“June, who do you see?”
“A man and a woman,” I said automatically.
“Don’t you recognize them?”
“I’ve never seen them before in my life, to my knowledge.”
The woman’s face crumpled, and she hid it with her hands. The man looked abashed, putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close.
“I really don’t know them,” I reiterated. “And I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Oh, I think you do, June,” Kelly said. “You’re just not ready to admit it to yourself. You’re blind to your own truth, and it breaks my heart.”
“I am very curious to discover what you think my truth is,” I told her hotly.
“June, your very own parents are right here in this studio with us tonight,” Kelly said breathlessly. “And if you’re willing to, right here and right now, reconcile with them, forgive them for what was done, and what wasn’t done, we would love to make that happen for you. So you can move forward with your life.”
I shook my head, unable to take my eyes off the man and woman on the screen. “Can they see me right now?”
“Yes, they can.”
“And hear me?”
“Naturally.”
“Then you are a cruel person,” I said, whipping back around to face her, trying to keep the tears threatening to fall from my eyes to a furious shimmer. “You have no right to meddle in my life like this, in their lives. None of us gave you permission. This interview is over.”
“That’s just the thing, June,” Kelly said. “This was never meant to be an interview. This was meant to be an intervention. Your parents want back in your life. They want a second chance to be good parents to you. You just won’t let them in, and that’s perhaps the cruelest part of this.”
“I’m a grown woman,” I said, incredulous. “Why in the world has it taken until now, this very moment, for them to want in on the action? Because I’m in love with Devon Ray? Is that interesting and attractive to them?”
“June, I need to remind you that they can hear you,” Kelly said solemnly.
“This is all a farce,” I said. “All of it. We’re through here.”
“You’re going to have to sort this out, June, sooner or later,” she said. “We want to be here for you. We want to help you through it.”
“Turn the cameras off,” I said. “We’re through here.”
“The cameras don’t go off until I tell them to go off,” Kelly said. “You need to open your heart to your parents, Mike and Amelia. They’re here because they love you. They’re here because they want a life with their only daughter.”
Chaz was physically restraining Devon from rushing onto the set, and I began to realize just how close to tears I was. I couldn’t cry on national television. Not like this. This was too painful, too raw. This was a waking nightmare. This was too horrible to be actually happening.
A single tear rolled down my cheek, to my utter and complete chagrin, and Kelly all but glommed on to it.
“That tear is a sign that you care,” she said. “Let me bring your parents out here, June. Let them embrace the daughter they gave up so many years ago. Open your heart to the possibility of reconciliation.”
This wasn’t a television interview. This was live torture. I couldn’t be here for another second. Not with the tears pouring down my face. Not with those strangers behind me watching the entire debacle.
“I’m fucking done,” I announced, nearly tearing my shirt in my eagerness to rip the microphone out. “You are a sad hack, and a fraud. I was brought here under false pretenses, and your ethics should be examined by some kind of regulatory board. This was not the interview I agreed to do. Good luck filling the rest of the hour.”
I threw the microphone down on the floor hard enough to break it and stormed out, past a struggling Chaz and Devon, past the camera crew, and finally, past the man and woman professing to be my parents.
“Soak it in,” I spat as I practically ran out. “Soak in your fifteen minutes, you garbage humans.”
Because that was the only possible reason they had resurfaced. They were like leeches. They only understood what they wanted, the things that benefited only them, the easy fame and money that would surely come their way if they were to associate with Devon Ray, the movie star dating their long-lost daughter.
“June,” the woman said, but I was already striding out the door, refusing to turn around to see what it was she might’ve wanted to say to me. I was well past the point of wanting to speak to either of them. They had turned their backs on me from the get-go. Neither of them had wanted me even though they created me. It took a sick old woman’s intervention to see that I got raised properly, and how did they repay Nana? By crawling out of the woodwork like human cockroaches the moment their daughter seemed like someone they could take advantage of.