Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen Melody Melody lay down for a while, her head was pounding, and she couldn’t bear to watch her parents suffer anymore because of the news she had given them about Equilay, and she understood that perfectly.

She was one of those who had not believed the truth, even when she went to her sister’s house, she kept trying to believe that it could not be true. But the undeniable fact was that people betrayed, mistreated, stole, and made sure that others did not believe them capable of atrocities. Sure, he had his reasons, which, in his inner self, he felt were weighty enough to steal three million, but from there to throw the blame for his actions on someone else, that was unforgivable, even more than stealing.

It said much more about him to blame someone else for his decisions than it did to have made them.

Equilay could never justify blaming Melody, and that hurt her. Because she considered him almost her brother.

“Mel, honey,” was her mother. “Your phone keeps ringing, I think it’s Timothy,” she told her not much about Timothy, telling them that she met him at Doyle’s coffee shop, which was true.

But she did not tell them that she was going to marry him, as condition of Equilay’s theft.

Rather, in an impulsive act, she felt attracted to him and accepted his proposal.

She could not believe that her parents would have accepted such an absurd truth.

Falling in love with Timothy? When hell freezes over, and it rains popcorn.

“Don’t take it,” she immediately got out of bed and this made her a little dizzier than she already was, and she had to sit up.

“You need to sleep, your eyes are puffy,” her mother reached over and gently ran her hand over her face. “There’s something you’re not telling me about your engagement. Are you sure everything’s all right with Timothy?”

“Everything’s fine. We just had a little difference and I left.” Little? She wasn’t planning to go back to him. That wasn’t really small you could say.

“You can talk to me about anything,” her mother told her before turning to leave the room.

“Thank you. I just want to be alone for now,” she smiled at her to reassure her, though inside she was dying.

She didn’t doubt that Timothy would get her parents’ address easily, nor did she doubt that he’d be home any minute. He had gotten her parentage with Equilay, that only meant he had detectives who investigated and executed the job for what he paid them for.

A man with influence and money.

Find her? It was going to be too easy.

But there she would wait for him.

She wasn’t going to run.

Calmer now, she realized she was running away, like a criminal, giving him reason to think of her even worse.

What she needed to accomplish was to get Equilay to confess.

“Mom!” she shouted at her, calling out at the top of her lungs.

“What happened? Are you all right?” Lydia arrived immediately.

“Call Allegra and tell her to come to dinner tonight, tell her you have a surprise and to bring Equilay,”

she got completely out of bed and put her hands on her mother’s shoulders, who was watching her as if she had lost her mind. “Call her and ask her to come today. Tell her it’s urgent and she needs to be here today.”

“But what are you up to, Melody?” her mother was missing the point, and she was partly responsible.

Not in parts.

Completely. She had simply told them that she discovered the embezzlement, that Timothy was super angry, and that Equilay denied doing it, but that he confessed it to her in a phone call she made to him.

Just enough so they wouldn’t be any sadder.

At least his mother was, because Charles Redford was, he’ d get poked with a needle or razor and not a drop of blood would come out. Her father hadn’t taken the Equilay thing well at all, much less his involvement with his eldest daughter’s actions. He cursed like Melody has never heard him curse in her life.

So, telling them about the second part of the consequences of being related to Equilay would not be fair.

Not to think of how she would be judged immediately, the fact that she agreed to marry a stranger, to kiss him the same day she met him, to ride in a car with that same stranger, not knowing whether he was an organ seller or worse. No. In short, she couldn’t tell them everything.

“I just want things cleared up mom,” even though what she really wanted was to make Equilay pay for the suffering she had gone through those days.

She sadly had come to think, after kissing Timothy, that, like a fairy tale princess, she might get to have a happy ending. She didn’t feel that crush of novels, but she was sure that something was going on between her and Timothy, but Equilay took away her chance to find out what it was, because now, that Italian hated her to death.

To such an extent that he was willing to sacrifice his bachelorhood to marry someone like her, someone he loathed.

And of course, there was the part of the fortune, she who would have gladly helped him, not only because of the economic situation and stability that Timothy could bring her, but because he appreciated her as a good person, one that she was almost sure had been hurt and now he could not allow himself to trust anyone.

And he believed that she failed him.

That she was just another of the bunch.

“As long as you don’t aggravate the situation further,” she said shaking out the folds of her dress. “Your fathers pissed off enough as it is. Don’t make it any worse than it already is.”

