“No, Mom!” I snapped. “Don’t do that. You defended a monster his whole life. Don’t carry that lie into his grave. He’s dead, Mom. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
The tears were rolling hard now.
“But me...you can still hurt me. I’m still here. I’m not asking for hugs or apologies. Just...something. Even the smallest acknowledgment. A ‘yeah, life was shit for you’ or a ‘you’re right, he was abusive, and I didn’t know how to protect you better.’ That would give me something. Something I’ve needed for so long.”
Another silence.
Then she exhaled, slow and heavy. “Your dad...” she began, and her voice sounded different. Softer.
I straightened up.
“Your dad wasn’t perfect, Emily. But he wasn’t the monster you always try to make him out to be.”
The rage hit so hard, I nearly crushed the phone in my hand. “You’re still defending him?” I shot to my feet. “He is gone. He can’t hurt you anymore. And you’re still defending him?
In that moment, it became clear. She wasn’t just a victim. She was part of the sickness.
“And what about Uncle Ben?” I pushed. “The time he tried to rape me? Is that just more ‘drama for attention’? Is that what you tell yourself?”
“Emily, our family wasn’t perfect but—”
I cut her off. “Wasn’t perfect? He tried to rape me in my sleep! I was just a kid! Your kid! And all you have to say is ‘we weren’t perfect’? What about Dad? His violent outbursts? Youlied. You covered for him. I’m starting to remember it all, Mom. As clear as day.”
She scoffed and muttered something under her breath. Then said, louder, “Well, is that all then, Emily? Because I’m not well. Heart problems. So unless you’re planning on finishing me off over the phone with your dramatic performance, I’d like to go before this call sends me to my grave.”
I slumped back onto the bed. This was worse than the scar on my neck. This was even worse than the psychological violence. The way she twisted everything and shrugged it off like nothing.
“No, Mom,” I said quietly. “I have nothing more to say to you. I hope someday you wake up and feel the weight of what you did to me. Not because I want you to suffer, but because maybe that kind of pain would finally crack you open enough to change. Maybe then you’d become the kind of person who deserves better than Dad, Ben, or Bobby. I don’t need to meet him to know he’s just another one of your collector’s items.”
My voice was trembling, but not from pain. Something else was blooming underneath. Something stronger.
“Because I found someone who really loves me. And it made me want to become better. For him. For me. Because I deserve it. He deserves it. And maybe, deep down, you do too.”
Another tear rolled down my cheek, but this one didn’t burn. It felt...clean. Like letting go.
Maybe I’d never know everything that had happened to me. Maybe I’d never make peace with all of it. But for once, the past didn’t feel bigger than my future.
“Well, ain’t that kind,” my mom said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Before I go, let me give you something for the road too.”
I braced myself.
“If you ever get married, marry someone rich. Filthy rich. Doesn’t matter how he looks. Doesn’t matter what kind of temper he has or how old he is. Doesn’t matter if you love him or not. Because when he turns out to be a piece of shit—and they always do—you can divorce him and still have the cash. Cry in a five-star hotel in Italy, draped in Prada. Give a hundred men one chance—not one man a hundred.”
Click.
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone in my hand, then slowly placed it on the nightstand. The room around me felt quieter than before.
Mochi was playing with his mirror, babbling at his reflection. Thank God he hadn’t absorbed the tension, hadn’t started pacing or picking at himself.
I walked over to the mirror. My face was puffy from crying. I stared at my scar. Long and thick.
Still there.
But I was still here too.
And that had to mean something.
