find her and see what hand she has in this.” My mother
says. “I want to know who she is.” I explain. “She is not your concern. I am
your mother and there is no way out of that.” My mother sounds slightly
jealous. “Are you serious? She is my mother and I look like her, I have a right
to know about her.” My mother snatches the album out of my hands. “You only
know about this to save Percy. You have no right to her nor does she to you.
She isn’t here by her own choice.” Is this her way of saying she didn’t want
me? I don’t understand how any of this is happening. I grab the album back from
my mother. I start to look at the rest
of the pictures in the album and they are strange. My mother and her look like
best friends even. “Who was she to you?” I ask my dad. My dad a walks over to
me and reaches for the album for me to hand it to him. “I loved her. She was the missing link in our
family.” My dad says so lovingly. “So you cheated on mom?” Grace asks. “No, we
both loved her.” My mother says. “Wait was this like one of those sister wife
things?” I ask grossed at the idea of my parents sharing another partner. “No,
she was our first step in controlling our need to kill.” My mother says. Now I
am even more confused than before. Who was this woman? “Control your need for
killing? What does that even mean?” My parents look at each other. “Well when
your mother and I first met we were so excited to find someone else with the
same urges. We might have gotten a little out of hand with our killing.” My dad
so casually but what is new there. “Out of hand how?” I ask. “We might have
went on a killing spree and killed a lot of people in all 50 states.” My dad says. “We were young and in love and
kind of blood thirsty.” My mother says as she walks over to my father and
touches his shoulder. “So how did you meet this woman?? Were you planning on
killing her as well?” Both of my parents shake their heads. “We didn’t find
her, she found us. She saw us sitting in a bar and walked right up to us. She
said if we didn’t find restraint we would get caught.” My dad says. “How did
she know you guys were killing people?” Grace asks my parents. “She said it was
in our eyes. She was just one of those people who could read desire.” I can’t
help but wonder if she is like them or if she was something worse. “Can you
guys just spit it out already? Who was she?” I demand an answer. “She was a
dominatrix.” My dad finally says. It all makes sense now, the game room the
rules that can’t be broken without serious reprimand. She made the rules for
them. She created the monster that I know today, either that or she put the
monsters on a leash. “So what happened to her?? Why did she leave?” I ask. “She
just was not someone who could be contained. She needed to be free and although
we thought she was happy here she really wasn’t. Family life just isn’t meant
for everyone. That isn’t saying she didn’t love us, she just needed to go her
own way.” My mother says as if we are
some kind of happy family. I don’t think she is meant for family life either
but hey that could just be me. “So why do you think this is her?” I ask. “She
is the only one who knew you weren’t ours.” My dad says. “Okay. So how do we
find her?” I ask.
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