Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (18 page)

“And y
ou call my birth mom a whore?” I yelp in outrage as I tower over her sitting form. “You just screwed some old dude because you didn’t know how to tell him no? You’re a married woman, Momma. That’s worse than whoring, that’s sacrilege.”

“
Tell that to your father. If Tom took his vows seriously, you wouldn’t be lecturing me right now, now would you? You wouldn’t even be alive.” I wince, just as she intended.

“That’s what I need to talk to you about. I need to know why you lied about Fate being your daughter.” Lara’s gasp of pain stops me from saying anything more. I drop onto the loveseat and stare at the woman I’ve called my momma for sixteen years.

“How did you find out?” Lara straightens her clothing and smoothes a hand over her bleached hair.

“My brother told me. Did you know I had a brother?”

“You have two brothers last I knew… or more. Lord knows how many kids Gwen’s made,” Lara snidely says. “I lost count after Daniel. I assume it was Boyd that told you about Fate?”

“Why, Momma? Why pretend Fate was your
real daughter and then treat me like pond scum?”

“Because I didn’t know,” Lara
defiantly hisses. “I couldn’t have kids. It was no surprise. I’d always known since I was a girl. Tom knew, and he said he didn’t care. I thought he loved me. I met him while I was interning at his accounting firm. We got married and adopted. He said he’d take care of it, and I was so happy. Fate was a beautiful, easy-going baby. Big puffs of blonde hair and these impossible blue eyes that blinked up at you- she was so precious. I took to mothering like it was my calling.”

“Why did you hat
e me then? I know you love Fate. I could feel the love you had for her, and it hurt me,” I whine.

“I loved you
, too.” Lara bitterly laughs. “I was so eager for you. Fate was old enough that I wanted another. I didn’t want to be alone when she started kindergarten. I told Tom I wanted another baby, and he said he’d get one for me. Fate, she was excited too- couldn’t wait to have a little brother or sister. I should have known better. Four months later Tom told me that you were coming. For six months I readied the house for your arrival. I painted your nursery and picked out each piece of clothing. Then the day came… and you looked just like Fate. I died a little bit that day. Tom tried to say that he adopted you from the same mother. But I turned and looked at my baby girl. Fate was almost five. She no longer looked like a baby. Her features were erupting. I don’t know why I’d never noticed before. But my daughter looked like Tom.”

Lara’s face goes cold. Any emotion that she felt is closed off behind an impenetrable
fortress of bitter loathing. She glares back at me with hatred and resentment.

“
I loved Tom with my whole heart. I married him in the church. I saved myself for our wedding night. I thought I had it all- two beautiful daughters and a loving and faithful husband. Being wealthy just meant safety and security for the future- for my girls. It was all a lie. I was raising my faithless husband’s bastard children as my own and didn’t even know it. The lies… Tom was a con-artist. I hadn’t known.”

I can only stare at her in abject horror. We are both quiet for a very long t
ime, staring back at the other as our personal views realign.

“I’m sorry, Faith. I named you, by the way,” she whispers so softly that I have to inch forward to hear her. “I named Fate because she was fated to be my daughter. I named you Faith because my faith in
God brought you to me. It was all a lie, of course... I despise you,” she verbally strikes out at me. “When I look at you, all I feel is sick.” I flinch back as if my momma punched me in the face.

“Why?” I cry. “
Why Fate and not me?”

“I
’d already bonded with Fate for five years. I couldn’t undo it. She was my daughter. Even though I hate Tom’s guts, it was a comfort to see Tom in Fate- his looks, not his personality. Then there was you, Faith. You look just like that whore and act just like Tom. The moment I met you, I knew. I didn’t bond with you because it was disgusting.” She roughly shakes her head, sneering at me.

“If you
ever meet Gwen, tell her I wish her dead,” Lara disdainfully hisses. “When I found out that some… child… seduced my husband.” She sharply shakes her head again. “I was thirty-six, no degree, a faithless husband… no money, no life, and two daughters to raise from my husband’s extramarital affairs. My
faith
,” she snidely twists my name, “My faith prohibited me from divorcing your father. I would go to hell, so I chose to live inside hell instead. Do you know why I didn’t leave?”