She didn’t like the undertone of those words, for she wasn’t the one who made things so bad.

“It’s not my fault my brother-in-law is a thief,” she was offended, and her mother didn’t realize it.

“I’m sure he had his reasons, perhaps compelling reasons,” she looks at her disapprovingly. “We shouldn’t judge at first, the best thing to do is to talk to him and see why he did it. We have known Equilay for years, he has always treated us all well, especially your sister.”

“I’m not saying no, mom, but he’s not a good man, if you heard how he treated me on the phone.”

“Sometimes you make people angry, you play the victim in everything. You make dramas in your head so easily, Melody,” she didn’t believe what her mother was saying. How was it possible that she judged her like that? She didn’t trust her own daughter.

“You don’t believe me,” she said walking to the closet, she needed to change. It was past four in the afternoon, and she hadn’t showered since early. She hadn’t eaten either, but she had no desire to eat.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you Melody, it’s that I know how you are. I know you.”

“No,” she turned to her mother with her gray eyes almost burning, she felt like she wanted to cry from so much anger, but she didn’t, she was starting to get tired of her fucking tears. She was sick of being the weak one in everything “You don’t know me. If you knew your daughter, you’d believe her.”

“Don’t talk to me like that, Melody! You got pregnant by the first boyfriend you ever had. One that your father and I didn’t even like that you didn’t even have time to get to know. A deadbeat with no future,”

her mother looked at her with pity as she shook her head negatively. “You must learn to accept your mistakes, to face them. You’re not a child anymore. The sooner you grasp that, the better you’ll do in life.”

“What’s this about mom?” Melody pulled some dresses out of the closet, dresses she hadn’t worn in a while, she’d forgotten all the clothes she’d left behind when she’d picked up and left so quickly for Lucy’s apartment. “I thought we had everything settled.”

“You’re still pregnant,” simplifying things, Lydia blurted out what she had been thinking for some time and that Melody understood immediately. It wasn’t her father who was behind the whole miscarriage idea, it was her. Her own mother.

“Wow. The truth is out. That’s your problem,” she smiled sadly at her. “I can’t believe you still want me to have an abortion. I can’t believe it. But you know what?” She was going to go through with her pregnancy, she didn’t care what her parents thought. “What you think about my life doesn’t bother me anymore. Because I’ve already seen that you’re capable of turning your back on your own daughter at a time like this, at the most important moment of her life.”

“At your age, the most important moment is when you graduate! Which you won’t do because you’re pregnant. Because you had sex and didn’t protect yourself. Because you preferred to go through with the pregnancy and now it’s too late.”

“Yes, mother. It is late. Late to forgive you,” her mother opened her mouth in surprise at her words. “I was worried about how you were a few hours ago, when I said things to daddy, it hurt me to see you cry, to see a saint fall from your altar, to see you suffer it hurt me. But this will be the last time it hurts me.”

“Don’t be dramatic Melody,” her mother walked to the door and stopped in the frame. “See what I mean? How am I supposed to believe that Equilay did what you say, when you just make an earthquake out of any simple thing? You just want to judge people and tell them everything offends you. The truth is I don’t believe you; I don’t believe anything. All this,” she said opening her arms, “is just one more drama so you can go back to the house, because you realized that alone you won’t be able to survive with the pregnancy. You only came here, with your eyes full of tears, with your weight loss, to beg us to welcome you. But the announcement of your engagement saved everything, didn’t it?”

“Mom...” this time she was sure her heart was breaking into a thousand pieces listening to her mother saying those things to her, she didn’t know her mother was capable of such meanness, of not believing her or betting on her. “How can you be so cruel to me?”

“To bring you down from the cloud you live in and realize that not everyone buys into your stories. If you want to go through with your pregnancy, fine. I’ll do it for your father. I’ll be here, I’ll make you food, I’ll take care of you if you need it. But I don’t believe you about Equilay and I don’t believe you about your supposed engagement.”

“Mom...” she bit her lips as she felt her hands shake and her cheeks fill with tears, “mom don’t say that, please.”

“I’m going to call your sister. I hope you come and get all muddy in front of your father, so he can finally see, what I’ve been seeing for months.”

She left the room and closed the door calmly, as if she hadn’t created a storm and smashed her own daughter’s heart.