“He never made it. We were too far, and he was just seven. I was rescued by a fisherman when the sun came up, and my brother’s body shored later that day a couple of miles away from where I was found,” she said, her tone cold and distant as if she was telling someone else’s story. “My parents blamed me. I should have called them when he decided to go to the lake; I shouldn’t have let him leave the house, and their best ever: I should be the one dead, not their precious son.”
“You were just a child,” I protested.
I knew my grandfather was a harsh man, and my grandmother always did what he told her to, but this was away too much. How could they have blamed their own daughter for something that was their own fault?
“Yeah… long story short… things were never the same, and my mother wiped out every bit of evidence of my brother’s existence. No one was allowed to talk about him.”
“That couldn’t have been helpful.”
“I guess it was her way of coping with the loss… I never asked. We were never close, and after that event, I was sent to a boarding school and only came home for Christmas and summer vacations. I became a rebel, got expelled from five schools, so you could say I was trouble, with major ‘T.’”
“What happened at that party?”
“I got so drunk I could barely walk. Father’s friend offered to take me home. He claimed to be tired, and he would have no problem giving me a ride home,” she said, with a scornful scowl. “I refused. I hated his guts, and the last thing I wanted was to be in a car with him, but my parents insisted, and my father practically dragged me to his car.”
“Did he take you home?” I asked frowning.
“Yes… he did. Although I kept telling him not to, he walked me to the house and followed me to my room. I was so drunk I stumbled a couple of times while going up the stairs, and he used that as an excuse to put his filthy hands on me. I tried to close the door to my room in his face, but he forced his way in,” she continued. “He said he wanted to be sure I was alright, but he wanted something else. Before I knew it, he was all over me, forcing himself on me…”
“He raped you?”
“I was too drunk to put up a fight…”
“Did you say no?” I insisted, rage boiling inside me.
“Of course, I said no… a million times, but he didn’t listen, or simply didn’t care. When he was done, he kissed my cheek and told me this would be our little secret,” she replied, pursing her lips with self-disgust. “I never told anyone about it… not until I found out I was pregnant. I hadn't been with anyone else in a while, so I knew it had to be his, and I was furious. I was just seventeen years old, about to finish high school. I was not ready to have a child, especially not his child.”
She wiped a tear from her cheek before she continued.
I was in shock. Knowing that my father had raped Madeleine was not something easy to assimilate.
“My mother went to the doctor with me. She refused to hear the word abortion, even after I told her and my father what had happened. They refused to listen and insisted I was lying, trying to ruin a good man’s life with absurd stories to cover up my own shame.”
She sobbed. “Can you blame me for hating you? In my mind, you were the offspring of the devil himself… I wanted nothing to do with you.”
No… I guess I couldn’t blame her, nor put myself in her shoes and understand all she went through.
“What I failed to see was that you were my son too. In fact, there isn’t much of your father in you. You’re a Wells from the top of your head to your toes. When I finally realized that it was too late… things between us were ruined forever, and I could only blame myself for it,” she concluded.
“Do I have siblings?” I asked, not ready to analyze her last words.
She stared at me for a few moments, as if waiting for something “No… his wife couldn’t have children.”
“Did he ever know I was his son?” I asked, more curious than anything.
The man meant nothing to me, even before I knew the truth.
“Not as far as I know. I never told him, and I doubt your grandfather ever did. That would mean accepting I was telling him the truth, and he couldn’t have that.”
I nodded. Gerard Wells never admitted he was wrong. “Why didn’t you ever tell me all this?”
“You never asked,” she scoffed. “You were always so proper, so polite… a stoic child.”
“And you hated it,” I stated.
It was probably my own way to rebel against a mother that cared so little about me. I could see my lack of response to her tantrums drove her insane, and I forced myself to never show her how I really felt. Hiding my feelings became second nature for me, and that was probably why Ailani didn’t trust me with her problems.
She certainly thought I didn’t care enough.
