Bend Me, Daddy

I plastered a smile on my face and turned to face my mom. Blonde like my sister and I, she had strands of gray running through her long hair now. "Hi, Mom." There were no hugs. No kisses. She just stood there on the other side of the counter in her expensive active wear and waited to see why I had interrupted her in the middle of her day. "I'm sorry to just drop by like this."

"Nonsense." My dad sounded genuinely offended. "You're our daughter. This is your home. You don't need a reason to come here."

My mother stayed quiet.

"Anyway," I went on. "I have something I need to tell you." Tears filled my eyes, and I had to take a few seconds before I could talk. "Um, it's about Nicole."

"What have you done?" my mother whispered.

"Nancy!" my father admonished her. "Let Veda talk."

I stared at her, and I wished I could say that I was surprised by her remark, but I wasn't. Other than being born with a heart defect, I had no idea what I'd ever done to deserve her hatred, but now wasn't the time to get into it. I looked at my father. "Nicole is gone," I managed to get out before my voice caught. "She... she was killed. In Mexico."

I watched the color drain from his face as he stared at me in disbelief. "What... in Mexico... I don't understand..."

My mother was unusually quiet, and when I glanced over at her, she was staring at me like I'd just grown a second head. "If this is true," she said while my father struggled to understand what I'd just told him, "why are you telling us this and not the authorities?"

"Mom, it is true. I'm so sorry." Unable to hang onto the little composure I'd had, I burst into tears before I'd even finished what I was saying.

"I don't understand," my father repeated.

I just shook my head. "She's gone, Daddy. I'm so sorry."

"No. Not my little girl. No." His face crumbled, and he reached for my mother, who still stared at me like I'd lost my ever-loving mind.

I kept talking, hoping to get through to her. "She was in Puerto Vallarta. At a spa," I improvised. I couldn't tell them she was at a rehab facility. I didn't even know if that was true or somewhere she'd been forced to go so the press couldn't get to her. "She was... shot... in an alley. They shot her. She must've screamed for help, or..." I threw up my hands. "I don't know why."

My mother hadn't moved an inch, and her expression hadn't changed. "How do you know this?"

I couldn't lie to my parents. "Because Nicole had gotten involved with some bad people. She was... engaged." "Engaged!" my father exclaimed.

"Yes," I told him. "I didn't know. I'd never even met the guy before she sent me an invitation to be in the wedding." "You were with your sister constantly." My mother waved away my explanation. "How could you not have met him?" "Because he's a criminal, Mom. And I think she knew I'd try to talk her out of it."

"A criminal?" my dad repeated. Tears ran down his cheeks as he tried to comprehend what I was saying.

"I've been in hiding ever since, because I look so much like her. They're afraid the ones who killed her will come after me. Thinking I'm her," I explained. I didn't bother to clarify that "they" were criminals also. And that I had fallen in love with one of them myself.

"Oh my god." My father wandered over to the table and clumsily sat in a chair. A few seconds later, heartbreaking sobs echoed through the kitchen. For a moment, I couldn't move. I'd never heard my father cry like that before. Walking over to him, I bent down and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. We cried together for our loss, my father hanging onto me like a lifeline as my mother stared at us like bugs under a microscope.

When our grief was exhausted, I got up and grabbed a box of tissues from the counter, then took them to my dad. While he cleaned up his face, I turned my attention to my mother, wiping at my own tears. "Mom, I'm so sorry..." "How long have you known about this?" she asked me, completely dryeyed.

"What?"

"How long have you known?" she repeated.

I tried to think. "A few weeks now, I guess." I tried to pinpoint the time and couldn't. "I was in hiding-"

"And you couldn't even pick up the goddamn phone and let me know my daughter had died?"

"Nancy. That's enough." My father tried to reprimand her, but there was no anger in his tone. Only grief.

I stared at my mother. She was angry at me. "No. I couldn't. I wasn't allowed. Are you angry because I didn't tell you right away, or because it was Nicole who died and not me?"

"Veda, you know that's not true," my father said.

I ignored him. This was between my mother and me. For my entire life, she'd made me feel like I wasn't good enough. And why? Because I'd been born with a heart defect? I'd never understood why she'd nurtured Nicole and discarded me. And I don't know if I ever would.

"I'll believe this when I hear it from someone official," she decided. "Perhaps your sister just got tired of you and ran off somewhere with her new husband."

My mouth fell open as she turned on her heel and walked out of the room. A moment later, I heard her stomping back up the steps.

"Veda." My father's comforting touch landed on my shoulder. "She's just in shock, that's all." I heard the tears in his voice.

"She forced me to work for her," I said to the empty place where my mother had stood. "She never let me have my own life. I was Nicole's fucking errand girl. I did everything for her." My voice rose as anger mixed with my grief, until I was screaming at the ceiling. "If anyone would want to run away, Mother, it would be me!"

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"Honey, calm down." My dad wrapped his arms around me. "She's in shock, Veda. That's all. She's in shock. As am I."

I turned my face into his chest, my tears wetting the front of his shirt. "Why does she hate me, Daddy?"

For once, he didn't try to defend her. "I have no idea, honey. But it's not your fault. You've never done anything wrong."

And with that, I exhaled, all of my anger leaving me as quickly as it had come on. I just didn't have the energy for this right now.

"Come sit down with me."

He took my hand, and we went into the living room, where I answered his questions as best as I could without telling him anything he didn't want to know. I told him they would release her death certificate as soon as they caught the guys who killed her, and he took me at my word. "I have to be careful not to lead them to you, Dad. So I can't be here a lot."

"Can you call at least?" he asked. And his gray eyes were so desperate and sad that I found myself nodding. "Whenever I can."

I stayed with him all afternoon as we cried and remembered and smiled through our grief. It was healing to sit there with him. Something I didn't realize I'd needed until just that moment. He didn't ask about her body, and I was grateful, because there was no body to bury. But he did want to plan a memorial service. I agreed to stay in town until then and help as much as I could.

My mother never came back down.

When I left, promising him I would call soon, I snuck back out the same way I'd come in. The sun was just starting to set, and I was anxious to get back to Sammy's apartment. I felt too exposed out here in the open.

I was halfway back to the apartment when I noticed the same car had been following me since I'd left my parents' neighborhood. I kept driving as my mind raced. It was probably no one. But what if it wasn't. My heart thundered in my chest as I took a sudden left, heading toward the highway and away from Sammy's apartment.

The car behind me followed, nearly hitting an oncoming car in the process.

I was being tailed. "Shit. SHIT."