Chapter 5 - The Lake
The words came out quietly. Kathleen had drowned during a family vacation. Roland had taken both girls out to a lake while Sandra stayed back at the rental cabin. He'd been drinking. Diane remembered Kathleen swimming farther and farther from shore. She remembered calling out for Roland.
"He told me she was just showing off."
By the time he realized Kathleen was actually in trouble, it was too late. Afterward, Roland blamed everyone but himself. Eventually, he blamed Diane.
"He said I distracted him."
"You were eight."
"Nine."
"You were nine years old, Diane."
"I know."
Roland couldn't stand looking at photos of Kathleen after that, so Sandra started removing them from the house. And the more Kathleen disappeared from every wall and album, the more Sandra reshaped Diane to fill the space.
"I don't think Mom consciously tried to turn me into her," Diane said. "At least, that's what she'd tell you." I looked at the photo. "But you think she did."
She nodded. "By eighteen, I looked more like Kathleen than myself."
That explained the cut photographs. It didn't explain our marriage.
I handed the picture back. "You could have told me."
"I know."
"For eight years, Diane?"
"I was ashamed."
"Of what — your hair?"
"Of all of it. My family. Roland. Kathleen. What Mom did to me. The fact that I let her keep doing it."
"You were a child."
"I kept doing it after I wasn't one anymore." Her voice broke. "I met you when I was twenty-four. I could have stopped bleaching my hair. Stopped wearing the contacts. Told you about the surgery."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because you loved the person I'd already become."
I shook my head. "You don't get to decide why I loved you."
"I know that now."
"No, Diane. I don't think you do." My anger finally surfaced. "You watched me stare at Willow for two weeks, wondering why my own daughter looked nothing like me. And you knew exactly where those features came from. And you said nothing."
"I was scared."
"I thought you'd cheated on me."
Her head snapped up. "What?"
"What did you think I was wondering?"
"I didn't know."
"You knew something was wrong."
"I thought you were disappointed in how she looked."
That stopped me cold. "What?"
Diane started crying. "Every time someone mentioned her hair, or her nose, I heard Roland's voice." She looked at me. "She looks like me, Nathan. The real me."
I looked through the kitchen window. Willow was asleep against Sandra's chest. For the first time since her birth, I could actually see Diane in her — not the woman standing beside me. The little girl in the photograph.
"You thought I wouldn't love our daughter because she looked like you?"
Diane didn't answer. That silence broke something in me. Not because she'd changed her appearance. Not because she'd hidden an older sister from me.
Because after eight years together, my wife genuinely believed my love for her depended on the width of her nose and the color of her hair.
But I was furious too. "You let me question whether Willow was even mine, because telling me the truth felt worse than that?"
Diane covered her face. "I'm sorry."
"That isn't a small lie."
"I know."
"You hid your entire childhood from me."
"I know."
"You let me marry you without ever knowing something that shaped your whole life."
May you like
"I know."
I walked away. For the first time since we'd met, I genuinely didn't know if I wanted to go home with her that night.
