I sat back in my chair, completely baffled. “Did it bother you that much?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Seeing me that day in the marketplace with Reese. Did it bother you so much, seeing that we were okay without you? That we didn’t have to be controlled by your unrealistic demands?”
“We’re not doing this, Emery. We came here to allow you to have an idea of what’s to come with Reese’s future. I don’t think you even deserve that privilege.”
“You know what’s funny?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief. “How you judge us so hard when you made the same choices when you were our age.”
“You have no clue what you’re talking about, little girl.”
“I’m not a little girl anymore, Mama. I’m grown. I have my own little girl now. But how old were you when you had me?”
She tensed up. “Like I said, we are not doing this.”
“Seventeen,” I said, ignoring her as she tried to change the subject. “And if I recall, you weren’t married at that time, either.”
She shifted around in her chair and shook her head. Dad held up his controlling hand as a way of silencing me. The number of times I’d seen that hand raised in my childhood to shut me up whenever I had a comment, or a question, or even a random thought, was staggering. That hand had wielded so much power over me, for so long, that even after all these years I slightly flinched from the sight of it.
“That’s enough, Emery,” Dad said, his voice low, smoky, and controlled. “I will not have you making your mother feel guilt for past sins she’d taken part in that she’s already asked forgiveness for.”
I laughed, trying to hide my fear of the man who raised me. “Her sins? Last time I checked, it took two to tangle up together and make a baby, Dad,” I snapped. I hated him. I hated what he stood for, how he looked down on women, how he’d controlled not only Sammie and me for our whole youth, but also how he belittled Mama right in front of her face.
How was it her sins that had gotten her pregnant before marriage, but not his own? Why did Mama have to ask for forgiveness, but Dad simply had to put a ring on her finger to fix his actions? It wasn’t right.
Nothing about their story was right to me.
“You shut your little mouth, will you not?” Mama snapped, waving her napkin in my direction. “Your disrespect will not be tolerated, and your assumptions are out of line. Do not ever speak to your father in that fashion again, or so help me—”
Dad held his hand up to her.
She fell quiet.
And the abusive cycle of control continued.
What would it be like for Reese to grow up in a household like that? What would it mean for her special mind that was filled with wonder?
Her favorite superheroes were women.
Dad would quickly stomp that out of her system.
I turned to my sister, the girl who looked as if she’d been drained of her spirit completely, and I placed my hands in hers. “Sammie, you asked me to be her mother. Don’t you remember? All those years ago, you left, and you asked me to raise her. I did as you requested. Do you know what this will do to me? Do you know how much this would destroy me? How much it would uproot Reese’s life?”
Sammie wouldn’t look me in the eyes. I couldn’t help but feel as if she was under some kind of spell. All I knew was that the person in front of me looked nothing like the girl I grew up with. She looked nothing like my best friend. She was hollow inside, and my parents didn’t seem to care at all.
“Drop her hands, Samantha,” Dad ordered.
Sammie’s shaky grip in my hold released as she placed her hands into her lap. She’d always been an obedient child, never speaking back, never causing trouble, and that didn’t bode well for me in the current situation. I needed her to crack. I needed her to scream. I needed her to have my back the way I’d always had hers.
Instead, nothing.
Silence and emptiness.
I wanted to cry, but not in front of them. They didn’t deserve to see the way they were hurting me. They didn’t need to witness my pain.
“Well, while this has been a great family reunion, this is where I exit.” I stood up and pushed my purse up my shoulder and turned to my sister. She was fidgeting with her short fingernails, but I knew she was listening. “Sammie, if you need me, I’m always here for you. But don’t think for a second what they are doing has anything to do with making a better life for you. They don’t even know who you are. But I do. So when you need me, I’ll be there. No matter what.”