Halves

“What? Mike, I’ve met your all of your sisters, she’s not-”

“She’s my half-sister, Faith.”

I sat down heavily on Mike’s couch and let out a deep breath before looking at him with all the confusion in the world painted on my face. He sighed and put his hands together. I could tell he was choosing his words very carefully.

“Faith, after my dad died, we found a box in the attic when we were cleaning out his house. It had a ton of old pictures of my dad and Hailey and her mom. We didn’t know what to make of any of it until we found a journal of my mom’s. My dad had had an affair during their marriage right before my mom got pregnant with me. Hailey is only a few months older than I am. Anyway, I guess my mom and dad decided to stay together and make things work because, according to Hailey, he only ever came around for her birthday. And we’re pretty sure he only did that because my mom insisted that he be involved in her life at least a little bit.”

Mike’s eyes were watery when he finished. I tried to process what he was saying but it was hard. I knew Mike’s mom was a kind woman but to encourage her husband to be involved in his love child’s life? And then there was Frank…he was so in love with Betty, it was hard to believe that this story was even true. I couldn’t imagine how Mike must have felt about it all, especially since he couldn’t talk to either one of his parents about it or get closure.

“So, why were you being so secretive about this?” I asked him.

He sighed again and looked down at the floor.

“Maggie and I are the only ones who know about this. I wanted to reach out and find Hailey to see if I could get any more information and Maggie absolutely refused to help and tried to forbid me to continue looking for her. I just didn’t want Maggie to find out.”

“How could Maggie find out, she lives in Massachusetts...?”

Mike gave me a confused look.

“Maggie lives here, Faith. She moved into my dad’s house after he died, I thought Sarah told you…”

I felt like ice water had been dumped on me. Just the thought of Maggie being around more often than holidays was a terrifying thought. Her apology letter had been nice and everything but I wasn’t sure she was going to be that accepting of me since Mike and I had broken up. Especially if she knew WHY we’d broken up.

“She…she didn’t.”

Mike brushed off how caught off guard I appeared and continued.

“I found Hailey on Facebook after talking to some of my dad’s friends who haven’t retired yet. They gave me her mom’s name and I did the sleuthing from there. I just wanted to get to know her and see if she had any more information about this than we did. Maggie didn’t want to tell Claire or Sarah because she said it would do nothing for them. I thought if Hailey knew anything that could provide closure, maybe things could be…resolved?”

I nodded. I understood where Mike was coming from but it was a lot of information to take in at once. I suddenly felt bad that Mike was dealing with something this huge, seemingly on his own and I got up, sat on his lap, and gave him a hug.

“Thank you for telling me this.”

I kissed him.

“I’m sorry that you’ve been dealing with this on your own. But you don’t have to anymore, okay?”

Mike looked at me and nodded before giving me another hug.

So, Mike and I are okay. He arranged for me to meet Hailey a few days ago and she’s a sweet person. I’m glad that he has such a kind person for a sister. She is the complete opposite of Maggie and I found myself hoping that the two of them never meet, for Hailey’s sake. It sounds like Maggie has made up her mind to hate Hailey simply for existing and I definitely know how it feels to be on Maggie’s bad side. God speed to Hailey if she ever does meet Maggie.