Back To Me (36 page)

              He finally broke through the last of the barricade and led us inside. To my surprise, furniture still littered the home, covered in dusty white sheets. Tom led me over to a chair and released himself from our joined prison. He then pulled my hands behind me, securing them around the slat of the chair.

              I heard him shuffle about, but couldn’t tell exactly where he was. The sound of a match striking brought me to attention, frantically searching him out. Was he going to start another fire and leave me in here to burn to death?

              “Just lighting a candle,” he said, his voice laced with humor.

              Tom walked over and placed the faint light on a table, giving off an orangish-glow; just enough to see the outline of his figure. He then casually turned and sat on a sofa opposite me so that we were facing one another.

              We stared in each other’s direction, but I’m not sure we were actually staring
at
each other. It pained me to look into my father’s eyes and see the coldness within. Quite honestly, I think the disappointment that flashed in my eyes pained him as well. At least I hoped it did. If so, then I had a sliver of sympathy for him.

              “So,” he began, “What would you like to know? That little head of yours has got to be swirling with questions.”

              He crossed his legs, his foot resting over one of his knees as he sat back and waited. His detachment was alarming.

              I cleared my throat and racked my brain, stalling as well as gathering my thoughts. “Why?” It was a simple question, but it could apply to numerous things. I figured it gave him an opportunity to answer a multitude of questions.

              “Why what?” he clarified. “Why did I leave?”

              I nodded my head yes and then let it hang down, allowing my hair to shield me like a curtain. I couldn’t look at him while he explained what I was certain would be painful, no matter how he answered.

              “Well, your mother and I were having problems. She was a slut, ya know?”

              My head snapped up at his response.
No!
I didn’t believe him.

              “Why would you say that?”

              “Because she was,” he grit. “She screwed around like a two-bit whore!” He stood abruptly as his body heaved.

              “With who?” I asked. “When?”

              “Who doesn’t matter,” he snarled. “Hell, maybe you should hear what that momma of yours did!” 

              “Before you were born we went to an office dinner party. You know the kind where everyone dresses up and drags their spouse out to show ‘em off. Boring but necessary if you’re gonna play the game,” Tom explained, wiping his mouth several times to contain the saliva as he spit out the words.

              “Your momma
conveniently disappeared
,” he said, making quotations with his fingers. “I searched everywhere for her. I came upon an empty ballroom, or one I thought was empty, and found her with
him
!” he shouted, slamming his fist on the table.

              “Who was it?” I demanded to know.

              “C’mon, doll. I’m not gonna give that up so easily. It’s still too early in the game. That’s the grand finale! Ask me another,” he prodded like an excited child.

              “So you knew Mom had an affair, but you stayed anyway. Why did you wait until I was six to leave us?”

“Now you’re cooking, doll,” Tom exclaimed, almost laughing.

His behavior changed somewhat. His face broke into a slight smile as if his mind had gone back, remembering a happier time. I dared not interrupt his thoughts and I prayed he would remain in this much calmer state.

“Because I forgave your mother when she told me she was sorry for the affair. She promised to
never
betray me again. We sort of rekindled our love after that and a few months later she got pregnant with you. That erased everything in my book. It was the happiest time of my life.”  

“Did you ever really love me?” I asked in a very soft voice. It was a gamble, but I needed to know. I again let my head drop, my gaze fixating on anything but him.

              “Very much,” he answered tenderly and I believed him.             

              “So what changed?’ I asked after swallowing my fear. Tom had opened a can of worms and there was no turning back now. I needed to learn the whole truth and he was the only one who knew what that was.

              “Because she dropped the bomb that you weren’t mine!” he spat and again pounded his fist on the table.

              My body jerked and slumped forward, feeling like I’d just had the wind knocked out of me. “You’re
not
my father?” It was a rhetorical question, but he quickly answered in a half shout.

              “No. Apparently her
lover
is your father!”

              We sat in silence. He’d put his face in his hands as if he were crying, but I’d not heard him if he was. I racked my brain to come up with something that wouldn’t upset him any more than he already was. After five minutes or so he raised his head and appeared to be much calmer.  

“You wanna know how I found out? Funny little story actually. You may even find it amusing.  I made damn sure I was in town for your sixth birthday, but I got tied up at the last minute and got home too late for your party. You were already in bed. Your mother was livid. She said she was tired of being a single parent and we argued about my job.
Again.
She accused me of sleeping around. Said she knew no one could be chaste for that long! The argument escalated and when I reminded her of
her
little indiscretion, she blurted out ‘
Well, at least he was man enough to get me pregnant!
’ Just like that it was all over. Everything, including my heart, was ripped from me!” 

I was at a loss for words. My mother had done terrible things; the affair and getting pregnant with me, hurting Tom so deeply and then lying to me about why he had left. She had always made me feel that if I had been a better daughter he wouldn’t have chosen his career over us when in fact she was the reason he’d left. We sat in silence for what seemed like a very long time. 

             
“My decision to leave came easy when I found out you weren’t mine,” Tom said, after a brief pause.

              “I didn’t care what happened anymore and burying myself in work was a sure way I could forget about the hell your mom put me through. I worked my ass off in the field and got promotion after promotion until I worked my way up to a damn good position.” Tom flashed a devilish grin and then continued. 

