The Hint of Light: A Novel by Kristin Kisska

Author:Kristin Kisska [Kisska, Kristin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2023-08-28T16:00:00+00:00

By the time I got home after my dinner shift at the restaurant, Mom had already left for work. I stayed up late, camped out on our living room couch with pillows and a blanket with Lulu snuggled on my lap, purring. I flipped through channels on our TV, but all I stumbled across were sitcoms and news with headlines more depressing than my life. Even Shark Week didn’t make me feel better.

I tossed and turned all night long. By early dawn, I was already dressed for work. As Mom’s key turned the knob, I greeted her with a steaming mug of coffee—black, because she was a no-frills person in all the details of her life. And for some bizarre reason, she could still sleep after caffeinating.

“Whoa, thank you. But you should still be sleeping, honey. You don’t have to be at work for a few hours . . . wait, Ally-cat. What’s wrong?”

I didn’t know if it was the quiver in my chin or the anomaly of me being up before my alarm clock that clued her in, but within seconds, she led me to the couch. I sobbed onto her shoulder.

“You were right, Mom. I should’ve never tried to get to know . . . my biological father.” I couldn’t even bring myself to call him by his name, because I needed to emotionally distance myself.

Mom’s back stiffened, and her hand squeezed my shoulder a little too hard.

“What did he do? Did he hurt you?”

“Not me directly. I found him wasted.” Every admission gave Mom more ammunition to be worried about me, but I was done with his lies. “He promised to stay sober because of me. I trusted him.”

“Allison, look at me.”

Though I fought it, when I finally met her gaze, her eyes were as round as bull’s-eyes. Her face was so close; her pupils flitted back and forth between each of mine, searching. But if she was trying to divine information telepathically, it wasn’t working.

“You may share DNA with your birth father, but that’s all. He isn’t one-tenth the person you are. Don’t let him dim one more moment of happiness. You have the entire world at your fingertips. I regretted sharing his name with you, but if this experiment means that you can now forget where you came from, acknowledge the smart, strong woman you already are, and focus on all the exciting opportunities ahead of you, then maybe it was a blessing.”

What Mom didn’t appreciate was that I’d hoped Kyle would be part of my future. That I didn’t know him until a few months ago, but I’d always loved him. For a hot minute, as a kid who grew up in a single-parent, single-child family, my prayers had been answered. I’d known he was flawed. I’d hoped he’d try harder. For me.

“He broke his promise.” Even though my sobbing left wet stains on her scrubs, she rocked me and stroked my hair. In all these years, I didn’t think I’d shed buckets over a crush, a bad grade, or even high-school girl drama.

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