Catori.
“Some promises are never meant to be broken,” Evie said, a coldness sweeping across her pretty face as she turned and left the room. Her steps were silent. I only heard the hammering of my heart like a steel drum.
For a second I stood there stunned, incapable of moving, of feeling anything. Until I realized that those two women were my sisters.
My sisters.
We had the same mother.
A mother they’d known, and I hadn’t.
I had a million questions and the answers were walking out of my childhood home. My feet finally moved on instinct and I ran to the front of the house. Evie was gliding down the sidewalk toward the car parked in front. Suda Kaye was already inside, waiting.
“Hey!” I yelled from the top of our little concrete landing.
Evie stopped halfway down the path and turned around. Her eyes were filled with unshed tears, the once icy waters a warm sky blue. Not cold. I could see the mask she’d held in place was gone. The heartache and sadness no longer hidden in whatever emotion she had to set aside to come here and face me and my fathers. She waited as I looked my fill of her features, so different than mine. Yet, the angles of her face, with the same high, rounded cheekbones as mine, her full lips, almond-shaped eyes, all very much what I saw when I looked in the mirror. Except she was golden all over and I was pale, a dark auburn with hazel eyes.
Taking a deep breath, I wrung my hands in front of me, trying to release the anxiety and fear welling up. “When all of this is figured out, in there—” I gestured toward my house behind me and remembered her card on the counter “—I’ll call.”
“I’ll answer.” She offered a small, sad smile.
I smiled wide in return and then focused on the woman in the car. Her head was down, hands covering her face as her shoulders shook.
“Will she be okay?” I lifted my chin toward the car.
“Suda Kaye will be fine. I’ll make sure of it. It’s what sisters are for. We take care of one another,” she whispered.
Sisters. Taking care of one another. I only ever had Jasper and my fathers.
“Something to look forward to.” I smiled once more and waved before going back inside and shutting the door.
My dad was still holding on to my papa, who had not stopped crying. It was as if his entire world had just come crumbling down at the sight of the two pretty women who claimed to be my half sisters.
“Jasper, this is a tequila conversation,” I requested as my papa’s shoulders straightened from my dad’s arms.
My dad cupped his cheeks, wiped his tears with his thumbs and then placed a brief kiss to his lips. My dad’s hazel gaze came to mine. “We’ll meet you in the living room for a family meeting.”
“Should I go?” Jasper’s eyes widened as he held up the bottle of Patrón Silver.
My dad looked at Jasper. “You family?”
Jasper nodded. Because he was. He’d been in my life since we were five. Nineteen years. There was nothing we didn’t know about each other.
“Take Izzy and get comfortable. We have a lot to talk about,” my dad urged.
Twenty-four years old, and as I looked at my fathers holding on to one another and my best friend’s sad smile, I knew that what my parents were about to tell me would change my life forever. Because apparently, my mother had been alive until I was thirteen. She’d been with us for three months of my life until she left. Papa had another daughter. And I had two half sisters. Ones who obviously felt it was important to come meet me in person. Then there were the letters sitting on the counter next to a file that contained the last will and testament of a man I did not know, but who had known my mother. A man important to my half sisters had left me some sort of inheritance.
More than anything, I couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that I’d been living a lie. One carefully crafted by the two people who claimed to love and cherish me above all others.
Two
The four of us lounged on the cashew-colored micro-suede couch we’d had since before I graduated high school. Jasper sat plastered to my side, hip to ankle, one of my hands in both of his. Usually, he was boisterous and the life of any conversation. Today he sat in silent support as I stared into the two faces that I loved more than any other.
The two men who had lied to me my entire life.
“Izzy...” My dad Casey balanced his elbows on his knees, his hands held in front of him under his chin. “I... Jesus, Ian. I’m not sure where to start.” He shook his head and blew out a long breath.
“The beginning would be nice? Starting with why you lied to me, oh, I don’t know, a million times!” I barely sucked back a sob as tears blazed down my cheeks. Jasper squeezed my hand, lifted it to his face and kissed my fingers.
“Baby girl, it’s not that we lied exactly,” my dad attempted, but then slumped back against the couch. He rubbed his bearded chin and pushed his fingers into his auburn layers. “It’s a really complex situation. I lived it and I’m not sure I understand how it all happened anymore.”
“So those women are my half sisters?” I asked even though I’d figured out that part on my own.
“Yeah,” he sighed.
My papa sat next to his husband, bouncing one of his knees as if at any moment he would stand, grow wings and take flight. Likely chasing after his real daughter Suda Kaye.
“And Suda Kaye is biologically Papa’s?” I stared at my fathers.
My papa’s red-rimmed eyes searched and locked on mine before his face crumpled into an expression of absolute torment. I gripped my free hand into a fist, wanting to jump up and comfort him the way he always did for me growing up.
“Suda Kaye was a happy accident. Not something Catori and I planned.” My papa inhaled deeply and I watched as silent tears fell down his smooth-shaven cheek.
“And Evie?”
My papa shook his head. “Not ours. Catori’s with her husband, Adam Ross.”
“The man that apparently died and noted me in his will.” I glanced at the kitchen where I knew the file folder sat, burning a hole in the tile.
They both nodded.
“So Evie is older, by how much? Do you even know?” I accused snidely.
“Sweetheart, don’t take that tone. This is hard enough on us as it is.” My papa winced as though he just heard what he’d said and knew it was wrong.
“Hard on you? I’ve been lied to by my parents my entire life. I had a mother. A real mother. Not a donor. A woman who already had two kids. One of which is my fucking father’s, and I’ve never met her, or my other half sister.”