I tugged my cap on over my face and gave them both a harassed look.
Could I play golf against that douche without ramming my fist into his face? Yes. He didn’t know me, well, apart from what he saw in the media. Maybe he’d kiss my ass as regular people did, and oh, how fine that would be.
I knew I needed to get my head in the game and concentrate on my relocation, but nothing was stopping me from having a bit of fun in between.
And I made my decision. I would meet Storm’s fiancé and learn more about him and their unusual marriage arrangement: face the bastard on the fairway.
In the meantime, I would decide what I wanted from being back in Newport. I knew improving my skills on the field and sorting my temper were high on the list, but so was getting my head around the situation with Storm. I also needed to decide whether to speak out about the Palmer case. The thought of airing dirty laundry I had buried for years still did not sit well with me.
You owe it to the others to come forward, my conscience goaded.
One thing at a time. For the time being, the Palmers were in custody, and I needed my head on straight for when I officially saw Storm.
I couldn’t hide from her. I’d known from Phoenix that Storm was a Sports Counselor. My contract with the Patriots had a probationary period, and I had been given six appointments with Dr. Summers. I knew it was her as soon as I saw it in black and white.
Being in New Jersey had allowed me to bury my demons, but now that I was back, I would resurrect those fuckers and deal with them in order of importance.
First, I would build bridges with the Storm situation, and then I would decide how to deal with the Palmers' matter. I knew I owed something to the other kids who had come forward. The ones I had lived with, suffered with, wept with, and those that came before and after me.
The first time David Palmer hit me with his belt, I was seven years old. At first, I was too shocked to feel any pain: my adolescent brain hadn’t been mature enoughto compute what had happened. After the second strike, as well as the feel of that sharp sting created by the whip of leather, I felt an overwhelming surge of guilt.
What had I done wrong?
And the answer to that question was: nothing. But I didn’t know that at the time.
The first few weeks of my time with the Palmers hadn’t really registered. After completing the paperwork at the agency offices, I was collected by David Palmer. First impressions were that he seemed OK. He was a tall, gangly man with graying hair that fell to his shoulders and bags under his eyes. He was old, and so he looked like most adults to me.
I remember the drive home in the car. He was quiet, and I’d welcomed that as I’d still been feeling shit from that severed connection with Micah.
So, in short, I had started my life in the Palmer house with my eyes closed, walking around in a numb bubble, thinking how much I didn’t want to be there.
When I saw Annie, another foster kid around my age with a chain leading from her bunkbed post to her ankle and a padlock swinging from it, I thought she was playing a game. I didn’t realize that it had been put there on purpose: it was only a couple of days later when I found her crying, still in the same position, lying in her own filth that I joined those dots. When I’d asked David about it, he told me that it was for her safety as Annie used to sleepwalk. Even though I was so young, I knew he was lying. And it was at that moment that I opened my eyes and realized that I had been brought into a living nightmare.
Although different from the lifestyle I’d enjoyed in my last foster home, I’d come to accept that strange, grueling routine, carved out by the Palmers. All the other kids who had been there did, and so why wouldn’t I?
And that was my life, in a nutshell, for just shy of a year. The house was filthy, and there was never any food to eat. We were chained to our beds, for ‘safety’ most evenings. The house was always locked, but after Jacob, one of the older fosters, tried to run away, he was beaten so hard his legs and back turned blue. No one touched the doors after that.
There had been six others when I was there. At times, out of desperation, the older kids would steal rations from the younger ones. I did what I could for Annie, who was the thinnest of all of us, but I was seven. I had no power and felt helpless, constantly wondering what I had done to deserve such misery.
And you left her there.
The house was a large bungalow with three kids in each of the two spare bedrooms. The Palmers shared a room that you were never allowed to go near, and the rest of the house was cluttered. No one ever went near the basement because of the smell. Charlie, one of the older fosters, told me that there was a dead dog down there.
Some days weren’t so bad (at least that’s what my seven-year-old brain said), we were allowed to play Xbox, and Mrs. Palmer would bring us sweets.
I had a ton of bad memories of what had happened in that house. Of the beatings, the chains, the smell: the terror of not knowing what came next.
And now the truth had come out, years later. Countless other children had suffered the same fate as I did.
After I ran away, I fabricated a story that had nothing to do with the Palmers and was eventually taken back into the care system. I lied, saying I was homeless and told them my name was Reid Mehari. Mixing up my name saved me. Finding Micah at the center again was fate, I believed that to this day.
When Ma came for Micah and me, I was still underweight, malnourished, and scarred. But not for life. I had put that part of my life behind me as soon as I was reunited with Micah.
It had taken a few months, but I eventually got used to living a normal life again. No longer terrified of being chained up or hit by that belt. And then, I must have repressed those months of my life, having not thought about them for years.
And now my past had come back to haunt me.
And for the first time, that calm state of mind I usually maintained was blown out of the water. My temper was now on a hair trigger, as everything Louise and David Palmer had done came back as clear as day.