“I stayed on the straight and narrow for years, but then Raul made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I got tired of being the good guy. Why shouldn’t I get a piece of the pie that everyone else was cashing in on?” He smirked again, with a glint of malice in his eyes. 

“It worked for a while until Billy and Blake got put on the assignment. The boss wasn’t happy with the progress of the case, or lack thereof as it was. When Billy started getting too close to the truth, Raul and I devised a plan to do away with him for good.”

              “One problem with that,” I amended. “Billy almost died because of you. I lost him. I lost our baby! How could you be so cruel?”

              “Cruel? Oh, doll, you don’t know the meaning of cruel,” he jested.

              “Imagine, if you will, being married to Billy for years; wanting a child so desperately that it hurt, finding your beloved in the arms of another, forgiving that wrong and looking forward to becoming a parent after the years of wait, having a beautiful little daughter and working your ass off so your family can have it all, only to have it
ripped
away with a few ugly words! That, doll, is
cruel
.”  

              My heart broke for him a little, but not enough that I could excuse him for trying to take Billy’s life and making deals with the devil in the process.

              “I’m sorry you ever loved me,” I cried, frantically. “I’m sorry that my mother lied to you. I am. But I had nothing to do with that and neither did Billy! Why are we paying for her mistakes?”

              “Because I have nothing left to lose! I’m tired of chasing the bad guys and trying to do good, but
never, ever
having things for me! What did I do to deserve
nothing?
” Tom’s yelling was out of control, and things began flying through the air in his fit of rage. I cowered, but kept pushing him to talk because at this point
I
had nothing to left to lose and if I was gonna die, I wanted to say my peace.

              “I loved you,” I wailed. “It wouldn’t have mattered to me that you weren’t my real father. I thought you hung the moon. It broke me when you left,” I admitted.

              He turned away from me and remained silent for several minutes; my words obviously having some effect on him.

              “When Billy would talk about you,” he said in a calmer voice, “I had no idea who you were. I could tell that he loved you because his whole face would light up…. Just like mine did when I used to talk about your mother.” He chuckled and shook his head.

              “Then he showed me your picture. You were still that same little girl, all grown up and beautiful, just like her. It made me smile, but it hurt like hell.”

              I waited for him to continue, afraid interrupting would cause him to move forward with his evil plan, and I needed to buy all the time I could.

“You think I’m a monster and nothing I can say will change that. But let me tell you how it really was, doll.  Billy was always talking about quitting the agency and that made me so mad! Who did he think he was anyway? Looking for
happy ever after
when it should have been my turn. Where’s
my
happy ever after, huh? I wanted him out of the picture so I didn’t have to hear any more about how happy he was.”

              By now Tom had lost all control again. At times he was like a mad man and others like a little boy whose feelings had been hurt beyond repair. The contempt in his voice was at an all-time high and I agreed whole heartedly that he indeed was a monster.

              “So you tried to have him killed just because we were happy and in-love? Sounds spiteful,” I murmured.

              “Not just that,” he argued. “Like I said, he and Blake were coming too close to the truth.”

              “And what was that?”

              “That Raul had been paying me to lose evidence and keep him informed about sting operations. You know, so he stayed in the clear. Like I said, it was a real sweet setup. And that Billy of yours didn’t have a damn clue about half the shit that was really going on. He was too wrapped in
love,
” he said, in a gooey voice. “He’s lucky he didn’t die the first year in. You picked yourself a real winner there, doll.”

              My body shook with grief, fear, and pain. My sweet Billy had been played all that time. All that wasted time we could’ve been together.

              “I’d been working for Raul for several months before he came back in.
Shit!
Billy just wouldn’t quit nosing around. He wasn’t smart enough to figure it out on his own, but he is damn persistent. I’ll give him that! I knew it was never gonna be enough; that he wouldn’t just throw his hands up in the air and walk away.”

              “You expected him to?”

              “Hoped he would. Maybe he wouldn’t have moved up to number one on my shit list if he’d just gotten the hell outta my way. After all, he wouldn’t have been the first guy I’d run off,” he mumbled to himself.

              “I thought Raul of all people would take him out with no problem,” he shrugged. “But Raul apparently couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a bazooka! Besides, he had
other
plans that he didn’t run by me.” 

              “What do you mean?”

              “He figured out who you were. He was gonna use
you
to blackmail me,” he laughed, loudly. “Can you believe that?
He was gonna use me!
”

              It was ironic, but I found absolutely nothing about this funny, even though Tom was almost in hysterics.

              “So how did not killing Billy help him? He was still collecting evidence against Raul.”

“I think he figured as long as Billy was alive you’d be around, too, and you were his leverage to blackmail me. Raul insisted on a meeting after he shot Billy and that’s when he told me he’d learned who you were. Don’t know exactly how he found out, but he’s got so many people in his pocket that he knows stuff the saints don’t. Said he could find a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert if he wanted to. That if I wanted him to keep away from
you
I’d help him get girls for his sex-trafficking operation. That was no skin off my nose. Lots of bimbos out there in my line of work. Runaways, homeless. Raul didn’t care who, or what they were. All I had to do was tell him where to have his guys pick them up. ‘Course you’d already taken off by then and Billy was getting better. Raul laughed about it, but I knew he’d find you again eventually. You showing up and working at Tommy’s was supposedly coincidental.” He shrugged
his shoulders as if to say all of this was perfectly normal.
Who in the hell were these people?