I Died to End Their Lie novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: What I Left Behind

Jesse writes down the truth, then faces his father's study and an ultimatum: get in the car.

I got on my knees and scrubbed the rug until the stain was gone.

The towel Cade had given me turned pink, then red, and my finger wouldn't stop bleeding.

When the wool looked clean, I walked back to the windowless room off the kitchen where the housekeeper used to sleep.

It had been my room since I was seven.

I lay down on the hard wooden bed, and the pain came back into my bones.

I took the paper from the hematology clinic out of my hoodie and read it again.

Acute myeloid leukemia. Advanced. Transplant recommended as soon as possible, preferably from an immediate family member.

The doctor had asked if he could call my parents.

I had told him I didn't have any.

That was the whole reason I had mailed the swab to the donor registry, hoping a stranger somewhere shared my blood.

I had never thought that my parents were the ones sleeping thirty feet away.

I laughed again, quietly, into the pillow.

Then I stopped laughing and sat up.

If I told them tonight, they would call me a liar and a drama queen, and Cade would bring me a towel.

If I died without saying anything, they would go on telling the story the way they had always told it.

I wanted that story to end with something they couldn't argue with.

So I took the old accounting notebook off the shelf and tore a page out of the back.

I wrote down what I had heard in the hallway, word for word.

I wrote the date, and the time on my phone, and who had said what.

I wrote that I was Jesse Rittenhouse, nineteen, their biological son, and that I had been told otherwise for thirteen years.

I signed it and folded it small.

Then I lifted the corner of the mattress and slid the page inside, flat against the notebook.

The notebook was the other proof.

For seven years, I had written down every dollar I earned doing dishes, tutoring and waiting tables.

The last page said I had saved ten thousand dollars.

Under it was the receipt from Evergreen Memorial, where I had paid the deposit on a burial plot with my own money.

The woman at the counter had taken my photograph for the contract, because the file needed a face.

I had smiled for her, because she was the first person all week who asked if I was all right.

I put the receipt back inside the notebook and lay down.

I didn't sleep.

At seven fifty-five I put on a clean shirt and knocked on my father's study door.

"Come in."

Russell Rittenhouse sat behind the oak desk, with the morning sun behind him and his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead.

My envelope lay in front of him.

The flap had been torn open, and the registry's letter lay beside it, unfolded.

"Sit."

I sat.

I put my hand in my pocket and checked that the red light on my phone was still on.

"Do you know what this is?" he asked.

"A letter from the donor registry."

"Do you know what this is?" He tapped it again. "This is my son going behind my back to look for better parents."

I could have told him then that he was the better parent, and the only one.

"I wasn't looking for better parents," I said. "I only wanted to know where I came from."

"Where you came from." He took off his glasses and set them on the blotter. "I clothed you. I fed you. I paid for your teeth, Jesse. And you mailed your spit to strangers."

"I know. I'm sorry."

"You are always sorry." He leaned back. "Your mother cried over this last night."

My mother had not cried over anything last night except a rug.

"I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

"What did you want from them? Money? A house? A father with a bigger name?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to know."

"Fine." He stood up so quickly his chair slid back. "If you're that curious, I'll show you exactly where you came from."

I looked up at him.

"I'm not going to stand here and watch you throw our family away for a stranger's blood." He grabbed his keys from the desk.

"Leave your phone."

My hand closed around it inside my pocket.

"Dad, I need it. I have a shift tonight."

"You'll quit that shift today." He looked at my hand, then at my face. "Keep it. Call your new family when you meet them."

He pushed the registry letter into his jacket.

"Get in the car."

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