Chapter 38

Public places are great. They offer a certain amount of protection when danger might arise. But we're not going to meet Robert Gary in a public place. Maybe we don't believe in that kind of protection or maybe we just don't want to make a scene in public. Either way it goes, we're meeting at his house.

His wife will be there, but his kids have been taken to their grandparents' house. I guess Robert thinks that this meeting might be inappropriate for the young ones to witness. I could argue that this whole thing is a lot more than inappropriate just for the young ones. It's inappropriate for Sara to be here, and for me to be forced to be here. He threatened my mother, again.

I don't know what to think of any of that.

Robert's kids are technically my siblings. Robert's wife is technically my stepmother. His parents are technically my grandparents. For all intents and purposes they are technically part of my family, but it doesn't feel that way. They feel like strangers. I'm not big on meeting new people.

Maybe none of us in this car right now are big on meeting new people and that's why no one has bothered to even unlock the car doors. We're all sitting here, with the engine still running, looking at his house.

It's a nice house. It has a green well cared for lawn. He has one of those sprinklers that chase people and sound like a really big insect of some sort. His mailbox looks like a little brick house and the red flag is in its upright position. The driveway is empty so I assume his vehicles are in the garage. I'm guessing he has at least two cars, most people do these days.

We didn't park in the driveway. We're on the street. Catherine's behind the wheel and Sara is sitting rigidly in the passenger seat. I'm not sure she's even breathing anymore. I don't remember the last thing she said or the last thing anyone said for that matter. I know I haven't said anything recently.

I should say something, maybe. "I can go in alone." Everyone doesn't have to go in. "And call you in later."

Nikki's hand is on my thigh. I don't remember her putting it there. "We can go."

I can tell by the way Sara's breathing starts up again that she actually is considering the offer. She doesn't want to go into that house. "We're all going in," she says as she unlocks the doors then opens hers.

We all take that as a sign and open our doors. My feet are the first to touch the ground closely followed by Nikki's. Catherine and Sara only just managed to get their doors opened. There's something going on with them that possibly has nothing to do with me. This isn't about me meeting my father to them, but I think it may be more of a case of them meeting Sara's rapist. It would make sense that they think of it that way.

It probably makes me really selfish that I'm not going into this thinking that. It's part of the whole picture, sure, but it's not my main focus. Robert is my biological father. He's the guy I get half my make-up from. He's the guy that will show me how important nature really is.

I've already told them that I can do this alone and I'm not going to tell them it again, cause I really don't think I can do this alone. I want them with me. They have to be there, cause they have to be stronger than me. They are the adults in this situation and all. They're the grownups for all intents and purposes.

He doesn't even wait for everyone to get out of the car before he opens the door. He's tall, but I always thought he would be. His skin is dark, not black, but definitely dark. He looks Hispanic. I didn't know I was Hispanic.

Robert steps towards me, but doesn't get too close. He waves awkwardly and I don't even think of waving back. I can't even remember why I'm here now. I don't know why we drove all this way to meet him at his house. Why didn't he come to me? We wouldn't have to meet at Catherine's place. I know none of us want him in our home.

"I'm glad you came," He has an accent. It's not a thick one but I can tell it's there nonetheless. "I was almost positive that you wouldn't."

"That's funny." It's really not. "I was positive I wouldn't too until Mom told me you threatened her with taking this to court."

His shoulders slump and he turns his gaze away from me. "It was an empty threat."

An arm slips around my waist and Sara's voice sounds stronger in this air, "That's not how you made it sound at all."

My weight falls against her before I even know what my body is doing. She's ready for it and doesn't even need to shift her stance. Nikki steps up to my side and Catherine steps up to Sara's. There's nothing quite like presenting a united front.

"I only wanted to get a chance to meet my daughter." His eyes are pleading with Sara's as if he deserves at least that. He doesn't deserve it though, does he?

"I'm not your daughter," Robert should know that up front. I have parents and he's not one of them.

He nods once. "Fair enough."

