Gifts of the Living Phoenix

Chapter 12

So many lies, she thought to herself.

            Faith wasn’t sure what to do, but for some reason she could not go home.  She knew her mother would be waiting for her at home and that was more than she wanted to deal with right now.  She couldn’t keep her mind from racing back and forth from questions to erratic answers.  The one question she did not want an answer to….was Colton Geniason her father, if not then who was? Could this other man have been her father and that was why her mother never really warmed up to her?  Did her father know?  Did she want to know? 

            Her thoughts were interrupted by the slight vibration in the back of her mind.  Her aunt was trying to reach her is seemed. Great magical interference she thought.  When Faith was younger, she found out that she could almost telepathically talk to certain members in her family.  Generally it was only those who had more elfen blood in them, but it wasn’t very useful because who really wants their parents in their heads all the time?  It would have been a neater trick if she had been able to mindlink her friends instead. 

            I don’t want to go into this right now.  Without a word, she blocked her mind and walled it up so no one could talk to her.  She stepped into the road, not knowing where she was going exactly. 

“She’s not answering me,” said a worried Miala Geniason, “what am I going to do Karlina?”

“Give her some space, she’ll be ok,” her cousin Karlina said frankly, “you raised a smart girl there, she won’t do anything stupid.”

“I know she’s not stupid.  That’s not what I’m worried about,” Miala said with a frown.

“Then what?  What are you so worried about? What haven’t you told me Miala?” Karlina said with one eyebrow arched.

“I didn’t tell you why she was so upset,” Miala replied, “I just told you she was upset with me and you assumed it was about Colton’s death.”

Karlina looked at her for a brief second and then fidgeted with her fingers in her lap.  She waited for Miala to proceed with an explanation. 

“It’s not what you think.  It’s…” Miala stammered.  “It’s not what I thought either.  It’s something I never imagined could be…I mean, I always thought it could happen, but I never thought it would be true…I mean I knew that I was taking a risk, but then again, I mean what are the chances of something…, he said that he was ….so I never thought that she wouldn’t be…..”

“Miala, I have NO idea what you’re rambling about,” Karlina said frustrated. “Perhaps you should begin by finishing one complete sentence and I can follow that one through.”

Miala bit her lower lip and stared long at her cousin Karlina.

“I don’t want you to hate me,” Miala started, “you might think differently of me.”

“Oh for the love of god, why can’t you just come out and say it!” Karlina said exasperated.

It was Miala’s turn to look down and avoid Karlina’s eyes.  She took a deep breath and tried to make the words come out, but instead a slight sob came out instead. 

“Miala, whatever it is, you can tell me,” Karlina urged more gently, “and it won’t have me thinking differently about you.”

There was a long and awkward silence, something they had never shared before.

            “Faith is not Colton’s daughter,” Miala replied quietly.

            “Eh?  Come again?” Karlina asked, taken aback.

            “Faith… she’s not Colton’s daughter,” Miala repeated a second time.

            “Yeah, I heard you the first time,” Karlina stammered, “I just didn’t believe what I was hearing.”

            Miala looked directly at Karlina, trying to read her face.  But as far as she could see, Karlina’s blank face indicated that she was mulling over the idea.  A couple of minutes passed in silence as Miala got up to refill their coffee cups.

            Karlina looked over at Miala who looked composed and was pouring coffee out of the pot near the sink.

            “Do you feel like telling me any of this?  I’m assuming you haven’t shared this information with anyone,” Karlina said calmly, “it’s a long time to keep such a secret.”

            “I will tell you, but I want Faith and Hope to hear it too,” Miala countered, “I need them to both understand the how and why.  That’s why I’ve asked you here, so that I could explain this to all of you.”

            Karlina nodded.  “I’ll try and get her home.”

Faith looked at her magical watch.  It read 5:35pm.  She thought a lot of time had passed, but really it had only been a few hours since she had stormed out of the house.  Sitting in the playground she and the twins used to play in and avoiding her mother wasn’t the smartest thing in the world.  Faith felt like she was sitting in the middle of a melodrama.  When did her life become so complicated?   When did she fall through the rabbit hole into crazy?  She sighed to herself.  All these questions weren’t getting her any closer to the answers she was looking for either, not to mention she was getting cold sitting outside. 

