You Spurn My Natural Emotions

[Peyton]

It’s December now. I really can’t believe it. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere that hasn’t been at least chilly over Christmas, but Huntington Beach? God damn, people are still going to the beach every day with the sun out. Ridiculous. Today Trinity and I have a day off work together so we’ve taken a drive down to the beach just to chill out.

But guess who the first people we see are? Johnny and the woman claiming to be our mother, Nancy. Johnny immediately waved and started walking over to us, only to remember half-way who was by his side. By the time he’d thought to stop walking, Nancy had carried on and was in front of us, making him groan and jog to catch up.

“Hi Trinity! Hi Peyton!” Nancy said cheerfully.

“I don’t feel like going to the beach any more, do you Trinity?” I said coldly, raising an eyebrow at my sister.

“No, I don’t. I don’t like being places with trash hanging around,” Trinity sneered at the caramel-haired woman in front of us.

I didn’t wince when Nancy’s eyes filled with tears, but I did cringe when Johnny glared at us. He so rarely gets angry that it feels wrong for him to look at us like this.

“Don’t speak to my step-mom like that,” Johnny snapped.

I sighed, as did Trinity.

“Fine. What do you want?” I said with my arms folded over my chest.

“I want to tell you the truth about me not being in your life,” Nancy said.

Oh fuck no.

“Why would we ever believe a woman we don’t even know? Why would we ever trust you after you abandoned us?” Trinity asked, staring her straight in the eyes.

“Because I’m your mother!” Nancy exclaimed.

How dare she?! How fucking dare she!

“YOU CAN’T PROVE THAT!” I shouted, clenching my fists.

Trinity immediately stepped in front of me and placed both her hands on my chest to break me out of my angry trance. I growled and shook my head, trying to calm myself down. I just...I’m so goddamn tired of all of this! All I want is for this fucking mess to be over. Once and for all.

“Calm down,” Trinity hissed, “Wrong place to start a fight,”

I looked over her shoulder to see Johnny standing slightly in front of Nancy, ready to defend her in case I pounced. Fuck, I really can’t attack her. Not without a police-worthy reason. Johnny couldn’t really fight me off if I really wanted to hurt Nancy, but I knew Trinity could. For some reason she’s acting calm, and I’m not sure why. Sure, she can hold her emotions in much better than I can – she must be thinking the same as me. She must be as fed up as I am.

“I’m calm,” I huffed.

Trinity scanned my face to see if I was lying, before she nodded and stepped back to my side.

“I just want one chance. One sitting where I’ll tell you what really happened,” Nancy said softly.

“I don’t know if we really want to hear you,” Trinity said seriously.

“Please can you just hear her out? Please? For me?” Johnny begged.

I looked at Trinity, glad to see her looking at me too. Could we really face the woman who called herself our mother? We’d grown up with such strong hatred against the woman who’d given birth to us – would we be able to talk to her without flying into an angry fit? I don’t know if I would be able to. I don’t know about Trinity.

“I have proof that your father was lying. Hard evidence and an explanation,” Nancy insisted.

I didn’t look away from Trinity, who now had a look of confusion on her face like I knew I had on mine. She had proof?

“Pey?” Trinity whispered, biting her bottom lip.

“I’m tired, Trin. I’m tired of not knowing what’s real and what’s not. That’s all I know. We’ve been fucking searching for so fucking long, and I’m just tired,” I sighed.

“I’m tired too Pey. Maybe we should,” Trinity mumbled.

“Really?” I whined.

“Unfortunately,” Trinity grumbled.

“So you’ll talk to me?” Nancy asked hopefully.

I snapped my head towards her, as did Trinity, making her jump startled and Johnny sigh.

“Tomorrow. Midday. We’re going to work at 5 so don’t be late. And you’re coming to our place. Find your own way,” Trinity said sharply.

As we walked away, the last thing I saw was the massive grin on Nancy’s face. What had we just got ourselves into?

*

[Trinity]

“So...you have a nice house,”

“It’s a rental,” I muttered.

Nancy sighed, wringing her hands together. She sat across from us, perched on the edge of the armchair while we slouched into the sofa. Johnny had dropped Nancy off about 10 minutes ago and immediately left again, gone to wait in the coffee shop near Alexis’ school for an hour before she got out. Apparently he wanted the three of us to bond alone. Whatever.

