Chapter 1: Fiona
“Roland Damascus? Never heard of him. You’ve obviously got the wrong house.” The middle-aged lady answering the door tapped long, red nails against the worn wood, impatient to get back to whatever she’d been doing before I’d so rudely interrupted her. Those nails, nearly talons, quickly grated on my nerves.
She started closing the door, but I stuck out my foot to stop her. “I’m sorry to bother you,” I repeated. “But this is 1302 Wheeler, right?”
“That’s what it says on the mailbox,” she snapped. “Now if you’ll excuse me. How about moving your foot? I still have no idea who you’re talking about.”
The moment I retracted my foot, the door slammed in my face. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, and I had a sneaking suspicion it wouldn’t be the last. I listened to footsteps marching away on the laminate flooring for a few moments before turning to go.
I’d had a good feeling about this house, but it was now one more address to cross off my list in the endless search for my father. If Mom found out I was still looking for him, she’d probably have an aneurysm. But she didn’t understand the need to know where I came from. She knew both her parents—had been raised by them, actually—in a model suburban household. The few pictures I had of my father, on the other hand, were from before I was born, so nearly twenty years earlier. He’d split upon finding out Mom was pregnant with me; I guessed it was a gross understatement, then, to say I hadn’t been planned.
I stomped down the steep driveway where my boyfriend, Sean, was waiting by the curb, leaning against the hood of his decade-old red Civic. I was always grateful for him driving me on these wild goose chases I’d regularly map out. Google was such a great resource for most of the world, but a terrible enabler for someone like me.
Colorful chalk drawings decorated the driveway, spilling onto the bisecting sidewalk. The drawing that initially caught my attention was of a three person family—that I assumed was a mother, father, and daughter—all holding hands. I probably should have turned around from the sight of this drawing alone; it seemed obvious they had their family unit and no space for a troubled outsider like me.
What at first glance I took to be an elaborate sun above the father’s head, I soon realized was a compass with a cursive “N” at its zenith, which made me stop and examine it closer.
“I noticed that too. Seems out of place among the clouds and rainbows,” Sean said.
“Not when I thought it was a sun,” I said, letting the picture go and continuing to the car.
Sean met me by the passenger door and pulled me into a hug. I buried my face in his chest. I knew I wouldn’t cry this time, but his warmth was always comforting. Sean didn’t say anything, just rubbed his hand across my back while I sighed into his sweater.
“It didn’t seem like that went well.”
“Not the most pleasant woman, but I’ve encountered worse,” I said, pulling back and offering a weak smile.
Sean nodded with an apologetic expression. “I know,” was all he had to say before opening my car door and guiding me in with a gentle nudge.
This neighborhood was only a few cities over from home, which—jumping on the 5 freeway in Orange County Saturday afternoon traffic—meant about a twenty-minute drive. The carpool lane always helped.
Once we were moving, I grabbed my notebook from atop the dashboard and removed the pen from the spiral binding. I flipped to the latest page of notes, and halfway down, crossed out Gillian Edwards 1302 Wheeler.
“You up for hitting one more today?” I asked, getting out my phone, ready to type in the address. “It’s on the way.” Even though I was still frustrated from the previous encounter, I tried to keep my voice light and upbeat. I could still hear those irritating nails against the door.
“Don’t you have work soon?” Sean asked as we turned onto the freeway on-ramp.
“In an hour and a half,” I said. “Just enough time for one more quick stop.”
“See, Fee? You’re expecting it to be another dead end.” He glanced over at me to gauge my reaction—just in time to see me bite my lip.
“I’m hopeful, but I always go into these things now with zero expectations.”
“All the times you’ve cried on my shoulder doesn’t feel like zero expectations.”
“That’s not fair,” I snapped. “Excuse me for having some freakin’ emotions. I already told you—you don’t have to feel obligated to take me anymore. I can borrow my mom’s car once in a while. Alexis can drive me, or I can call an Uber.”
“You’re missing the point.” Sean’s attention was solely on the traffic ahead of us now as we careened down the 5 South. “I want to help; I do. It’s not that I don’t want to drive you, it’s that I don’t want you to keep doing this to yourself.”
I stuffed my phone back in my pocket, knowing the proposed final stop wasn’t going to happen. My gaze rested on the name just crossed off my list. “You don’t want me to continue pursuing my father just because it’s hard? That’s a lousy reason to quit pursuing something. Are you just going to quit on us too since I’m a little hard to deal with sometimes?”
Sean was quiet for a moment, his jaw tightening as he considered a response. He’d started driving me on these little excursions even before we officially got together. I opened up with some of my crazy and he seemed to embrace it, which originally brought us closer together. But as the sleuthing hobby became more of an obsession, it began to strain our relationship like obsessions and addictions tend to do. Then the natural progression led to fear of losing him—losing what we’d built over the past fifteen months. I’d already had enough loss for one lifetime.
