I was pretty sure about that as well, but I didn’t say it.
“None of what happened that night was your fault, Nick,” she repeated earnestly. “You must understand that. Noneof it.”
But I was shaking my head before she even finished. “And exactly how was I supposed to understand that? I was eight. All I knew was my mother was leaving, and if I’d just done what you said, I would’ve been leaving too. I sat at my bedroom window every night for months, staring into the darkness, waiting for you.” I sounded broken even to my own ears. “Dad told me you’d run off with another man and that you had a whole new family now. He said you didn’t need me and you wouldn’t be coming back. He said you’d told him that the one time you called.”
“No!” Chloe shook her head. “I-it wasn’t like that at all.”
“Then what was it like?” I badgered. “You never got in contact to check on me, not even once. You never called. You never wrote. No birthday cards. Nothing. And Dad never let me forget it. He reminded me Every. Single. Day. Taunted me about how you didn’t love me enough to come get me. That you’d ditched me just like you’d ditched him.”
“But... but you knew not to believe anything he said,” she pleaded. “He lied all the time. You knew that.”
I huffed bitterly. “I tried, at first. I fought for a long time. But when the weeks and months turned into years and you still didn’t call or write, what was I supposed to think, Mu—Chloe?”
She caught the slip and flinched.
“You tell me what an eight-year-old kid is supposed to think when his mother leaves.” My voice was rising and I ignored Mads’ vice-like grip on my thigh. I was on a roll. “Forty-seven years I’ve waited to know what happened to you. To ask why you abandoned me. Forty-seven years staring at every blue Nissan that passed me by, wondering if you were in it. If you’d finally come back to get me.”
Chloe’s blank expression finally shattered and her lips began to tremble. Her hands shook like a leaf as she clasped them in her lap. Tears pooled in her eyes, breaking through her lashes to course down her face, her shoulders shaking as she struggled to hold herself together.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go to her or that I didn’t feel sorry for her in some way, because I did. I wanted to comfort her as I’d done so many times as a kid. Tell her that everything was all right and that I forgave her.
But my legs wouldn’t move, my body frozen in place. Years of anger and pain held me captive. A part of me I wasn’t proud of even derived some pleasure at seeing her go through what I had for years. I saw her tears and all I felt was fury at my own, which I wiped from my face with the back of my hand.
Mads released my thigh and reached for a box of Kleenex, offering it to Chloe. She accepted, acknowledging his kindness with a faint smile. I wasn’t mad at him. Mads was, as always, a better man than I’d ever be. When he sat back, I took his hand and brought it to my lap, letting him know I appreciated what he’d done. It occurred to me that, unlike Chloe, I had someoneto hold me together during this shitty conversation. She was suffering through it on her own, but I couldn’t get past my anger to sympathise.
“It sounds clichéd, I know, but if I could go back and change things, I would,” Chloe choked out, still wiping her eyes, her hands shaking so badly she almost dropped the Kleenex. “You only knew what he told you. It wasn’t the whole story, but I couldn’t change that. He wouldn’t let me. I allowed him to drive a wedge between us only because it kept you safe, and for a long time, that was all that mattered.” She dropped the Kleenex in her lap and looked up. “That you were safe. It seemed so obvious to me at the time, but now, I don’t know what to think. Listening to you, I know I made a mistake. God knows, I made enough of them.”
I frowned. “What did you mean about keeping me safe?”
She sighed and began shredding the balled-up wad of Kleenex again. “Your father never hit you. Don’t ask me why. He did a lot of other stuff but he never touched you. He was oddly proud of you in his own twisted way. He wanted you to be the man he could never be.” Her eyes narrowed, pleading. “That didn’t change, did it? Tell me it didn’t change.”
I wanted to ignore the misery in her eyes. What did she care? She’d left me there, after all. Left me with him.
“Not with his fists,” I relented. “But you know damn well he didn’t need those to hurt me. He might’ve wanted me to be the man he wasn’t, but that ideal was a long way from the nerdy, sensitive kid I really was. And believe me, Dad took his mission to rectify that state of affairs very seriously. I grew up feeling worthless and angry from the constant criticism and berating. As an adult, I didn’t know what it meant to be loved, and so when it finally came along, I had no clue how to return or trust it. That almost cost me my marriage, and I’m still fucking things up because of it.” I cast Mads an apologetic sideways glance.
He smiled and cupped my cheek. “Hey, I’m no picnic either.”
“I’m so sorry.” Chloe discarded the balled-up Kleenex on the coffee table and drew another wad from the box. “If I hadn’t been such a coward, I would’ve forced the issue with your father. Ignored his threats and tried harder to get you back. I would’ve taken the risk. But the truth was, back then, I was scared for both of us.I wasa coward. I’m not proud of it. But there it is.”
I bit my tongue to stop from screaming that she wasn’t a coward. I knew that to my bones because I’d seen her fight him off. I’d seen the chances she took—that picnic on the back lawn for one. She tried her best to give me a childhood. To make up for my father. I knew that. It had taken real strength to survive what she had, and yet I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell her that. All I could do was pose the question again. The one I’d carried in my heart for forty-seven years. “Even if I can understand, kind of, your reasoning for leaving, why didn’t you come back?”
Her expression took on a defeated air. “Because your father threatened to hurt you if I did. Maim or even kill you if I tried to get you back or if he even caught me contacting you. If I stayed away, he swore he wouldn’t touch you.”
I blinked. “What the hell?”
She drew a shuddering breath. “I did try to call that first week, that one call he told you I made. But it didn’t go the way he said. I was hoping to arrange to pick you up from school the next day. I thought your father would be at the dog races. They were running that night. I called the house but he answered, not you.”
I tried to think back. “He stayed close to me that first month,” I remembered out loud. “I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere on my own. He was always watching me.”
She nodded. “He told me to go fuck myself. Said he didn’t give a shit about me leaving, which I don’t believe for a second. But I did believe him when he said that if I ever tried to take you,he’d find us and kill you or put you in a wheelchair. Then he’d do the same to me. If I wanted you to be okay, I had to stay away. If he couldn’t have me, he was going to make sure that I didn’t get you. I think in some ways he liked that idea more than beating me up. He knew it would hurt more. The ultimate punishment and control.”
“He never said a word,” I replied weakly. “Obviously.”
She gave a soft snort. “Just like he never gave you any of the letters I posted.”
I blinked.
“Or the birthday cards, or the graduation air tickets I sent for you to come visit me. I knew he wouldn’t, but I sent them anyway. A small act of defiance, I suppose. I hoped he might hold on to them for some perverse reason, and that maybe you’d find them one day. He liked his secrets, and he had a lot of them. That’s why he kept a post office box rather than have our mail delivered. That way I didn’t find the letters from debt collectors. The final notice warnings. The bank statements showing how much he spent on other women. And my letters to you.”
