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  Instead of looking at an older, male version of me, Aron and I stood there looking at a small, dark-haired, dark-eyed Spanish man. I knew I heard a Spanish accent! I looked up at Aron with a giant question mark on my face. Aron’s head was cocked to one side and he was looking at Arthur with mistrust in his eyes. Arthur walked over to me, looked up, and smiled. His lips are thin, I thought as I looked down on this man claiming to be my father. Suddenly I wished that Sam were there standing there with me.

  “Sarah?” It was the same heavy accent I had heard last night. Aron let go of my hand and stood back a bit.

  “Hi, Dad.” The words sounded so wrong coming out of my mouth that I quickly corrected myself. “I mean, Arthur.” Arthur smiled. He has a small mouth and bad teeth, I thought as Arthur raised himself up on his toes and kissed my cheek. He can’t even reach my cheek.

  “You are as beautiful as I knew you would be! Marta, get out and look at this girl!” In less than five seconds Arthur had assumed the role of proud father, something that made me immediately uncomfortable. I reached back for Aron’s hand. Aron grasped my hand and squeezed it tightly; I turned around and he mouthed the words, “Something isn’t right” to me, shook his head, and squeezed my hand tighter. I nodded in agreement and turned back to Arthur.

  Something wasn’t right, and it was immediately apparent to me. I don’t know this for sure, but I imagine a person would know instinctively if someone was their parent. I imagine that I would have seen Arthur and known immediately, “Yep, that’s my dad. Look, he looks just like me.” There was no feeling like this when I looked at Arthur. I felt as if I was staring at a stranger and I had no idea how this man’s name ended up on my birth certificate. Maybe this is what he is here to tell me. Maybe this guy isn’t my real dad. I wanted to ask him to leave and never come back, but I had to get to the bottom of this mystery.

  If Arthur had any of the same misgivings I did, he certainly didn’t show it. His small Spanish wife got out of the car and walked up to me with her arms out. “Hello, beautiful! Arthur has been looking for you for so long.”

  I leaned over and hugged her and glanced up at Arthur. He was standing there with his chest puffed out beaming from ear to ear. Maybe I’m wrong here. He seems to think I’m his daughter; maybe I’m just being paranoid. I stood up and looked at Arthur and Marta. “Have you met Aron?” I asked and gestured for Aron to come stand next to me.

  “Ah! You are the lucky man,” Arthur exclaimed and reached around to give Aron a big pat on the back.

  “Luckier than you know,” Aron responded before saying, “Let’s go upstairs. Sarah and I got some sandwiches and drinks so we can talk for a while.”

  The situation in the apartment was extremely awkward. Once we all sat down in the living room with our sandwiches, Arthur and Marta started talking about their lives in Chicago, their kids and the family car business, acting as if there were no giant elephant in the room waiting to be talked about. They went on and on about themselves for at least fifteen minutes before Aron got tired of being polite.

  “And if you’re interested,” he interrupted, “Sarah is doing absolutely fine after the hell she lived through as a child.”

  You could have heard a pin drop as Arthur and Marta immediately went silent. Out of the blue, Arthur exclaimed, “I swear it wasn’t me who threw you down the stairs, it was her!”

  What? I screamed in my mind. “What are you talking about?” I asked him urgently, hoping that I had heard him incorrectly because of his accent. “Threw me down what stairs?”

  “When you were just a couple of months old, Nancy was on the phone, you were crying…I couldn’t get to you in time.” He buried his head in his hands. “You were too young probably to remember your collarbone being shattered that day.”

  Aron threw his hand over his mouth and started tapping his leg as I sat in stunned silence.

  I wanted to make sure that I had heard him correctly. “Mom threw me down the stairs when I was a baby because I was crying?” I repeated slowly. My mind was struggling to grasp the information I had just received. I didn’t know whether I should be angry or sad or whether or not knowing that Mom shattered my collarbone as a baby even made a difference if I couldn’t remember it.