Faith could hear someone playing some guitar music from across the way.  Last thing she wanted to do was listen to music, much less a love song.  She tried to tune out the music but instead opened up her mind link back up.  “CALL ME NOW!”  Her aunt seemed to scream.   Faith shook her head at the noise.  She knew she had to get some answers.  Even if she didn’t want to hear what her mother had to say, she had to find out the rest of the story.

Years before Faith

Miala looked up to see a young elf coming into the meeting room.  “Oh no, she thought.  “Not another hotshot for this tribal work group.”  She tried to put on a thin smile but couldn’t conceal her distaste for her father’s choice in yet another elf who looked the part and seemed like a go getter.  But they were all talk, none of them had a clue what needed to be done with her renovation projects or the sensibility of learning what it was they were trying to accomplish.  The meeting started out with the same pleasantries and insipid greetings around the room.  Everyone was looking around the room trying to get in good with her father.   Miala was never interested in jockeying for position.  She only cared about getting the work done. 

“I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to do a job,” she had once told a teammate.

That same teammate would later become a good friend and confidant. But most people didn’t understand Miala, nor did they comprehend her no nonsense air.  They just labeled her as being cold and calculating.  All about the tribe and nothing in between.  Generally, Miala did not care what people thought about her, but as she lost one project partner after another, she was building a reputation as being difficult and too demanding.  Most tribal members did not understand the need to run through the details of their work over and over.  But Miala made them do it over and over, until usually the other person couldn’t handle it and asked for another assignment.  

Miala smirked as she thought to herself.  This cocky elf would be cake.  After she knocked him down a peg, he would last maybe a week with her.  

-----

 “She’s on her way back, Miala,” Karlina announced.

Miala nodded and looked at the clock.  She didn’t know how much she could get through in one night.  How was she going to help Faith understand what happened over 16 years ago?  Sometimes she wondered at it all and believe that it didn’t happen either.  She had just started dating Colton, and it hadn’t been an unhappy relationship.  She just never knew what she was missing, until Colvine came into her life.  She didn’t know that things could be so different….

Miala’s straying thoughts were brought back to reality when she heard the front door open and close.

“Here she is!” Karlina greeted her niece too cheerfully.

“Hi Aunt Karlina,” Faith said without much emotion.

“Is it cold out there?  I’ve been looking out the window but it’s really hard to tell how cold it is,” Karlina mumbled.  

Her aunt was being a little too cheerful and trying to change the atmosphere in the room.  It had gotten as chilly as the air outside when Faith walked into the once warm room.

“Its ok Emo, really, I’m ok,” Faith replied.

“I know, I know, but I need to hover, so don’t take this moment away from me,” my Emo said trying to lighten up the atmosphere.  “And please don’t interrupt your mother when she explains everything. I haven’t heard all of this myself.  Let me go get Hope as well.”

Miala looked up to see Faith looking at her with a blank gaze on her face.  She moved forward to try and comfort Faith, but Faith took a step back as her mother moved towards her.  Miala nodded and motioned for everyone to sit down.  Hope looked puzzled by the gathering and looked at everyone’s expression.  She looked from her mother, to her sister, to her aunt and could not get a read on anyone. 

“I know I have a lot of explaining to do,” Miala started, “I don’t know where to start actually.”

“How about just the basic details, so we have something to work with,” Karlina offered.

“Yes, well,” Miala hesitated, “it doesn’t make any explanation easier to hear.”

“Before I begin Faith, I want you to know that I did love your father…and that this, what I did had nothing to do with him,” Miala said.

“And which father would you be referring to exactly?” Faith snapped coldly.

Hope gasped aloud and Miala looked as though she had been slapped and Faith immediately regretted the words.  She could see the tears welling up in her mother’s eyes. 

“I deserve that I suppose,” her mother continued in a shaky voice, “but I hope you’ll hear me out.”

“I met Colvine over 17 years ago.  We met on a renovation project for the outside when my father determined that we would work well together.  I’m not sure if he knew what he was doing, but my father back then liked to test the waters a bit.  I was just newly engaged to your father but still so green about relationships.  I was young, but not so naïve that I didn’t know myself.  I prided myself on being very professional and very tribe oriented.  I was newly engaged at the time and believed that I was very happy.