“I always wanted kids. Your dad...wasn’t so fond on having a family at all. He wanted to focus on his career, but I wanted to be a mommy. It was the happiest day of my life when I fell pregnant with you, Trinity. But your dad...he wanted me to get an abortion,”

Fuck off.

“He would never! He wanted a family!” I hissed.

“Here’s the abortion card he threw into our bedroom on his way to an audition the morning after I told him. It has his writing on the back,” Nancy said softly.

I tore the card from her hands and flipped it over, desperate to prove her wrong. Dad would never have...he wouldn’t ever...

“Shit,” Peyton breathed over my shoulder.

And there was the messy scrawling handwriting we grew up with.

‘You know what to do.
Don’t mess up our life with a kid’

As soon as I’d finished reading it, I threw the card on the floor. He didn’t want me. The man that brought us up didn’t want me. That fucking asshole! How dare he lie to me like that! Peyton squeezed my hand as my eyes pricked with tears, but I just pressed my lips together and flared my nostrils. I will not cry.

“I’m sorry, Trinity. I really am. Obviously I didn’t abort you but...”

“Keep fucking speaking,” I said through gritted teeth, glaring at her.

Nancy smiled weakly and nodded. Peyton rested her head on my shoulder which I knew she was pretending to do to comfort me, but I really knew she was doing to brace herself for whatever would come next.

“He was mad when I told him I kept you. He would go out late into the morning, come back drunk and nasty, but he always slept on the couch. I guess his Irish Catholic upbringing stopped him beating on me while I was pregnant. He was by my side the whole time I was giving birth and everything was great when we got you home, Trinity,”

Nancy paused, tears in her eyes and a wobbly smile on her lips.

“One month after you were born, Trinity, I fell pregnant with Peyton. I thought maybe this time Malachy would be happy adding to our small family. Mal really was a good dad to you, Trinity. Well, he wouldn’t feed you the right food, and he would yell at you for crying, but you get the point. This time when I told him about being pregnant, he went crazy. Apparently I was wrong about him being happy. He told me that if I didn’t get rid of this baby, I’d regret it. I didn’t understand why he was acting like this. I’ve never felt happier than when I was pregnant with both of you. Except when I got married to Johnny’s dad, but that’s different. Anyway, I couldn’t go through with the abortion, and that was the first time your dad hit me,”

He hit her?! I don’t care who the woman is, no woman deserves to get hit. Ever. Unless it’s a fight between girls. Then that’s different.

“He hit me repeatedly throughout that pregnancy, but never near my stomach. I always tried to fight back, but he was much too strong for me. I didn’t know what was going on with my life anymore. I’d left home at 18 for a man that I thought loved me. But what kind of man could love a woman who he hit? I had no job, no friends, no life – just your dad and you two. How could I defend myself from that?”

“No-one deserves to get hit, Nancy,” Peyton said.

“Although that does explain why you’re so fucked up,” I taunted my sister.

“Shut it, whoreface,” Peyton shot back.

Nancy looked a bit alarmed at our exchange, but then looked back down at her hands.

“ You kept me sane, Trinity. Just holding you in my arms gave me a reason to stay with your dad. My beautiful baby girl with big blue eyes and blonde curls. I thought everything would work out after you were born, Peyton. But they didn’t. The day I went into labour, your dad was acting really strange. Really really strange. It was if he wasn’t really there, so off in his own world and thinking so hard. I had internal bleeding after you were out, Peyton, and I had to be operated on straight away, meaning you were taken away from me. I saw you for 30 seconds. That’s all I ever saw of my baby. 30 fucking seconds,”

Tears started pouring down Nancy’s cheeks, and then I heard a sob from my right. Turning my head, I saw that Peyton was crying too, which made tears fall from my own eyes. I hate seeing Peyton cry, especially over this. Especially after hearing Nancy’s side of the story. At least Nancy got 10 months with me. She got 30 seconds with Peyton. 30 fucking seconds.

