Chapter Six
1242 Words
Brielle’s POV
Fiona who?
His answer hit me like an echo I’d been waiting on my whole life.
Fiona.
Not “your mother,” not “she,” not “the woman who left you.” A name. Finally, a name. It felt strange in my mouth despite my silence. Like a term I was not supposed to understand, yet it had always been a part of me.
“Fiona, who is that?” I said again, my tone more stable than I sensed.
Gregory stalled. I observed his jaw clench. He massaged the back of his neck as if he were stalling, as if the name held a significance he wasn't prepared to bear once more.
"She altered her surname," he stated.
“After everything… she took his name. The man she was engaged to.”
“So, she married him.”
He didn’t answer. That silence was loud enough.
I looked away. My hands were clenched in my lap, nails digging into skin. I couldn’t tell if I was trying to feel something or stop myself from feeling everything.
“I used to dream about her,” I said. “When I was little. Not her face—because I didn’t know it—but just… someone. A woman with a soft voice who smelled like jasmine. She’d hum this tune, something I could never quite remember when I woke up. I think I made it up. But it felt real. Like she was real.”
Gregory’s eyes softened. He looked like he wanted to say something, but I didn’t give him the chance.
“Why didn’t she ever try to contact me? Not a letter? A phone call? Anything?”
He opened his mouth, then shut it again. That hesitation—it was everything I needed to know.
“She didn’t want me,” I whispered.
“No,” he said sharply. “No, it’s not that.”
“Then what?” I snapped. “She just forgot I existed?”
“She was scared,” he said. “Controlled. Your grandfather wasn’t a man people crossed. He had money, power, lawyers. She couldn’t fight him and win. She couldn’t even leave without being followed.”
I shook my head. “That sounds like a weak excuse.”
“I know it does,” he said. “But you don’t know what it’s like to live under someone who makes you feel smaller every time you breathe wrong.”
I stood up. I couldn't remain still any longer. The space seemed too cramped, the walls too near. My skin tingled with the desire to escape this place, to inhale fresh air elsewhere.
However, I stayed. I simply went to the window and gazed outside. The sky was cloudy, resembling the hue of damp concrete. Everything beyond seemed dimmed, as if time had come to a pause.
“She let you take me,” I said. “And then she just… erased me.”
He didn’t argue. Maybe he couldn’t. Or maybe he knew the truth was a wound better left unpicked. But I couldn’t leave it alone. Not anymore.
“Did she ever ask about me?” I asked quietly.
Gregory didn’t answer right away. Then, finally, he nodded. “Once. A year after you started living with me. She called from a blocked number. Said she only had a minute. She asked if you were okay. If you were happy.”
My breath caught. That one word—happy—felt like a joke.
“I told her you were safe,” he continued. “That I was trying. She cried. I could hear it, even though she tried to hide it. And then she hung up. That was the last time.”
I pressed my palm against the cold glass. “She never tried again?”
“She did,” he said softly. “I stopped answering.”
I turned slowly. “You what?”
“I was scared, Brielle. Scared she’d come back into your life just enough to confuse you, then disappear again. I didn’t think it would help you. I thought… I thought protecting you meant controlling the story.”
“You thought you knew what I needed.”
He looked down, ashamed.
“You thought you were the only one who got to decide what hurt me and what didn’t.”
He nodded slowly. “Yes.”
My chest felt tight. Betrayal came in all shapes—some sharp, some dull and lingering. This one was both.
“I needed to know her,” I said. “Even if she wasn’t perfect. Even if she broke my heart. That was mine to feel.”
“I know,” he whispered. “I see that now.”
Silence again. But this one wasn’t angry. It was sad. Tired. As if the truth had squeezed us dry and only the fragile fragments remained.
“Please share more about her,” I said after some time, continuing to gaze out the window.
He strolled over and perched on the arm of the worn couch. His voice lowered, as if he were delving into a memory he hadn’t revisited in years.
“She had this laugh,” he said. “Real loud, like bells clashing. It made people turn their heads. She hated that, but I loved it. She was stubborn—worse than me. And she had this way of walking into a room like she was in a rush to matter.”
I smiled faintly. I didn’t mean to. It just slipped out.
“She used to talk to her books,” he added with a chuckle. “Argue with the characters. I’d catch her at it and she’d say, ‘If they don’t listen, someone has to yell some sense into them.’”
He glanced at me. “You do that too, you know.”
“I yell at books?”
“No. But you walk into rooms like they owe you something.”
We shared a look. It didn’t fix anything. But for a moment, it stitched a little piece of something broken between us.
“I want to find her,” I said finally. “Not for a reunion. Not for some fairytale ending. But because I need to see her with my own eyes. I need to understand.”
Gregory nodded. “I figured you would.”
“Will you help me?”
He paused for a moment, then replied—“Yes.”
I released a quivering breath. I wasn't sure if I was prepared, but I could no longer hold back. That aspect of me—the girl who envisioned jasmine and lullabies—was weary of pondering.
“Do you believe she will want to meet me?” I inquired.
His gaze locked with mine, brimming with a truth he couldn't lessen. “I have no idea.”
In some way, that was the truest response he had ever provided me.
I returned to the couch and took a seat next to him. We didn't converse for a period.
The air between us was quieter now. Not fixed. But not broken in the same way.
We sat there—father and daughter, strangers and kin—each holding pieces of a woman we’d both loved and lost in different ways.
Tomorrow, I would start looking.
Tonight, I just needed to sit still long enough to feel something real.
- Writer