  Arthur picked his hand up out of his hands and nodded. “She told the hospital that you fell down the stairs on your rocking horse.” He looked at me with urgency in his eyes. “I thought you knew and that Nancy told you that I did it.” He hung his head, “I just didn’t want you to hate me anymore.”

  I felt like Arthur was waiting for me to get up and hold him and tell him that I forgave him for walking out on me, but I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. I became furious, and before Aron could stop me, I jumped off of the couch and started yelling and flailing my arms. “Hate you? You left me there, Arthur! I thought I had it bad before, but now I find out that she was hurting me when I was a newborn?”

  “Sarah,” I heard Aron say, but I didn’t care. I had waited all of my life to say what was on my mind to this man, and I wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip away. I continued to yell into Arthur’s stunned face. “She beat me so many times because of you! Do you know what she did to me? Do you have any idea what kind of beast you left me with?” I paused, expecting Aron to make me sit down and stop yelling, but he didn’t say a word so I continued. “Where were you all of those years, Arthur? You claim you were looking for me and I was two hours down the road from you all that time!” I held out my arms to show him the scars I had from Mom’s fingernails. “Do you see these scars? She did this to me, and you did nothing!”

  Marta stood up. “Arthur, I think it is time to go. I’m very uncomfortable.”

  Aron got up off of the couch and stood next to me. “I have to agree with your wife, Arthur. I’m sorry you made the long drive, but I think that this visit is over.”

  Arthur stood up slowly from the chair picked his keys and wallet off of the coffee table. I looked at him and sneered my lip. “And we don’t even look alike, so all of those beatings I took because Mom said I looked like you were for nothing!” Arthur shook his head and walked toward the door as I stood there with my arms still outstretched, trying to make Arthur see visual proof of what I had endured as a child.

  Marta quietly mumbled, “Nice to meet you,” under her breath and scooted out the apartment door.

  Arthur began to follow her, but before he shut the door behind him he turned around and said, “I am so sorry for what she did to you, Sarah. She hurt me too.”

  He shut the door behind him and I put my arms down and turned around to Aron with my eyes blazing. “I’m going to find out that bitch’s phone number and call her right now!”

  “Calm down, Sarah, please try to relax and think straight,” Aron pleaded with me but it was to no avail. “That man is not my father, Aron! And that bitch threw me down the stairs when I was a baby! Did you hear me, Aron? A baby! Imagine someone doing that to Ryan!”

  Aron sat back down on the couch and nodded. “Sarah, I’m not disagreeing with you. There is no way that guy is your father; you look nothing like him, and I was really trying to find one thing I could find similar to you and I couldn’t.”

  I sat across from him in the chair Arthur had been in as he continued. “Sarah, I don’t even know what to say. I mean, what do you say in a situation like this? I’m so very sorry that this has happened to you.” His eyes started to well up with tears and he got down onto his knees in front of me and buried his head in my legs. “I can’t believe she threw you down the stairs. You were just a baby,” he sobbed. “If I could just get my hands on her one time…”

  I was unmoved by Aron’s tears. “I’m not going to sit here and feel sorry for myself because of something that happened to me when I was a baby. I want to know who my father is and why she lied to me all of these years. If you won’t let me call Mom, then I’m calling Richard.”

  Aron picked his head up out of my lap and wiped his eyes. “Fine, but wha
t are you going to call Richard for?”

  “Because,” I replied, “Richard must know something for Christ’s sake. He was with Mom for years and he knows how to get ahold of her now.”

  Aron stood up and threw his hands up into the air. “I don’t think it’s a good idea, but if this is what you need, then go for it.”

  Oh, I needed this; I needed to get word to Mom somehow that I knew about a part of my life that she’d tried to keep hidden. I knew she was terrible to me from the time I came out of the womb and that she had lied to me all of those years about who my father was. I knew in my heart from the moment I laid eyes upon him that Arthur was not my real father, and it infuriated me to know that there could be a man out there who may not even know that he had a child.

  “She must have trapped him, Aron, lied about the pregnancy, something. I don’t know, maybe that’s what he was coming to tell me. That dark, little Spanish man is not my father. Do I look Spanish to you?” Aron shook his head and I got up and walked over to the phone. “I have to call Richard, just so word gets back to Mom that I know that Arthur is not my father.”