“Anyway, I found out why your dad was acting strangely as soon as I came round from the anaesthetic. The lawyer he’d hired was standing by my bedside and said that I had to sign the divorce papers your dad had already signed or Mal would hurt you two. He said that Malachy had come to him to say that I wasn’t a fit mother and he wanted to protect our babies. Bullshit. But I panicked. What the fuck was I supposed to do! I wasn’t even 20 years old and the two most precious things to me were in danger. So I signed them, hoping that I’d at least get visitation rights. Instead I got a letter stating that he’d taken the two of you and that I’d never see you again,”

Nancy paused as she started sobbing, and out of instinct I ran over to her and threw my arms around her. Nancy started sobbing louder, prompting Peyton to do the same as me, the three of us sitting there rocking back and forth. This...this was actually breaking my heart. I believe her one hundred percent. There’s just something about the desperation and agony in her words that tell me she’s not lying about any of this. And there’s also this...connection. I’m hoping it’s one of those mother-daughter things I’ve always heard about. But this is really breaking my heart.

“Here’s the divorce papers. You can see your father’s date and time of signing followed by the lawyer witness signing, and then my date and time, followed by the lawyer signing witness again,” Nancy whimpered.

She shakily grabbed a small stack of papers off the table, and showed us the last page. Sure enough, our dad had signed before she did. He’d lied to us. He initiated the divorce. He fucking lied!

“I can’t believe he fucking lied. Everything we know is all a fucking lie. Our lives are a fucking lie!” Peyton said angrily, clenching my hand tightly.

“Pl-Please I’ve got to f-finish. I r-ran outside, screaming and yelling for s-someone to help me, and a man ran towards me. Just a man visiting his momma. He tried to help me find where Malachy went, but it was no use. It was almost like your dad had vanished off the face of the planet. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back to my family – they would never let me forget it. Like I said, I had no job and no friends, I had nowhere to turn. So I asked the man from the hospital for help. Two years later, I married him,”

“W-Wait...Johnny’s dad is the man you met in the hospital?” I gasped.

I hadn’t even thought of that possibility before. Nancy nodded and dried her eyes as she raised her head, but still held onto her hands. I usually don’t like being this close to someone who’s pretty much a stranger, same as Peyton, but I can’t let her go right now.

“Yeah, he is. He took me in when no-one else cared, and because his wife had left him too, I pretty much raised Johnny and his older brother. I always dreamed that one day I’d be able to go out and find the two of you, or maybe you would find your way back here. I’ve waited so long for the day I’d be able to explain what really happened. Thank you. Thank you so much,” Nancy finished, squeezing our hands.

I looked at Peyton, who was smiling hesitantly, reflecting exactly what I was feeling. I do believe Nancy. I really do. The proof she has can’t make me think otherwise. I just felt so...humiliated that what I’d believed in, what I’d gotten so riled up about over the years, was just a load of lies. But what could we do now? Could we really accept this woman into our lives after hating her for so long?

“I don’t expect you to forget everything your dad’s told you immediately. I know you’ve grown up believing that so it’ll be engrained into you. But I really want to get to know you both. I would like to start over, a fresh beginning for us all. I want to show you the mom I should’ve been,” Nancy said hopefully, her eyes shining again.

I knew I had to speak my mind.

“I’d like that,” I whispered.

I heard Peyton inhale sharply and Nancy squeak in what I think is a mixture of happiness and shock.

“I just think it’s the right thing to do,” I defended quietly.

There was a two second pause before Peyton cleared her throat.

“Then I’m in too,” Peyton nodded.

“You mean that? Do you really mean that?” Nancy asked happily.

I took a deep breath and nodded. I didn’t particularly want to say anything more. This was going to be hard enough as it is. I took my hand out of Nancy’s and dried my face before standing up.

“If this is going to turn into a heart to heart, then I’m going to get my good friend José. Pey? Nancy?” I sighed, stretching.

“José sound good to me,” Peyton giggled, wiping her face dry too.

“Uh, I’ll just have tea thank you,” Nancy said.

“Tea? Really? Woman, you’re going to have to spice it up if you want to get to know us,” I laughed.

“F-Fine. When I go out with my friends, I do enjoy a few shots of whisky,” Nancy admitted sheepishly.

“Then Jim Beam it is,” Peyton said with a grin.

This is going to be an uphill battle. But what a fun one it will be.