He arrived late that night– pulled up in his old Buick. Matilda’s parents were already asleep. They were in the guest room, with me and Matilda each taking a couch in the family room. Your grandpa was taking my old room. Matilda liked my old room, with the grand looking mahogany desk I got from when your grandpa redid his office. It was tres chic, she said. She did that sometimes, spicing up her conversation with French. Like, instead of just saying RSVP, she’d say répondez, s’il vous plaît. She took it for three years in high school. I thought she was brilliant.
Your grandpa didn’t even knock. He just walked in, kicked off his boots, sat down at the kitchen table, and waited for us to find him. Matilda was falling asleep in front of the TV, but I woke her up and dragged her over to meet him. She was groggy and he was pissy from all the hours of driving– he did it all in one shot, can you believe it?– but I thought them meeting went as well as it could have.
Is it a boy or a girl?
Was the first thing your Grandpa said. I guess he thought it was obvious who he was and who she was. So she answered,
We want it to be a surprise.
Got any names? He asked.
And it went on like that. She didn't even blink at how blunt he was. And I think he approved of that, because he never complained about her later. He never said anything about her later, actually, but if he’d known something was up then, he would’ve complained.
Your grandma didn’t show up to greet him that night. She was awake, knitting, but she didn’t go to meet him. She still talked to him regularly and they got along fine, but seeing each other face to face was always awkward for them. See, they hadn’t really been getting along right since I entered the fifth grade, but then this whole thing about an affair he had when I was a baby came out and she couldn’t even look at him for weeks. She’d just leave notes. That was a hard time for me.
So some part of me was afraid he’d be like that with Matilda, since that’s how I had always pictured him interacting with women: they couldn’t make eye contact the first time. But it went fine, like I said.
And after maybe an hour of talking we all went to bed. Just like that. We were all in this one small house, all asleep, all just a few paces from each other, and nothing happened. Looking back, I can’t believe the whole house didn’t explode from that.
And then breakfast came, and Matilda’s dad and your grandpa must have met. I’ll never know how that went, because no one will talk about that damn morning. But when I walked into the kitchen, both the men and Matilda were sitting around not talking. Matilda was still in her pajamas. Her dad was reading the newspaper. Your grandma was cooking bacon and scrambled eggs, but she didn’t seem bothered at all by your grandpa being right there, so I was relieved. I sat down in the one free chair next to Matilda and took her hand in mine. She smiled at me.
It was her last smile.
And then her mother came in, dressed in one of her favorite sun dresses, and asked where the spare chairs were.
And your grandpa just looked at her with the most peculiar face. And when she managed to drag a chair from your grandma’s room into the kitchen, he asked,
Who are you?
She stopped and blinked and laughed.
You must be the last in-law, she answered, beaming.
But he just repeated,
Who are you?
And she stared at him in confusion, and he stared back at her, glaring hard. And they just look at each other for a while, and we didn’t really think anything of it. Until her mother suddenly started screaming. And she ran out of the kitchen, and I guess went back to the guest room. Her husband rushed out afterward along with Matilda, and your grandma and I could hear then trying to comfort her through her screams. She was just saying gibberish at that point, and it didn’t make any sense.
What was that all about? Asked your grandmother angrily, waving a spatula at your grandpa. What did you do to her?
He just sat there and stared at where Matilda’s mom had been standing for a while, then finally he said,
We’ve met before.
And he stood up and walked out of the house to his Buick and drove away. He hasn’t visited your grandma since.
Matilda’s mom cried for hours, curled up on the guest bed, and we couldn’t get her to say anything. Matilda tried comforting her, but she’d just get more hysterical with Matilda in the room. So Matilda and I sat on the couch in front of the TV where she’d slept and didn’t say much to each other. I rubbed her back and she rubbed her expanded belly. Your grandmother just went back to making breakfast. She brought it to us on plates, but we didn’t eat it.
Then finally the screaming sobs stopped, and her mom limped out and collapsed next to her on the couch.
My baby… my poor, poor baby… she kept saying, and stroking Matilda’s hair.
I’m glad you’re feeling better, I said after a while. But then the woman glared at me.
This is all your fault! She bellowed, and she pick up a ceramic bird your grandma had on the coffee table and threw it at me. She almost hit Matilda, who jumped up and grabbed her arm.
But her mom was back into her hysterics again, and she was screaming and throwing things at me, telling me it was my fault, my fault such an awful thing would happen to Matilda.
Then Matilda cuffed her mother across the face finally and told her to cut it out; she loved me.
And her mother said,
Matilda, you are not your father’s daughter.
And she collapsed on the couch again, crying and crying. Matilda looked very confused, but then it suddenly clicked in my head, and I couldn’t move. I just stood there blankly like your grandpa had sat there. Matilda left her mom after a few moments and waved her hand in front of my face.
What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What the hell is going on? She kept saying. Then she punched my shoulder when I didn’t say anything. But this one thought kept going through my brain:
Dad had had an affair when I was a baby. And he had met Matilda’s mother before. And Matilda was not the child of her father.
And I really hope I don’t have to spell it out for you.
After I snapped out of it, I kept repeating that to Matilda until she got it.
That’s crazy, she said, laughing hoarsely. You’re insane. Or joking. But that’s impossible.
Impossible.
It was a crazy theory. I tried to explain it to my mother and Matilda’s father, but they had about the same reaction.
Crazy. Impossible. Insane.
But then, through all her sobs and hiccups, Matilda’s mother confirmed it. We all sat for a while, just staring at each other. We didn’t know what to do. My mother started crying. I wanted to cry. Matilda’s father eventually got up and locked himself in the bathroom.
But Matilda didn’t cry. She just rubbed her belly and stared out the window. Then after a while, she quietly got up and walked out the door. I tried to stop her, but she gently pushed my hands away and said she just wanted to take a walk, sort some things out in her head. It was a reasonable request, so I let her go.
And she never came back.
We called the police that night when we couldn’t find her after driving around the neighborhood. We stayed up all night, and the next night her parents relocated to a hotel. They couldn’t stand to be around us anymore.
The police found her six days later. They tracked her down to an abortion clinic using her credit card transactions. She had apparently hitchhiked down to Atlanta from your grandma’s neighborhood. She had had a hard time finding someone to abort the baby, since she was so far along, but she had done it, and physically she was well enough. She was reunited with her parents at a police station, and they went back home to Arizona.
I found this out through a police phone call. Her family never contacted us again after her parents left.
I never went back to Arizona. I don’t know what happened to all my stuff there. I don’t know what happened to Matilda or Bill Manellas or any of my friends I had there. There was nothing I could do, and facing Matilda and her family would have just made it worse for both of us. Everyone just wanted to forget those months I’d spent in Arizona ever happened. I stayed in Georgia and went back to college. I met your mother a few years later. I was never quite over Matilda, but your mom. She was amazing. I hope Matilda got over what happened and found someone else too.
So kiddo, now you know the darkest secret of our family. Don’t worry; you don’t have any long lost siblings running around out there. But here’s what I want you to remember:
You go on in life, you’ll get hurt. You may never recover fully. Crazy, impossible, horrible things can happen to you. You’re not invincible. And I don’t want to ruin your mood for your wedding, but know that these things can happen to you, no matter how nice a person you are.
But the world will go on, whether you like it or not. I found my happy end, and I pray to God Matilda found hers.
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