“No, Momma,” I softly murmur.

“Have you ever seen your birth certificate?”

“No, Momma,” I repeat.

“Of course not,” she scoffs. “Every time it was needed, Tom or Amelia did it for you girls. Signing up for school- Tom did it. Fate needed a passport- Tom did it. He always said it was because he didn’t want you to lose it. Fate’s driver’s permit- Tom. Fate’s college admissions- Tom. Your schooling- Amelia. That is why I didn’t leave. I never signed a paper. I was too naïve to realize what that might mean. I saw it, Fate’s birth certificate- it said: Fate Marjorie Simpson. Father: Thomas Gregory Simpson. Mother: Gwendolyn Leigh Meyers.”

“I-”

“Yes, yours says the same thing, except your middle name is hers. I’d thought Gwendolyn very pretty when Tom suggested it. Now reading it, seeing it, or hearing it, makes me want to vomit.”

“You should have just manned-up and left him,” I hiss. “Show some self-respect instead of being a martyr.”

“I couldn’t leave my baby behind, and I couldn’t take her with me. On Fate’s eighteenth birthday, I called the feds on Tom. I didn’t mean for Amelia to get mixed up in it. She is a good person, and has taken good care of you. I’m sorry for that, Faith, very sorry. I’m sorry because that means I have to take care of you for the next two years. I’d ship you to boarding school so I wouldn’t have to look at you, but I’m broke. Now that you know about Boyd, maybe you should find other accommodations.”

“This is my daddy’s house,” I hiss, no longer feeling sad about her plight. My daddy was bad, but she didn’t have to be bad
, too. It’s how we react to the tests God throws in our path that makes us who we are. She missed that part, and that’s why He’s punishing her. “I’m not leaving it. You’re right, Fate is an adult. Which means this house is hers now, not yours. I don’t care what he did to you, what you are doing is worse. Get over yourself and grow up! So what, a man cheated on you,” I nastily sneer. “You aren’t the first woman it happened to. There are far worse things in this world. Like growing up and having your momma hate you.”

Lara just delicately shrugs
her thin shoulders, like emotionally torturing the girl she promised to love, raise, and protect is nothing. God gave her two daughters, even if it was through deceit. She failed His test, and I’ve been paying for it. Do I blame God or Daddy or myself? No. I don’t blame Lara, either. It just is what it is, and then you move on.

Lara’s weak. Fate’s weak. They would lie down and die if someone didn’t take care of them. Che
ating men are an everyday occurrence that isn’t your fault. Being weak places the blame directly on yourself. Weakness isn’t a personality flaw, it’s a choice.

“P
ardon me for screwing some man on your sofa, daughter. I no longer care about what my religion preaches to me. It’s failed me in all things.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, trying to hide my sniffling.
I’m not crying out of sadness- I’m furious and frustrated. I want to hurt something. I want to hurt Lara and Daddy and Fate and Gwen, and I can’t! I curl my fingers into my palms. My nails cut deep crescents into my flesh. It doesn’t make it better. It’s the wrong blood beading, and it makes me see red.

“You should be,”
Lara snidely says. “You are your
daddy’s
girl, after all. You take right after him. Conniving, manipulative… evil!” she hisses. “I already took care of your daddy. He’s paying for his crimes. I don’t care that he stole from those rich-thieves. I just wanted retribution for what he did to me. Watch your back, daughter, you just might be next!”

~Chapter Fourteen~

I finally do as Boyd had said. I stand before the mirror
in my bathroom and stare at myself. I affix Fate in my mind and superimpose her image over my face. We share both parents. There is no one on this earth closer related to me than Fate, and no one more far removed from me than she.