“I’m not saying to quit because it’s hard, I’m saying to quit because it’s not worth it,” Sean finally said. “I know you’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve mostly held my tongue. But what are you hoping to achieve from all this? If you ever do find him, what do you think will happen? What do you think that will really be like? A happy reunion? Maybe not knowing is better than knowing in this instance.”
I couldn’t accept that. He sounded like Mom, which irked me. It was always better to know. The worst part was not knowing, not how bad something turned out to be.
“Well?” Sean pressed.
“Well, what? I thought it was rhetorical.” I turned my head to stare out the passenger window, not wanting to see his face right now. By a concerned expression alone, he could sometimes coax me over to his side—but not this time. I wouldn’t let that happen. This was too important to me. “He’s my father,” I finally said. “I need to know why. You don’t have to understand it. You don’t have to agree. But you have to accept it.”
We drove a long time in silence, all the way to the off-ramp less than a mile from my apartment. As we sat in silence at a stoplight, and just as the song we’d been listening to transitioned to a commercial, Sean said something sending goosebumps rippling through my body.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, softly.
I finally turned back to him and he glanced my way before the light turned green, then he hit the gas.
“What?” I said, unsure I’d heard right, or trying to convince myself I hadn’t. “What does that mean?” I asked, now suddenly sick to my stomach.
Sean took a deep breath. “It means… It means, I can’t keep watching you do this to yourself. It’s too painful.”
“Well, I’m sorry if my family drama’s too painful for you,” I said. “It’s no picnic for me, either. Fine. I’ll just stop talking about it. You don’t have to drive me anymore. I can handle it on my own. Problem solved.”
“No.” He shook his head. “That doesn’t solve anything because you’re not going to stop looking for him—no matter what I say—it’ll continue to eat you up inside. And I can’t be the one to keep picking up the pieces.”
“Are you seriously breaking up with me?” Now, I was afraid I might actually throw up. Luckily, we were only a few turns away from my complex. Then I could jump out and vomit in a bush or something. Real classy.
“Fee, I’m so—”
“Don’t call me that.” I could feel my blood pounding in my ears—right next to the tapping of those devilish nails.
“Fiona…” Sean’s attention was now locked on me. “I’m so sorry… I know this is messed up…”
Besides the war raging in my stomach, my eyes were starting to tear up and there didn’t seem to be a damn thing I could do about it. I crossed my arms and stared straight ahead—just in time to see an animal darting across the street.
“I just—”
“Sean, watch out!” I screamed.
His head whipped back to the road, his grip jerking the steering wheel. He swore as we swerved toward another car, then over-corrected in the opposite direction. The front tires of Sean’s Civic hit the curb, launching us onto the sidewalk.
A concrete light pole came barreling toward us, which I noticed only a moment before impact. An airbag went off beside me, though nothing deployed on my side. My seat belt didn’t lock and it seemed I was flying forward long after the car had stopped, the front end now grotesquely wrapped around the concrete pole. There was no time to react—not even an instant. The last thing I saw was the dashboard as my head slammed straight into it.
Chapter 2: Fiona
I awoke in a hospital bed with Mom at my side. She’d pulled up a chair and her hand rested on my bandaged arm, being mindful of the IV tube. My head was foggy and I had to squint with the harsh overhead lights. It took a few seconds before images of the crash came flooding back.
“You’re okay,” Mom said, in the soothing voice she’d used so often when I was a kid. “The doctor says you’re going to be fine, though you’ll probably have to stay overnight for observations. You banged your head pretty good.”
“I—I was wearing my seat belt,” I said, groggily. “I don’t know what happened.”
“I’ll get the nurse.” Mom lightly patted my arm as she rose.
“How’s Sean?”
“I’m fine,” I heard a familiar voice say from somewhere in the room behind Mom.
Sean jumped up from a chair against the far wall with a pained smile. One eye looked blackened and a bandage ran across the bridge of his nose, but other than that, he looked unharmed.
“No need, Ms. Winter,” he said. “I’ll fetch the nurse.”
“Thanks, Sean,” Mom said as he hurried out of the room, then she returned to her seat by my side. “He’s been here nearly as long as I have. He feels terrible.”
“He looks good,” I said.
“They released him within an hour, but he’s already had to start dealing with the police, insurance and all that fun stuff.” Mom leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs, her foot bobbing nervously back and forth. “Sean said it was a coyote in the middle of the road.”
“I didn’t get a good look at it. I thought it was a dog,” I said.
“You don’t see many coyotes in the middle of the day,” Mom replied.
“I haven’t seen one near our complex in years,” I said, glancing around for the controls to the bed.
Mom realized what I was looking for without me having to say anything. She handed me the remote. “Sean says he thinks he hit the animal,” she said.
“I don’t remember,” I said as the back support of the mattress lifted until I was nearly in a seated position. “It all happened so fast.”