Colvine and I worked together for nearly a year.  And in the beginning I never thought for a minute that we would develop into a friendship, much less something more.  But it did.  We spent a lot of time together working on one tribal project after another.  My father had been right when he assumed that he and I would have a strong working relationship.  One night, and I don’t really remember when, we started talking about our relationships and respective futures.  After that things started changing between us.  We were soon talking like old friends and eventually would meet up outside of the project.  It was all harmless.  But one day we were friends, and then the next day we were in love. 

Colvine was engaged to be married too.  I was still engaged – and you weren’t born yet.  And I stress that neither of us realized what happened until it was too late.  But we loved each other…at least I thought he loved me too.  Now I’m not sure what he felt.  I knew he stirred in me feelings of love that I didn’t even realize were in me.  Feelings that I didn’t even realize I was missing.  He made me realize that love could be truly special when you find that person, your soulmate.”

Faith snorted when she heard her mother use the word “soulmate.” Her mother was the last person with ideals such as that.  But now, she wasn’t sure who she was looking at anymore.  She wasn’t sure if she knew her mother like she thought she did.  Faith looked over at Hope who looked whiter than she should.  She reached out and touched her arm and Hope smiled at her weakly. 

Miala looked at her daughter sadly, and continued:

“I know it’s hard for you to hear, but please don’t interrupt me.  I didn’t raise you to be disrespectful,” her mother retorted.

“It’s hard to remember all the details and I’m sure I’m not even doing Colvine justice right now.  I say that I don’t know what Colvine felt at the time, but I know, or at least I believed it wasn’t fleeting.  But in the end, his future wife insisted on a wedding date and his father pressured him for the union and he left me behind. He had obligations and responsibilities beyond just a fling, and I couldn’t ask more of him than he could give at the time. 

Miala’s voice now had a slight tremble to it as she continued with her story.

He had responsibilities that didn’t leave room for me in his life.  I sent him two letters. The first letter was a little pathetic, but I wrote about wanting a life with him and wanting to be with him forever.  I swore that I would let his brother down gently and break off the engagement.  I wrote this before he was officially married, but I never heard back.  The second letter, well, that was more of a goodbye letter.   Neither one was returned so I assumed that he couldn’t answer them, or at least answer me.  So I left him alone and continued my life.  Six months after he left, you were born. 

And even though a part of me was broken, there was this little life that needed me so much.  I had to straighten up and move on.  I tucked away the sadness and the longing.  After a while I told myself that I hadn’t mattered to Colvine as much and that he had moved on to a new life.  When you were born, I knew that it was possible he could be the father, but I pushed away those doubts as best as I could.” 

“When you were born, your father, Colton Geniason, was so in love with you,” Miala continued, “I couldn’t break his heart too.  I just couldn’t hurt him.”

At this point Karlina interjected, “So Colvine doesn’t even know he has another child out there?”

Miala looked away, ashamed to face her cousin and daughters. 

“No, I never told him because I never really knew myself,” Miala replied.

Karlina’s slight intake of breath showed Miala how shocked her cousin was but trying not to show it.

“So he never contacted you ever again?” Karlina pressed on.

“No, I never heard from him again and I didn’t try to reach out to him,” Miala calmly replied.  “Besides, at this point we were family.  And out of courtesy to his future family, I never tried to reach out to him.”

The disbelief and disgust on Karlina’s face told it all. 

“You mean, you were too chicken to tell this elf.  Not to mention it was easier, and more convenient to leave it that Colton was Faith’s father,” Karlina said simply.

“Colton IS, I mean WAS Faith’s father,” Miala said through gritted teeth.

“I know you’re in denial here sweetie, but let’s face facts.  Colvine is Faith’s biological father.  Regardless, he had the right to know.  EVEN if you weren’t willing to face the reality of what you two did.  He had a right to know, and he still does!”

Miala covered her face with her hands, words were failing her.  What more did she have to say?  She thought that they would understand, but hearing her story from her own words now sounded shallow and not at all believable.  Why was it hard for them to understand what she was feeling?  Because they hadn’t lived it, they hadn’t felt what she felt….

“Miala, I know you’d like to just leave well enough alone, but don’t you think Faith has the right to get to know who her father is?  To know what kind of elf he really is?”  Karlina continued.

“Well I know he may not have forgotten about me completely,” said Miala.

“Good grief, what else aren’t you telling us?” asked Karlina in disbelief.