A woman comes out of the house and I'm going to assume it's his wife. She's beautiful. She has long dark hair, perfect white teeth, olive skin, dark brown eyes and the unfortunate intellect to marry this guy. Beauty and brains is supposed to be a hard combination to find, right?

"Hello," she says softly to all of us. "I'm Clarissa."

"Melinda." I respond shortly then turn and point to Sara. "These are my parents Sara and Catherine." My arm goes across Nikki's shoulders, putting even more weight against Sara. "And this is my friend Nikki."

"Would you like to come inside?" Clarissa asks all of us.

None of us move and it takes me a moment to realize that the rest of them are waiting on me. They're not going to do anything unless I do it first. That's strange. I've my own little posse here.

"Why not?" I take the first step and everyone follows. I'm the first one to enter the house and immediately look for a place to sit down. I can't stand for long these days. My body is still weak and I'm not too entirely comfortable in this situation either so my legs aren't feeling as sturdy as they usually do.

Clarissa starts acting like the perfect hostess and asks us all if we want anything to drink and has set out some finger foods for us to pick at. I'm not hungry and I'm really not thirsty either. No one seems to be because no one wants anything to drink and no one is picking at the food.

We're sitting in Clarissa's and Robert's living room filling almost all of the available seats in complete silence. I'm almost tempted to pick up a cracker and cheese offering to just do something with myself relatively productive. I'm relatively comfortable in thinking that Clarissa wouldn't try to poison us. I don't see how she would benefit from that.

"So are you feeling better?" Robert asks me as he reaches out for the cracker and cheese offering I had my eye on.

Clarissa is staring at the bandages I still have covering my arms. I wonder how much Robert and she knows about me and what happened. Do they know about Laura? Do they know about anything at all other than my name?

Am I feeling better? That's a stupid question. So he must not know anything. "I'm getting better."

He finishes off his cracker and wipes the crumbs from his pants. They sprinkle down to the floor and I find it a little absurd that watching crumbs is the most exciting thing and comfortable thing to do in this situation.

"So why did you want to see me?" I can't sit here and wait for him to say something profound forever. It's not really possible for him to come up with something all that great to say anyway. He's the bad guy. Bad guys usually aren't very profound in their excuses for why they want to ruin people's lives.

Robert lowers his head but I don't think he's looked directly at me yet. His vision has been jumping from my torso to my arms but his eyes never have settled. Right now he's staring at the crackers and cheese. "I wanted to get a chance to meet you." He answers to the crackers.

"The first time you see me is what appears to be a suicide attempt and that makes you want to play Daddy?" Seems kind of twisted to me.

"Appears to be?" That's the part he catches onto.

"She wasn't trying to kill herself," Catherine jumps in. "It was more complicated than that."

"It usually is and can probably be directly related to her 'parents'." Robert doesn't hesitate to stare Catherine down. He actually seems to have some kind of judgment thing going on in his tone.

Robert might actually think that I have bad parents. That's certainly an odd thought. I mean, this guy is judging whether my parents are good enough for me?

"Robert, don't pretend you know about something you don't." Sara's being defensive. Maybe they've had this conversation before. It's likely that it might have come up.

"I know what I saw," Robert replies strongly. "I saw my daughter with her arms cut up with doctors surrounding her trying to make sure she lived."

Catherine opens her mouth to say something but I beat her to it. "I'm not your daughter. Your genetics just happen to be part of me."

"When I saw you," he finally looks at me, "I saw my daughter bleeding and crying out for help. I can't ignore that, Melinda. I've already tried to ignore too much in my life."

Yeah. Right. "Are you Bipolar?"

The question throws him off and his brow furrows in confusion. "No."

"Anyone in your family Bipolar?" He might be able to blame for that too, although I think Laura might be the donator of that particular disorder.

"Not that I know of, why?" He's still confused, too bad for him.

"Me cutting myself really wasn't a cry for help. The cry came way before you ever suddenly appeared. I agree with my mom. Don't pretend to know about something you don't." I reach out for a cracker. I'm not hungry but it gives me something to do and I can stop looking at him.

"You tried to kill yourself." He leans forward in his seat and I think he even is thinking about reaching out for me. That would be a big mistake on his part.

