“I had burned dinner that night,” she said. “Or maybe I didn’t iron a shirt correctly.” She tilted her head. “I don’t remember now. It’s funny, it seemed so important at the time. Like it would be etched into my mind forever. But it faded. It took time and love and a life that I’ve been blessed with to make it happen, but it faded.”
I struggled with my tears.
“Whatever the reason, what won’t fade, what can’t ever fade is seeing your wide, beautiful, curious and pure eyes fixated on me on the floor. My nose was bleeding. You wiped it with your security blanket. The one that up until then, you hadn’t let me even wash without screaming. But when you see people hurting, my little baby, you would give them everything you had if only to make them feel better. And I was not going to take everything I had from my precious daughter. I was not going to let your first memories of the world be tainted with violence and pain. I planned on leaving. But then, your father did the only good thing he ever did.” She sucked in another strangled breath. “He left, after beating me enough to require your sister, at eight years old, to somehow get me and you to the hospital.”
Her voice cracked.
“And that’s where your dad found us. Your real dad. The one who took you to softball, who plaited your hair, who cared for you when you were sick. Because of your father, I found your real dad. But it was at the expense of Lucy’s innocence. I waited too long with Lucy and that’s my sin I will carry with me. It’s why she’s different than you. Because I left her in that place too long.”
“No, Mom. Lucy is different because she’s different,” I said firmly. “Because that’s how beautiful the world is, to give us that. You did not stop her from being who she was meant to be by being human. By having hope.”
“And the world has somehow not stopped you from being who you are, despite everything,” Mom murmured, cupping my face. “I’m so sorry I kept it from you,” she said.
“I understand,” I said, crying freely now. “I didn’t tell you and Dad what happened because I wanted to protect you from any and all kind of pain. That’s what you do when you love someone. You want to be true to them to show them you respect them, but sometimes the truth hurts, and you can’t hurt someone that precious to you without losing respect for yourself.” I squeezed Mom’s hand. “I respect you, Mom. I love you. And I’m proud of you for being strong enough to live through that. To find Dad. To give us a beautiful life without any inkling of that ugliness you carried around inside.”
Mom was sobbing now. We were notoriously the emotional half of the family. “My baby,” she croaked. “It takes no effort to create a beautiful life when you’ve got beauty around you. When you’ve got family. You need to remember that. What’s inside of us can alter the outsides, I know my little yogi is an expert on this.” She smiled at me. “But it’s the people on the outside, like your Heath, who can help repair the inside. I know that because your dad did that with me.”
I was sobbing too.
Because she was right.
Weren’t moms always?
Heath
The drive was silent at first.
Heath didn’t mind that.
Didn’t feel the awkwardness most people felt in silences. He preferred them. That—and many, many other things—had enchanted him about Polly. This bright, seemingly loud girl, was happy in silences. Didn’t rush to fill them. Just bathed in them.
He suspected she might’ve gotten that from her father.
Though he knew the man was not bathing in silence right now. He was stewing in it. In blame.
Because he was a good man. A good father. Heath recognized that because he knew what a bad one looked like. He spent the first sixteen years of his life looking at a bad one. Being beaten up by one.
So it became easy for him to spot a good one.
It was solidified when Pete finally spoke.
“Was it bad?” he asked.
His words were choked, forced out of him. Because Heath knew the man did not want to know. Wanted to stay in ignorance to the truest horrors his daughter encountered. It would’ve been easier for him to bear. But he was a good man and a good father, so he didn’t want easier. He didn’t want to be ignorant when his daughter had to live with horror.
Heath’s grip tightened on his steering wheel. “Yeah,” he bit out. “It was bad.”
He supposed he could’ve lied. Might’ve been kinder.
But Heath wasn’t about being kind. Only when it came to Polly. And he knew this man wouldn’t respect him if he lied. For whatever reason, this man’s respect was important to him. Beyond the fact she was Polly’s father and she adored him. It was because he wasn’t Polly’s real father.