“Did you ever worry about me or wonder if I was okay?”
He shrugs.“Why would you ask me that?The government took you.You were their problem, not mine.Look at where I am, Lurlene!It’s not like I could have done anything for you from here!”
At the sound of my father’s outburst, a guard steps toward us.
A rush of nausea floods me.“Lurlene is my mother.I am not Lurlene.”
“I know that!Do you think I’m stupid?”
I try once more.“Did you ever wonder about your daughter?Were you even the slightest bit curious?”
His lips pull into a straight line, and his eyebrows knit together.I know this expression, but I had forgotten about it until now.He always looked at me like this right before he locked me in a closet or bathroom or basement.But he can’t do that now.Not here.
Not to this version of myself.
“You were always a pain in the ass,” he hisses.“Always a selfish brat, going on about your fucking toys and useless school and asking for something to eat.It was so much bullshit that a man couldn’t think straight.”
I say nothing.
“I see you’re married,” he says, nodding to my ring.I forgot to take it off.“Who’s the unlucky fellow?”
“Someone who would squash you like the roach you are.”
“You were never worth the trouble, stupid girl.”
I freeze.A bright light flashes in my mind and the nerves in my body buzz with awareness.This horrible moment with this horrible man has just blown the lid off my life.
I see it now.I get it.Why I’m the way I am.
Why it’s always been so hard to see myself as worthy.
I’ll be damned.
But I’m not that helpless and terrified little girl today, am I?I have options, choices.I’ve experienced love, and it didn’t make me a pussy.In fact, it’s made me a fucking fighter.
AndI knowI’m worth the trouble.
Even if I’m not perfect and can’t have children.I’m worth the trouble.And I need to fight for the goodness I thought I didn’t deserve.
I laugh out loud.The guard stares at me.
No more.
Never again will I carry a burden that doesn’t belong to me, garbage thoughts that were shoved deep inside me by people so awful that they’ll be spending the rest of their days behind barbed wire.
I stand.I lean my hands on the table and look directly into those lifeless, beady eyes.
“You vile, pathetic bag of human garbage.”I spit the words at him.“I wasalwaysworth the trouble.You were just too damaged and broken and high to see it.”
“Miss, step away,” the guard says, clasping my elbow.
“I’m leaving,” I tell him, yanking my arm from his grip.“I need to say just one more thing.”
“Make it quick.”
My upper lip trembles.I point at my father.“I didn't deserve your ugliness and the ugliness of the woman who gave birth to me.I am too good and too decent for either of you.Fuck you, you pathetic piece of slug shit.”
The guard grabs my elbow again and leads me from the visitors’ room.My heart pounds in my chest, and I hear theswish-swishof blood racing through my veins.My hands shake as I collect my bag and walk from the visitors’ wing and out the public entrance.