  I picked up the phone and quickly dialed Richard’s number. Richard picked up after one ring, and before he could say “Hello” I was already ranting into the phone receiver.

  “I met Arthur and you can call Mom and tell her that she needs to man up and tell me who my father really is because there is no way that he had any part in creating me!”

  Richard sucked in his breath, “You met him?” he asked incredulously, “Already? I just called you yesterday.”

  “Yeah, I met him all right and pretty much threw him out of our apartment.” I paused and then asked, “Did you know that Arthur was a little Spanish man?”

  “Um…no,” Richard replied. “Nancy always told me he was tall and had brown hair—”

  “Yeah, he had none of those features,” I interrupted. “You mean to tell me that you never saw a picture of her and Arthur, after all of those years you were married, not one?”

  “No,” Richard said. “All of the pictures of her and Arthur were cut up; she cut out his picture from every photo they took together.”

  I took a deep breath. “Richard, I know we don’t talk a lot, but I need one favor from you. I know you still talk to Mom once in a while because of Emily, and the next time you talk to her, you just let her know I know about Arthur. Just say that to her and leave it at that.” I began to feel like I had power over Mom: not physical power; I had intellectual power. I knew one of her secrets and I was too smart to be outwitted by her. “Please, Richard,” I pleaded. “Please give her that message from me.”

  “Next time I talk to her, I’ll pass your message along,” Richard said.

  “Thank you,” I said, and without saying another word I hung up the phone.

  It is very hard to put into words the range of emotions I felt after meeting Arthur. I had been so anxious to see the man who had the same face as I did, the same face Mom hated so much, and Arthur was not that man. I was hurt because I realized my entire life was a lie; I was angry because of the physical and mental pain I endured because “Arthur” was my father; I had an empty spot in my heart because I did not know who my real father was and I knew Mom would never, ever tell me. I pitied Arthur, in a way; I pitied him for being yet another person used by Mom, but I also hated him for leaving me there with that monster. Even if he knew he wasn’t my real father, he should have had enough human decency to tell the truth at the hospital and tried to save me the day she shattered my collarbone.

  I considered getting a DNA test get physical proof that Arthur was not my father, but ended up talking myself out of it. I came to the realization that in the larger scheme of things, whether or not Arthur was my biological father had absolutely no impact on me. I had never considered him a father in the first place and I wasn’t losing anything by not having him in my life. It is what it is, I can’t change the past, but I can choose my future, and I chose to completely close the chapter on Arthur forever. Now I can have hope that one day I will meet my real father, and it will be the most wonderful day of my life. Until then, I am content with my dad Sam.

  Chapter 6

  The Other Side

  “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

  Aron pulled me to him and kissed me on the mouth. “I’m so happy,” he whispered into my ear. I threw my arms around his neck, looked out at the ocean waves breaking on the beach, and wondered if life could get any more perfect.

  After eight years together living in bliss as boyfriend and girlfriend, Aron surprised me on Christmas Eve with a beautiful platinum diamond engagement ring that he had designed and made himself. “I know you never wanted to get married because of your past, because you come from such a broken family,” he said to me as he slipped the ring on my finger, “but believe me when I say I will never hurt you and I will spend the rest of my life doing whatever I have to do to make you happy.”

  I broke down into tears. “Yes! Yes!” I sobbed. I had known for a long time that I would spend the rest of my life with Aron and the ring just made it official.

  Aron and I decided to elope to the little island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands. We discussed having a traditional wedding, but I realized that wouldn’t be able to handle looking out into church pews and seeing Aron’s side filled up with family and friends and my side of the church void of anyone who cared about me. I also didn’t want a big, fancy, expensive wedding with caterers and a DJ because things like that weren’t important to me; all that was important was expressing my love to Aron. Sam and Carol accompanied us on our trip to Tortola, and after a week of snorkeling, hiking, and swimming Aron and I exchanged our vows on the beach of Long Bay Beach Resort at sunset with Sam and Carol as our witnesses. It was one the most beautiful moments of my life.

