“I was so scared,” she whispered.
He would have done anything to go back in time and protect the girl she’d been. “I’m so sorry,” was all he could say.
“Every time he picked the stick up, it got hard to breathe and I’d start shaking. But I wasn’t just scared,” she whispered as if confessing a dark secret. “I was angry. So, so angry.”
Nikolett balled her hands into fists and he released her wrists. “There were times I wanted to hit him. Hurt him for hurting me. I had to fight to stay still. I didn’t tell anyone about those thoughts because I knew it meant I had the devil in my mind telling me to disobey my father.
“So I was quiet and obedient and if I got angry, I forced myself to hide it. I learned not to cry when he slapped me, because if I didn’t cry, he’d praise me after he hit me. I always cried when he beat me because it hurt, but I learned how to hide the sounds and endure.”
Eric held her tighter, wishing he could somehow absorb her past pain, take it into himself.
“And then I read a book where the girl did fight back. I read another one where a child went to an adult and told them they were being hurt and the other adults were horrified.”
“You’d never told anyone?”
“Why would I? It was normal, wasn’t it?” She leaned in, resting her forehead on his. For a moment, they just breathed together.
“My grandmother saved me,” she said finally. “My mother’s mother. She came to live with us after my grandfather died. At the time, I thought she didn’t know, even though there were nights I’d crawl into bed—she and I shared a room—because myback and legs hurt too much to stand up. She’d ask me if I was okay, try to give me medicine, but I wouldn’t talk to her, only shake my head and close my eyes.
“The more I read, the more defiant thoughts I had. I didn’t stop reading even though I was sure I was damning myself. One night, I couldn’t hold it in and I told my grandmother—not what my father did to me but about a book with a character who ran away from home because her family was hurting her.”
“What did she say?”
“She said if she could, she’d beat my father every time he beat me.”
Eric grunted in approval.
“I was shocked to realize she knew, and only then did I also realize she’d been trying to protect me. When he took me into the room, she’d interrupt—knock on the door, break a plate, make a phone call and stand by the bedroom door talking.”
“So it was you and your grandmother who killed him?”
Nikolett let out a watery laugh. “I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed to know that I didn’t kill him.”
“Is he still alive?”
“Are you offering to kill him?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t actually know.” Nikolett wiggled, settling herself on his lap and propping one elbow on his shoulder, head resting on her hand. “By the time he tried to marry me off, I’d changed. I started planning.”
“There she is.”
“There who is?”
“The Nikolett I know. Always planning.” He made an exaggerated considering expression. “The violent streak must have come later.”
Again she laughed.
“How and when did you leave?”
“I was already planning to go to university—I was smart and good at languages—when my father took me with him to the eastern Carpathians to see the progress on the censer he’d commissioned in hopes that would finally get him on the parish council. When he told me I would marry the man, I objected. Not right then, I wasn’t that brave yet, but when we got home.”
Her gaze dropped, shoulders curling forward once more.
“He beat me. Not just with the stick but with his fists. He wasn’t just hitting my legs, but my face, my head. I told myself to fight back, but the pain was more than I was used to, and he was so angry.” She licked her lips nervously. “I would have taken it back, agreed to marry, to do whatever he told me to do if he would just stop hurting me.”
She wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. “That’s my secret shame. That I would have abandoned my own future, given up my freedom, to stop that one beating. I know I called you a coward, but I’m a cow–”
