I blinked.
He turned back to me. “So, you’ve been separated for three years? Legally?”
I shook my head at a loss for words. How could I truly explain the horror and insanity of it all? If I was Yoshiro, I would see me different. Think I was crazy. Dysfunctional. Broken.
“Ebony,” he whispered.
I looked at him.
“There’s no shame and what you’ve been through.” The rage reappeared. “I watched my mother go through the same thing.”
“Your father was abusive?”
“He was, but she never left him. She stayed. She. . .” The rage shifted to sadness. “She thought it was his right to discipline her.”
I widened my eyes.
“Even as a boy, I disagreed.”
I directed my attention to the mantle. “Those are your parents over there?”
“Yes.” He offered no more information about the other pictures and shifted the conversation back to me. “Are you legally separated?”
“No. It’s more like. . .we’ve been running.”
“For three years?”
“Yes.”
“And he always finds you?”
Nodding my head, I took a sip of the tea. This time it didn’t taste as good. The nastiness of Wyatt had taken the enjoyment away. I lowered the cup, knowing Yoshiro had more questions to ask, but he remained silent and watched me.
You might as well tell him everything. We’ll be stuck here for a week. If I avoid this now, he’ll ask again tomorrow.
“With all the running, how did you make money?” he asked.
“I write novels.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Adult ones. I’m not a bestselling author or anything, but I make enough to get us by.”
“That’s amazing.”
Silence hung in the kitchen.
Yoshiro hadn’t moved a muscle. His gaze assessed me, making me feel like I was under a microscope in someone’s lab.
I kept my voice low. “It wasn’t always this way.”
“How long were you both married?”
“Fourteen years. I became pregnant with Kiara at a young age. Eighteen.”
Surprise covered his face. “You’re thirty-two. I thought you were even younger. Maybe, in your late twenties.”
“No.” Intrigued, I asked. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-five.” He tapped the cup. “But back to you and Wyatt. . .if you don’t mind.”
Did I tell him Wyatt’s name? I must have.
I cleared my throat. “We married right before Kiara was born. He joined the army to support us. After boot camp, he sent for me next. We stayed in Augusta, Georgia on a base called Fort Gordon.”
For the first time, Yoshiro sipped his tea, but I could tell that I had all of his attention.
“Wyatt was in intelligence for a while but wanted to do more. All the men in his family had been military. He wanted to see more action and make them proud. So, he applied for special forces, when I became pregnant again. After Jalen was born, Wyatt went off for training. We barely saw him those years. He was always deployed. In a way, I’ve always been a single parent.”
“How old is everyone?”
“Kiara is thirteen and Jalen is ten.”
“And. . .Poppy?”
“You’re good with names?”
“I try.”
“Poppy just turned eight last month.” I cleared my throat. “Everything had went fine in our marriage, but it was probably because we barely saw him. With all the deployments and training, his visits must’ve been a combination of three or four months a year. When he was home, there was no need to argue or fight. We were happy to see each other. He was eager to spend time with his kids.” My chest tightened. Sadness thickened my throat. I took a sip of tea to wash it away.
“What made him become abusive?”
“Something happened on his last deployment. He never told me why, which became one of our first arguments. He pushed me that night but did nothing more. Later, I discovered from his DD214 that he was dishonorably discharged.”
“He didn’t tell you that part either?”
“No. We moved back to Los Angeles, California to live with his mother. Two months later, she died from cancer. She’d never told him about it, not wanting him to worry. She left the house to him and some money.” My heart ached at the horrible memories. “That’s when he started drinking—morning until night. Never changing his clothes or going outside. Just sitting in front of the television with a bottle. We began to argue more. He didn’t want me to work or go to college. Still, he wasn’t completely abusive. During arguments, he pushed. He blocked my way. He screamed and pointed his finger in my face, so close I thought he would poke my eye out. . .”
I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. It felt like I was peeling off a bandage from a wound and stopping the healing. But something inside my soul urged me to push on.
Yoshiro studied me. No expression shown on his face. I couldn’t tell if he was judging or pitying me.
“Five years ago, things changed.” I let out a long breath. “A civilian defense contracting agency found him. I don’t know how. They offered him a job. He didn’t tell me much, just that he would be doing some of the things he’d done in special forces, but for the civilian side. The kids were younger. I was happy to see him go for a while and bring some peace back to the house.”