  Soon after we arrived back in the States, Aron and I bought our first home together. We were anxious to move out of our little apartment and “grow up,” so to speak. We were also anxious to go back to court and either increase our visitation with Aron’s son Ryan or gain shared custody, and we thought that if we had a real home our chances of getting Ryan more often would be greater.

  Over the years since I had been with Aron his ex, Vicki, had become more and more vindictive when it came to Ryan. When I first met Aron, Vicki wouldn’t even allow Aron to see Ryan on a weekly basis, and if she did, it came with a hundred-dollar price tag. When we went to court and obtained the right to weekly visitation, during our visitations with Ryan Vicki would make it a habit to call over and over again, leaving messages filled with hateful threats and screaming that Ryan was her son, not mine. On more than one occasion, Aron and I drove to her apartment to pick Ryan up for visitation and she wasn’t there. The times she was there, she stood in the parking lot as we pulled away with Ryan, screaming obscenities at us until we were out of sight.

  Vicki’s name-calling and hatefulness may have seemed awful to most people, but compared to Mom, Vicki was a piece of cake. What I was concerned about was Ryan’s safety. I knew what it was like to live with an unstable mother, and I knew if Vicki was acting this way in front of Aron and me, it had to be worse behind closed doors. I watched Ryan carefully when he was at the apartment for any signs of abuse, but I never noticed a mark, and if I did think he was being mentally abused, I couldn’t prove it.

  My suspicions were confirmed approximately eight months after Aron and I signed the mortgage for our new home. Ryan was over for one of his visits and we were sitting in the living room eating popcorn and watching Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, one of Ryan’s favorite movies.

  “I really love it here,” Ryan said out of the blue.

  “Well, that’s a deep little thought for a nine-year-old boy!” Aron said jokingly and hugged Ryan tightly. “I love you, big guy!”

  Ryan started to cry and I jumped out of the recliner I was sitting in and ran to the couch to sit on the other side of Ryan. As Aron and I held him
tight, I heard Ryan say, “She hits me with a flyswatter if I don’t do my homework right.”

  My heart stopped and I caught my breath. Aron looked at me quickly with concern in his eyes and grabbed the remote to pause the movie. “What did you say, honey?” he pressed gently. “Your mom hits you?”

  Ryan picked his head up and nodded. “Yeah, she hits me if I don’t spell my words right,” he said.

  “With a flyswatter?” I asked, suddenly feeling a sense of déjà vu.

  Ryan looked at me and nodded. “And her hands.”

  My heart broke, and I grabbed Ryan and held him. “It’s never OK to be hit, Ryan, never!” I looked up at Aron and shook my head.

  “Tell me more, Ryan,” Aron demanded. I held up my hand and stopped him from saying another word.

  “Aron, he’s said enough,” I said softly as I held Ryan in my arms like a mother for the first time since I had known him.

  I didn’t need to hear any more about Vicki hurting Ryan, I had heard all I needed to hear. I felt an overwhelming feeling of guilt as I sat there and stroked Ryan’s hair. What kind of person am I? Why didn’t I see the signs when he visited? Was I so focused on myself that I let this poor child live with a woman like my mother? I laid Ryan’s head down on the pillow behind me and gestured for Aron to follow me into the kitchen.

  “You have to get him out of there, Aron,” I said once I was sure Ryan couldn’t hear us. “You can’t let him live there anymore.”

  “How do we do that, Sarah?” Aron asked me. “How do you take a child away from his mother?”

  I didn’t know and I didn’t care. What was right was right and there was no way as long as I was around that Ryan was going to endure any more abuse.

  “Why didn’t he say anything before this?” Aron asked angrily. “Why now?”

  I looked at Aron and simply said, “Because it’s just what people like us do.” I knew why Ryan kept his mouth shut and it was for the same reasons I had kept my mouth shut about my abuse. It’s embarrassing, and children will always feel like the abuse is their fault. The last thing abused children want to do is to draw attention to the fact that they are “bad kids,” and unfortunately, we all believe we are “bad kids.”