I sigh and scoot back. Sara is sitting next to me and I move closer to her. "I thought we already covered this. I wasn't trying to kill myself."

"Then what was it?" He doesn't sound like he believes me and I can't believe him! The bastard thinks he can walk in and play the hero here or something? Where does he get off? He doesn't know anything. He can't judge whether my parents are 'fit' or not. I know what 'unfit' parents are like. I've lived with that and I'm not living with that now. I'm not. Sara and I may not be on the firmest ground or anything, but I consider her to be fit.

"It's none of your business," Sara tells him and puts her arm around me.

"We've talked about this, Sara. This is my business I am her father whether any of you want to admit that or not. I want to help." Robert's sounding a little frustrated. None of us are listening to him.

"If you want to help, then disappear." If he doubted that I didn't like him before then he shouldn't doubt it now. "You're just another problem in my life now, Robert. Erase yourself and go away. Be a father to the kids you wanted to have with a wife that I can only hope to assume wanted to have the kids with you."

"Robert has changed a lot, Melinda." Clarissa actually speaks. "You should give him a chance. I'm sure you've been in a position where you wanted a second chance."

Well that's low. Clarissa might be trying to get me to look at this in another way. She may actually want me to consider letting Robert be a part of my life. She's got really high hopes. She should aim lower, like at me accepting a beverage from her.

"I'm not looking to alleviate Robert's guilt by letting him swoop in and fix my life. My life won't get fixed by someone swooping. My life will get better by being with my family and by me choosing to work through any problems I might have. Robert doesn't enter the equation." I stand up because this thing is over. There's no point in any of us being here. He can't get custody of me; I'm too old for him to even try.

Robert stands up too, along with everyone else. "You can't just forget that I exist."

I can't help but let out a little bit of a chuckle at his statement. "You'd be surprised by what I actually can forget."

He doesn't like my answer. "I'm not giving up, Melinda."

I shrug. "Fine. You don't need to." I take a quick look at Sara who has maintained a mostly expressionless façade. "I didn't tell you it could never happen, but it's certainly not happening today."

I walk to the door and once again everyone follows me. I make it to the car and no one says anything. Nikki, Catherine and Sara pile in the car, but before I get in I have a question for Robert, "What are your children's names?"

"Robert Jr. and Maria. Maria's named after your grandmother."

I nod. "And how old are they?"

"Robert Jr. is six and Maria is nine. They're looking forward to meeting you. Maria really wants a big sister." Robert gives a slight smile. "You might like having siblings."

"I already have a younger sister, Robert." I say then get into the car and shut the door.

Catherine doesn't waste anytime in getting us out of there. Our ride back is in complete silence. It's not awkward; it's just the way things needed to be in the moment.

When we get back to the house I leave them all behind and go to my room. Sara follows me and sits down next to me on my bed. "You okay?" she asks.

"I don't know. You?"

She smirks. "I don't know." There's silence for a moment more then she clears her throat. "Lindsey thinks of you as a sister too. She's been really worried."

"I haven't been that good of a sister. I haven't been that good of anything lately." I think I'm going to cry. I thought those Happy Pills the docs got me on were supposed to stop making me feel depressed. Maybe they need to up my dosage.

"That's not true, Melinda." I don't believe her. "You're a lot better at being a sister, a daughter, a everything than I ever could be. You'll see that eventually even if you don't believe me now. We'll make you believe it."

I hope they do. "Thanks for being there today, by the way. I probably wouldn't have made it if you weren't."

"I wouldn't have been anywhere else." She blinks rapidly a couple of times and it would appear that she's trying to fight off some tears. "You should try to get some rest. You're not completely healed yet."

I am tired.

Without kicking Sara, I swing my feet onto the bed and put my head on the pillow. Sara looks at me for a moment then moves so that she's lying on the bed next to me. I'm really not quite sure what she's doing here. She puts her arm across my stomach and then I realize what this is.

It's a mother holding her child. I don't remember anything like this happening to me before. It feels pretty good. I could get used to it.