I poke at the skin around my eyes and peel my lids wide open. I blink a few times to be sure I see them correctly.
The blue of my eyes gazing back at me is the exact same shade as the blue from Fate and Boyd, but not as brilliant as the light that shines from Whitt. This must be from our mother.

I yank the tie out of my ponytail and allow my hair to fall around my shoulders and settle at the middle of my back. I always wear it up because there is so much of it. I don’t like it getting in my face or touching the back of my neck.
The honey-blonde of my hair is the exact hue as Fate’s, with Whitt’s slightly lighter, and Boyd’s hair is brown. Whitt’s shade is from his father as is Boyd’s hair color. Daddy has brown curls. No doubt our mother has thick, wavy blonde locks.

I prod my round cheeks, poke my small nose, and even peel my upper lip off my teeth and let it snap back into place. My face is a perfect circle with a tiny chin sticking out the front. When I look at myself, all I see are my
huge eyes gazing back because everything else fits the tiny circle. This is my mother’s face. Fate’s isn’t as round, eyes less dominating. Boyd, he has this shaped face, and Whitt, he has these huge eyes.

I yank off t
he pink t-shirt with little red hearts and happy rainbows that I wear to sleep in and toss it to the floor. I touch myself, running my hands up my hips, stomach, and I cup my breasts. My body is small, but proportionate. Standing an inch under five feet, I look like a miniature version of a woman. Standing naked before the mirror, nothing about me looks like a kid. It’s the clothes I wear that push me into the tween age group. If I dressed like a woman, I’d look way older than I am.

Fate
is small, as is Boyd. Whitt, I can tell, he will be tall when he’s older since he already towers above me an inch or two at the age of eight. My mother must be petite and curvy because Daddy and Aunt Amelia are normal sized. Fate is thinner than me, less curvy. But I think that is from Daddy’s side of the family, because Aunt Amelia doesn’t have the hour-glass figure I hide beneath my clothing.

I don’t need to meet Gwendolyn Meyers to know what she looks like because she is staring at me from the mirror. Do we share the same sardonic smirk or
the crinkle at the corner of the eyes when aggravated? Most definitely. Knowing my Daddy like the back of my hand, and removing all that he is from Fate and me, I can see everything that is Gwen.

I’m mad at my daddy, but I can never hate him. Lara is right, those five years made the difference between Fate and me. These past sixteen
years have made a world of difference between Daddy and Gwen. I will always love him, but that doesn’t mean I’ll respect him. I’ll never love Gwen.

I feel my temperature rising. I wa
nt to hate Gwen and I feel sorry for her at the same time. She is making me do things, things I would have done anyway. It’s the lying and scheming that I hate- that I’m good at.

I don’t want to look at
her
. I don’t want everyone who looks at me to see
her
. Those who hate her will hate me, and those who she seduced will expect me to do the same.

I bend at the waist and quickly gather my hair at the top of my head. I double-twist the hair-tie around the bas
e of my ponytail, and then stand back up.

I want to be me.

I don’t want people to think I am an extension of Gwen or Daddy or Fate or Boyd or Daniel or my unnamed baby sister.

I’
m Faith, and I want to be an original.

I grab the scissors
that I trim my split-ends with from the vanity top. Without letting a heartbeat pass or a breath from my lungs, I hack off my ponytail. The snips are loud in my ears. It’s not a happy
snip snip
sound. It’s a violent shearing noise as the blades saw and tear through my ponytail.  It takes seven good cuts until the hair falls to the floor. Coils of blonde hair snake around my bare feet. I blink down at them and feel absolutely nothing.

My hair-tie easily slips free as I shake my head, settling my hair around my face. Blonde waves brush my jawline and chin. I stare at myself in the mirror
, and I still look too much like Fate, too much like my unseen mother.

There are too many blond and blue-eyed offspring running around. I can change one of those things right now. I quickly tug on my t-shirt and lift the receiver to the phone that is attached to my bathroom wall.
Gotta love being rich sometimes- I’d always found the phone in my bathroom preposterous. Sixteen years and I’ve finally found a reason to use it.