Inconvenient Daughter by Lauren J. Sharkey

Author:Lauren J. Sharkey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2020-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

* * *

Google Maps tells me I've arrived as I drive past a cluster of brick buildings with no identifying qualities. I ask several people where I can find the SANE Center and am met with shrugs, confusion, fingers pointing nowhere.

"300 Community Drive?" I say to a man with a badge and a name tag.

"This is 300 Community Drive," he says, never looking away from the TV in his security booth.

"Is this the SANE Center?"

"I don't know about no SANE Center, but this is 300 Community. Parking is to the right, on the left."

"So, I go in here and make a right—"

"Make a right and then parking is on your left."

"Could you tell me—"

"Miss," he says, finally looking at me, "you're going to have to move along, there's cars behind you, please."

I decide not to thank him and roll up my window. There's no parking lot to the left of the right I've made, and every sign I encounter begins with NO. As I drive farther and farther away from what is allegedly 300 Community Drive, I scream obscenities.

A green Honda's taillights light up red, and I thank god for this small mercy. When I pull in, I raise my middle finger to the sign beginning with NO directly in front of my Toyota.

I walk back to the security booth, determined to force the security guard to confess the location of the SANE Center.

* * *

By the end of my junior year of high school, I felt I had discovered the truth: Mom hated me. She hated me for not being her real daughter—for not looking and being exactly like her. That's why there were so many rules—they existed to make it easier for Mom to control my entire life and, by extension, control who I became. But no matter how hard she tried, no matter how many rules there were, I was never going to be who she wanted me to be. And so, I was determined to get out.

I applied to three schools: the College of Mount Saint Vincent in Bronxville, New York, University of Hartford in Connecticut, and Cabrini College in Radnor, Pennsylvania. All three were far enough away that I'd have to live in a dorm, close enough that an envelope of cash wasn't more than three days away, and all had either a creative writing major or minor.

Mom wanted me to apply to Hofstra, a twenty-minute bus ride from the house on Elderberry, or Adelphi.

"If you go to Adelphi, I can drop you off in the mornings," she observed over dinner one night.

"I don't want to go to Adelphi."

"What's wrong with Adelphi? It's one of the best schools on Long Island!"

"It's on Long Island—that's why. I hate it here!"

"Hey, hey," Dad interrupted, pointing his fork at me. "I'll have you know Long Island has some of the most desired real estate in the country."

"Yeah, right," I laughed. "Who would want to live here?"

* * *

Mom left five checks on the pile of college applications on my desk.

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