Unwanted: A Short Story.

28March2024

Ive finally put pen to paper about the nightmare that has been Emilys last year. I learned that her biological father was still alive only when she fell seriously ill. She had been feeling poorly for months, even visited the school nurse, who sent her for a neurology appointment. Emily begged me to book it; I forgot, and I have since chastised myself, wondering how things might have unfolded had we discovered the illness sooner.

Is he alive? Emily asked again, eyes searching mine.

I stared at my own shoes; a conspicuous hole gaped in the toe of my left boot.

Alive, I whispered, Im sorry.

She never pressed me about her real father. She didnt remember him, though she knew he existed. From the age of two, her stepdad Mike raised her, eventually adopting her. When she turned thirteen their relationship shattered she felt he demanded too much, scolded her constantly, and left her with no freedom. Thats when she began to demand information about her birth father: name, address, any detail. I stood mute, letting Mike and I whisper behind closed doors, debating whether to tell her the truth.

He died, I finally said. He crashed in the mountains.

Strangely, Emily believed me without asking for proof or seeking relatives. She never found anyone who could confirm it.

Ive called a specialist, I told her. If the donor matches, theyll do a bonemarrow transplant and youll be fine.

At that moment Emily realized there would never be a happy ending. Her mother had deceived her, her father had vanished, and Mike had withdrawn, claiming you cant force love. Who, she wondered, needed her any more? Illness seemed natures way of discarding the unwanted.

I dont want this! she shouted. No surgery. I hate you all, I dont want to live!

She tore away from my attempted embrace and fled to her room. The sky merged with a lowlying fog, erasing the horizon. Emily liked the view from her windows onto the empty fields, though I had sighed at the move, thinking the other windows that faced the back garden were duller. She could watch the sunset while the yard below was only children and old women. That day, however, there was no sunset; a grey gloom swallowed everything, refusing even the brief twilight between day and night. The world dimmed and blurred, just like Emilys life.

When footsteps approached, I hoped it was me seeking forgiveness, but it was Mike, standing at the doorway as if afraid she might chase him out.

Dont be angry at Mum, he said. She did what she thought was best.

Best, huh! Would you have liked it if theyd buried you like that? Emily snapped.

She wrote to you, Mike continued. Said you wanted to meet. You never answered. Mum thought it would be easier this way.

Emily bit her lip. Shed never answered, and now, learning that he was dying, she finally heard a reply. Mike shuffled out, waiting for no answer from Emily, and disappeared into the kitchen.

I didnt see her again for an hour. In truth Id already decided everything but gave everyone time to cool down.

Her mothers bedroom still carried the vanilla scent of her perfume, a perfume that always overpowered other smells, yet Emily still detected the powdery makeup, the strawberry hand cream, the musty library books. Mum loved borrowing books, treating it as a sort of luxury. The lamp was off; her silhouette merged with the armchair, a long robe covering her pale legs. She despised fake tans and spent the winter longing for summer sun.

Fine, Emily said. Let him do the test.

She learned the fathers approach at the hospital. Her condition worsened, even though the doctor insisted there was still time. There was no time left, and she herself seemed to fade.

Emily lay with her back to the wall, picking at a flaking patch of paint with a fingernail. She stared at the cracks, feeling unreal. Everything around her felt like a dream. She drove a nail into the paint until blood welled, as if that might convince her she was still alive. The creaking hospital bed, the distant nurses voices, the antiseptic smellall seemed illusionary, a lingering sleep.

Before she could open her eyes, a familiar smell hit hera mixture of tobacco and motor oil. She inhaled sharply, then opened her eyes.

A man in a white coat, shoulders draped with a lab jacket, stood by the bed. His face was weathered, tanned, furrowed, eyebrows thick, eyes brown and wide, just like Emilys.

Hello, daughter, he said, voice low and oddly familiar.

Hello, Emily croaked, coughing, repeating the word.

The man was nothing like the phantom shed imagined. He had a wife and three sons, worked as a trammechanic, a job Emily had never heard of. She told him she wanted to become a canine handler, but Mum opposed, so shed study veterinary science first, then return to training dogs.

Dogs are better than people, he remarked.

The transplant succeeded. Emily waited for a call or a visit from her father, but none came. Instead, Mum and Mike turned up alternately every other day: Mum leaving behind vanilla perfume and fresh books she never opened; Mike sitting nearby, chatting about trivialities even as Emily faced the wall.

On discharge day, Emily still hoped her father would appear. While waiting for the doctor she stood, looked at the halfopen window streaked with the faint prints of childsized hands, stepped out, inhaled the cool damp air, felt the floor sway beneath her as if she were on a boat in a swift river. The ward was empty; she flung the window wide. A gust hit her face, carrying the scent of wet earth, fresh rain, dusty pavement, the roar of passing cars that scattered flocks of sparrows. The pale blue of the spring sky was almost blinding.

She thought of her fathers rough hands stained with grease, his thinning hair brushed to one side to hide a bald patch, his daily routine fixing trams. Now, whenever she saw those iron machines with their odd, antlike horns, shed think of him. Of the lines on his face, the furrowed brows, the words he would never say.

Below, Mike and Mum clung to each other as if a storm threatened to lift them, their feet unsteady, just as Emilys had been after months of illness. They were about to leave when the door burst open, sunlight and the smell of river water flooding in. Her father stood in a work jacket, holding a small bouquet of tulips. Emily wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, smiled, and stepped forward.

Looking back, I realise that the lies we tell to protect can become the very chains that bind us. The truth may arrive late, bruised and tangled, but it is the only thing that can set a soul free. I have learned that honesty, however painful, is the only foundation on which any relationship can truly stand.