WHAT HURTS THE MOST
Chapter Five
Sarah looked into the mirror on
the back of her bedroom door. What she saw when she looked into it was Sarah
Hockley, turning fifteen tomorrow, April fifteenth. For as long as she could
remember, she was always the girl whose birthday was the day the Titanic sank.
Most of her teachers knew someone who had died on the Titanic. It was usually
an awkward day for her if that was the case.
When she looked in the mirror,
she saw her thin brown hair cascading to a few inches below her delicate, beige
shoulders. Her brown eyes were still bright with hope. Her delicate bone
structure made her face beautiful and well put together. She had her mother’s
lips, so said her father.
She wondered how much of her
really resembled her mother, Rose Dawson.
Sarah’s knee-skimming dress
showed off her thinning legs. She was on a crash diet, determined to get the
look that everyone else had. Everything was now getting tinier around her,
except her bust. She knew she would do anything to get the look, but she was
not going to kill herself trying to do it.
She sighed and sat on her bed,
crossing her legs. Everything was stressing her out right now. Her father never
being home was one cause of it, although that was nothing new. He hadn’t really
ever been home with her. There were one or two days out of the week where he
wasn’t selfish and he would stay home with her, usually the weekends. But even
when he was home it didn’t please her. He was still a selfish man.
Her mother was stressing her out,
too. How could she just do that to her child? She wished that her mother had
had the courtesy to take her with her, rather than leave her with her father.
The more she thought about her parents, the angrier she got. They were both
terrible parents.
She was supposed to go see
Detective Peterson in two days and get the information on her mother. Sarah
knew she would have to start planning when to go and see her.
The other thing stressing her
out? This crash diet. It was making her weak and unable to focus. Every hour
that went by, she felt like she was going to faint if she didn’t get something
in her.
She’d have something for her
birthday tomorrow. Just a piece of cake so her father wouldn’t suspect anything
was wrong with her.
Sarah lay down and closed her
eyes. All will be better tomorrow morning, she thought.
*****
Cal staggered into his home in
the early morning of his daughter’s birthday. He entered the parlor and sat
down temporarily on the couch to regain his balance.
In the moonlight, he could barely
see the time on the grandfather clock. It read 2:20.
Cal thought back to fifteen years
ago today, how the Titanic was fully sinking. He was on a boat with a little
girl who he had to pretend was his daughter. Rose was somewhere in the ocean
with Jack, dying of hypothermia. The only thing that he was unsure of was whether
they actually did die.
Wait, he thought. April fifteenth. Sarah’s
birthday. She’s fifteen now. She’s growing up too fast. She’s going to be
better than Rose. At least this one actually listens to me.
He wasn’t sure how long he could
live with lying to Sarah that she wasn’t his daughter. He couldn’t tell her. If
Cal knew anything about her, he knew that she would run away. The news headline
the next day would be Fifteen-Year-Old Runaway Found Dead In Brooklyn Bay.
That had best be one secret I
keep to my grave, he
thought, heading up the stairs.
*****
The evening rolled around. Sarah
went downstairs, where Cal had set out a cake with fifteen candles on it. Just
the sight of cake made her stomach growl. Chocolate frosting, probably a
chocolate filling...oh, she could barely wait.
Now came the wish time. Sarah
closed her eyes, made her wish, and blew out all fifteen candles in one breath.
Cal chuckled. "That a girl.
When you were little, you had the loudest screams ever. Slept all day and was
up all night."
Sarah sat down at the dining room
table while Cal cut her a piece.
"There you go,
sweetpea." Cal handed her a piece. "Happy birthday."
Does it have to be sweetpea? Sarah thought. Couldn’t it be
sweetheart or pumpkin?
She picked up a fork and began
eating. It felt so good to actually eat something. She felt like she owed it to
herself, even if that meant the crash diet would last a little longer.
Cal started eating a piece of
cake, then pulled a jewelry box out of his pocket. "Here, Sarah. This is
for you."
Sarah ran her hands over the
black velvet of the rectangle box. "Daddy, you didn’t have to get me
anything."
"I just wanted to show you
how much I love you. That’s all," Cal said.
Sarah opened it, revealing a gold
necklace with a gold heart pendant. "Daddy," she whispered.
"It’s your golden birthday,
sweetpea. I thought you deserved something nice."
"No. I mean...this is
incredible. Thank you." She took it out of the box and put it around her
neck. She touched the pendant.
Everything was too calm. Sarah
could sense that something was going to happen. Something bad. Very bad.