Mom opens another photo album, flips through the pages and slips it over to Haley. “This was taken on the day we brought West home.”
I’m eighteen today and I have never brought a girl home. Damn, Mom must have been dying to do this for a long time. Except for the fact that she spends her days and nights at the hospital instead of at a charity function, life has returned to normal...at least for everyone else. It’s like, to them, I never left.
Haley examines the photo and glances at me with laughter in her eyes. “Your onesie says angel. I’m so going to remember that.”
“That’s because he was.” Mom slides her fingers against the photo as if she could make the newborn me pop out and be real. “I had West to save Colleen.”
Mom told Haley about Colleen a few minutes ago. Colleen was Mom’s firstborn and she died of cancer when she was a teenager. Mom and Dad had Colleen, Gavin and Jack in a group and they considered their family done. When Colleen became sick, all bets were off.
“Colleen needed bone marrow, so I had West in hopes he’d be a match.”
“Was he?” Haley’s eyes flash to mine. She’s aware Colleen passed but doesn’t know the when, the how or the why. But in the end, do any of us know the why?
“No,” I answer for Mom. “I wasn’t a match.” A failure since birth.
“It didn’t matter.” Mom touches the picture again. “Colleen was too sick by then and died shortly after West was born.”
My legacy in this house was formed a few days after my first breath: I failed at my sole purpose of life and my birth will forever be associated with Colleen’s death. Mom went on to become pregnant with Ethan and Rachel shortly after because I wasn’t enough to make her happy. All Mom desired was a girl, a replacement for the child she lost.
“Well then.” Mom shuts the album and forces a fake smile. “What are your plans?”
“Quiet night,” I answer. “I thought I’d show Haley my room. Maybe watch some movies.” Have her break my heart into pieces because I’ve lied about who I am.
Mom narrows her eyes as she stands. “I want the door unlocked and I expect you to behave like a gentleman.”
I laugh. If she knew what I’ve been doing behind locked doors at other people’s houses, she would have given me this modified sex talk years ago. Mom pokes me in the stomach as she passes. “I mean it.” Then leans in and kisses me on my cheek. “Happy birthday, West.”
“Thanks.”
Mom softly pads out into the foyer and up the stairs. She won’t sleep in her bedroom tonight. Instead, she’ll go into the mausoleum that once was Colleen’s room.
The patter of different feet draws me back to the kitchen and cool fingers against my wrist connects me with Haley. “Why didn’t you tell me it’s your birthday?”
“I’m not a birthday fan. Sucks to be reminded once a year you weren’t wanted.”
Haley tilts her head. “She wanted you.”
“To save Colleen.” I was brought into this world to save somebody else. “I’ve done this for eighteen years now. I know what she sees when she looks at me.”
Haley nudges the floor with her foot. “Are you going to show me your room?”
I scratch my jaw, trying not to put too much hope into her statement. “You sure?”
She nods. Not giving her a chance to change her mind, I link our fingers together and, for the second time tonight, walk her up the stairs. At the landing, I pause and notice light shining from the cracks of Colleen’s door. Across the hall, Rachel’s door remains shut. Thank God Rachel didn’t die. Mom wouldn’t have survived an additional loss.
I lead Haley away from Mom and in the direction of my bedroom. Once inside, I flip the light on and, out of respect for my mother, keep the closed door unlocked.
With her thumbs hitched in her pocket, Haley surveys the room: king-size bed, flat-screen television, gaming systems, a stereo, and, with another flick of a switch, Haley finds the full bathroom.
“Wow.” Her voice echoes from within. “You’ve got a Jacuzzi tub.” Her head pokes around the door. “Do you actually use it?”
“No. When Ethan, Rachel and I were little we used to pour bubble bath into it, then turn it on so the bubbles would overflow onto the floor.” I smile at the memory of Rachel laughing.
She exits the bathroom. “Your mother must have hated you as children.”
“At least we were clean.”
The joke earns me a giggle, but the happiness fades as she straightens a picture of me, Ethan and Rachel on my mirror—Rachel’s in the middle and Ethan and I have our arms locked around her. “You lied to me about your age.”
She means I lied to her about me. “I was close to eighteen. I figured it didn’t matter.”
Haley raises her eyebrows, either in agreement or disagreement, I don’t know. Regardless, she keeps her comments to herself. While it often drives me crazy that she lives in her own head, there are times I appreciate her silence.
“Why were you kicked out?” Haley’s slow to face me, and when she does there’s a hardness to her. She’s playing judge and jury and she has a right to.
“My oldest brother, Gavin, has a gambling problem. He became indebted to some bad people, so I stole money from Rachel to help pay the debt. Turns out Rachel had her own problems and needed the money. To make up for it, she and her boyfriend drag raced to raise the funds I took. Long story short, Rachel’s now in the hospital and my father, rightfully, blames me.”