"Dad?"
I grab her shoulders, pulling her head against my wildly beating heart.My little girl.My daughter.Stolen from me before I even knew she existed.Every moment I missed crashes over me - her first cry, first smile, first step.Gone.All gone.
"What’s wrong?”she whispers, hugging me back.The trust in her voice breaks something inside me.
My body goes rigid at my mother's pleading voice."Cole, please, I—"
I release Samantha and turn.Mother stands a few feet away, Jeremy beside her like always.Her protector.Did he know what she had done?
"No."I position my daughter in front of me, facing her grandmother."Tell her, Mother.Tell your granddaughter, or better yet, tell everyone here what you did."
Mother's chin quivers, her eyes begging me to stop."Cole, please."
"No!Tell Samantha what you did.Or I will."
"Carmen, what is he talking about?"Jeremy and George ask in unison, their voices mixing with the tension in the air.
Alisha moves to my side, her hand warm against my back as Victor retreats to his parents.The silence stretches, heavy with fifteen years of lies.Each second ticks by like a countdown to devastation.
"Dad?"
Samantha's voice breaks me.I look down to see tears in her eyes, and my heart shatters all over again.I press a kiss to her head before speaking the truth that will change everything.
"Your grandmother is the reason I've been absent in your life."
"What?"Her pupils dilate in shock.The deafening silence that follows gives me courage to continue.
"Your mother came here fifteen years ago to find me and tell me she was pregnant.But instead of finding me, she encountered the dragon, who convinced her to raise you by herself by offering her a substantial amount of money.And to top it off, she made your mother sign a confidentiality agreement stating if she ever told me about you, she had to return the money."
Gasps fill the air as my mother's ugly truth comes to light.Her sobs echo through the room, but they don't touch me anymore.They're as hollow as every performance she ever made me give.Jeremy wraps an arm around her, murmuring, "Carmen?"
"I-I'm so sorry," she chants, and something inside me snaps.
"Stop saying you're sorry."
I release Samantha and stride toward the woman who raised me, who shaped me, who betrayed me in the worst possible way.My finger jabs the air as years of pain pour out.
"My whole goddamn life, I did everything to please you and Dad.From the moment you two found out I could play, prestige and performances became the top priorities in our family.Everything was about the piano.And I won't lie, I loved it.But then Dad injured his wrist, and you guys blamed me for it.Have you any idea what that did to me, Mom?"
I tower over her now, seeing for the first time how small she's become.Or maybe I've just stopped being afraid.Maybe I've finally grown beyond the shadow she cast over my life.
"You blamed me for the fact he couldn't play professionally anymore.Shocked and scared, I kept playing to make amends for what I now believed was my fault.Your's and Dad's passion for my piano talent became an obsession.And you didn't give a shit that I was unhappy.The moment I had the nerve to tell you two that I needed a break from the piano, you guys waved it away as unimportant.My feelings and opinions didn't matter.I've been nothing more than a trophy son for you."
The words pour out like poison from an old wound, each truth more painful than the last."And I'm done.I'm done with you and your manipulating ways, Mother.You took my daughter from me.You took away the chance for me to see her first steps, her first words, just because it didn't fit into the plan you had for my life."
A tear slides down my cheek, but I keep going.Every word is a key striking a chord of truth."For fifteen years, my daughter believed her father didn't want her.And that isyourfault."My eyes narrow to slits."Now I'm taking her and the woman I love home, and you'll never see us again.You didn't want a grandchild then.So you will not get one now.She's my daughter, and I'll protect her, so she doesn't get poisoned by manipulating snakes like you."
Mother gasps for air, her face crumpling like sheet music in flames.But I'm already turning away, holding out my hands to my girls.My stomach turns seeing Samantha's tear-streaked face as she takes my hand.Alisha, my anchor in this storm, takes the other and squeezes gently.Her touch grounds me, reminds me what real love feels like.
The Banks family stands silent as we pass, witnesses to the destruction of carefully maintained lies.I catch George's eye."I'll call you."
He nods, understanding in his gaze.He knows what it means to love music without letting it consume you.
"Cole, please.I beg you.Don't leave me," Mother's broken voice follows us as I open the door.
The slam echoes through the house like a final note in a tragedy fifteen years in the making.
36
