Rebel Love Song

By vote, Andy was staying with Lily and me while he recovered. He was missing the first couple weeks of Warped Tour, while the other guys went to at least give the fans a meet and greet. I’d made sure to sex Jake up quite a bit before I let him leave.

Lily was in the spare room with him right now, playing Go Fish I think. I had to run out for a little bit to grab some groceries.

I opened the door and almost walked into a woman who was standing on the doorstep. She had long, curly brown hair, almost hiding her green eyes. She was a little shorter than me, had about the same build.

A thought wiggled in the back of my mind, a half-forgotten memory trying to be remembered. The wind changed and I inhaled a lungful of lavender soap and Opium perfume. I could picture what the bottle looked like, even though I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen one.

“Juliana?” She whispered. Her face had drained of all color.

“No. I’m….I’m Skylar, her sister.” For the life of me I just couldn’t remember who she was. “Who are you?”

“Auntie Sky?” Lily said, appearing next to me. I moved my leg in front of her, keeping a barrier between her and this woman who knew my sister. I didn’t trust anyone near the last precious link I had to Jules.

“I should have realized you wouldn’t recognize me. You were so young and Elena hated me.” She opened her purse and dug around in it before handing me a photograph.

The timestamp in the lower right hand corner told me it was from 1983. A man and a woman sat on a couch, two small dark-haired girls between them. My dad’s hair hadn’t yet gone gray. Jules was missing her front tooth. I looked up at the woman, my mouth hanging open in a perfect O.

“Grace?” I said softly. She nodded, tears filling her eyes. Grace Lewis was my mother.

“Oh Skylar honey-” She made a move like she was going to hug me. I shied back, almost running Lily over in the process.

“You have a lot of nerve showing up here.” I hissed. “It’s been 22 fucking years and now you decide we’re good enough to visit?”

“Sky-” I cut her off again.

“Now you come to find us, when one of your daughters is dead!” I was yelling and Lily was crying but I didn’t care. “Jules is fucking dead, you heartless bitch! You ABANDONED us!”

“Sky, calm down.” Andy said, putting one hand on my shoulder. I hadn’t even heard him come up behind me. “You’re scaring Lily.”

“She fucking deserves to be yelled at! She deserted us and now we’re good enough for her to give a shit about. You don’t deserve to know either of us, or Lily.” I picked Lily up, cradling her against my chest and closed the door in Grace’s face with my foot.

“Andy, go back to bed.” I ordered, finally remembering he shouldn’t have been up.

“I heard you yelling.” He said as explanation. Lily’s sobs finally dwindled down to little sniffles, so I tucked her into bed with Trixy and Davey before locking myself into my room and hitting Jake’s speed dial number.

“Hey babe.” He said. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“My fucking mom just showed up.” I said, not bothering to greet him.

“How’d that work out?”

“I yelled at her and slammed the door in her face.” I paused. “She called me Juliana first.” She hadn’t stuck around to see her twins grow up, and she couldn’t tell the difference between us, I guess.

“Are you okay?”

“No.” I didn’t want to admit it, but I wasn’t.

“I’m so sorry love.”

“It’s just…she just up and left us when we were kids. Dad was off doing his Navy thing and she just dumped us at Grandma’s and kept driving. And now she wants to show up on our doorstep and be friends? How did she even find me?”

“Sky…maybe you should talk to her.” I think he heard me take a breath to start yelling so he kept plowing on. “I mean, at the very least you could find out why she left you guys.”

I was silent for a long moment. “You’re one smart cookie Jakey.” I sighed. “I don’t know how to find her.”

“Facebook is a wonderful tool.”

“Point taken.” I pulled up Facebook on my laptop and searched for her name. “Okay, now what? I found her.”

“Send her a message and tell her you want to talk to her.” So I did.

“I wish you were here for moral support.”

“I wish I was there too.” He was quiet. “I love you Sky.”

“I love you too Jakey.” I rubbed my eyes with one hand.

“I have to go do a meet and greet. I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay. Talk to you later.” We hung up and I lay back on my bed, waiting for a response.

--

I let Grace in without a word. I couldn’t call her Mom. Not after she walked out on us.

“Why did you abandon us.” Was the first thing out of my mouth, as soon as she sat down on the couch across from me.

“I wasn’t fit to be a mother.” She said softly. “I married a naval captain at twenty-four. I didn’t expect to get pregnant with twins within the first two years of our marriage. And then I was just…overwhelmed. And Elena clearly thought she could raise you two better than I could.”

“We needed you.” My words weren’t loud, weren’t angry. Just...toneless and empty. “We were the weird kids who no one wanted to be around because we were raised by a Gypsy woman and our parents weren’t around. Do you know how cruel kids are when you’re different from them? Do you know how much that hurt both of us?”

“I’m so sorry Skylar. I know I can’t make this up to you.” She wiped her eyes. “How…how did Juliana die?”

“Cancer. Almost six months ago.” I dug my fingernails into my palm, trying to keep the tears back. “Lily is her daughter.”

“Was that your boyfriend that I saw yesterday?”

“Andy? No, he’s in the same band as my boyfriend.” And we actually had a decent conversation. About Jules, about Lily, even about Jake and me. I certainly hadn’t forgiven her, and I didn’t think I ever could. Abandonment leaves a scar that runs too deep to fix it with one conversation.