Mom continued. “No animal was found, no blood on the car, or any kind of blood trail leading from the accident.”
“What? Are you like some forensics expert now? I saw an animal in the road. We swerved. We crashed into a light pole.”
“At least no one else was involved,” Mom answered.
Before I could say anything more, a portly young nurse with wide oval glasses strolled into the room. “You’re up,” she exclaimed. “How’re you feeling? How’s the pain? Any dizziness or nausea?”
“I’m okay, I guess,” I said as she strode up to the monitor. “A little bit of a headache, though.”
“That’s to be expected. You took a real wallop. Though you’re lucky… No fractures. The swelling doesn’t seem too bad, but we have an MRI scheduled for you this evening. That will give us a clearer picture of what’s going on.” The nurse put two fingers to my wrist and stared intently at her watch. Once she sprung back into action, she helped me adjust my pillow for additional back support. “I’ll bring you some ibuprofen for the headache and whiplash pain that might not have kicked in yet. Dr. Lagos will come check on you shortly.” And as suddenly as she’d arrived, the nurse was gone.
“Well, she was energetic,” I said, offering Mom a smile to help release some of the tension in the room.
“You’re not supposed to do this to me, kiddo,” Mom said, her bright blue eyes now glistening. “It’s you and me against the world, right?”
“Always.” She always made me feel guilty when she said stuff like that. But it was just us at home; all we had was each other.
The last time I’d been in a hospital bed was when I’d had my appendix out at thirteen. Before that was after the grisly dog attack that left me scarred and my twin sister, Rebecca, dead. We were six. With no father in the picture and the loss of my twin, Mom and I had been on our own—looking after each other for over a decade.
The scar running down the right side of my face, from temple to chin, was the result of five surgeries. It had become less noticeable over time, and make-up had certainly helped, but it was something I was always conscious of. And I knew I’d never be as beautiful as my mother because of it, even though I was the spitting image of her in nearly every other way.
I’d seen pictures of her at eighteen that I could have sworn were taken of me. It was almost eerie. She had the same thick chestnut hair, blue eyes, rounded facial features, fair complexion, light freckles, and athletic frame—though she was two inches taller and had to work harder to keep her figure at her age—not that she was old. She was only a few months shy of twenty-one when she’d had Rebecca and me—and was sometimes mistaken for an older sister, rather than my mother. She immensely enjoyed playing into those situations. What middle-aged woman wouldn’t?
Thinking about the scar again, I adjusted my hair to cover it even though it was just the two of us in the room.
“Don’t hide your face,” Mom admonished. “You’re such a beautiful girl.” She reached over and curled some locks behind my ear.
I smiled shyly, then at the sight of Sean reentering the room, released the hair from behind my right ear.
“My parents are here to take me home,” he said, walking over to the bed. “I told them you were awake and looking good. I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. Let me know if you need anything. I mean it.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Can I hug you?”
“Of course.”
Sean carefully leaned over the bed and I wrapped my arms around him, miraculously without getting the IV tube tangled in our embrace. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Bye, Ms. Winter. I’m sorry for—”
“Don’t start,” Mom said, giving Sean a hug. “I’m just glad you’re both okay. Say hi to your parents for me.”
“I will,” he said, then it was back to just Mom and me—Mom and me against the world.
Dr. Lagos stopped in a short time later and reconfirmed I seemed to be doing well. Mom grabbed herself dinner from the cafeteria and brought me an extra chocolate pudding. She stayed with me during the MRI scan and didn’t leave until nearly 10 p.m., by which time I could barely keep my eyes open.
“I can sleep on the couch,” she’d offered.
“No, Mom,” I’d insisted. “Go home and get a good night’s sleep. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“I’ll be back at seven.”
“See? I’ll hardly even know you’re gone.”
“Love you, kiddo.” She lightly kissed my bandaged forehead, then reluctantly left, but not before giving a slight wave from the doorway.
After another quick check, a new nurse turned off the lights, which didn’t do much to darken the room.
The door opened a few minutes later, and I expected it to be the nurse again, perhaps having forgotten something, but it wasn’t. Instead, a man in a dark dress shirt and slacks entered.
“Sorry; were you already asleep?” he asked, his voice soft as he remained in the doorway, the hallway light silhouetting him.
“No,” I said, trying to figure out if I’d seen him before. His voice didn’t sound familiar.
“My name’s Matthew Mercer. I’m one of the on staff counselors for trauma patients. I apologize for the hour. May I come in?”
“Sure,” I said, my thumb hovering over the nurse call button on the bed remote. “I didn’t realize I needed a therapist.”
“You probably don’t, but I heard about your accident and wanted to introduce myself and see if I could be of any assistance.” Matthew sauntered into the room and carried a chair over from the wall to sit closer to the bed—not close, but close enough.
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