On the plus side, it’s distracting me from how concerned Ishouldbe about turning myself over to The Ivory.
“Why did she call you doctor…?” My father asks, and I peek at him.
“Dr. Venkman?” I stifle a smirk as he nods. “It’s fromGhostbusters. Remember? We watched it when I was a kid? And then I made you and mom throw me a ghost-themed party for my eleventh birthday.”
His forehead lines as if he’s unsure of what I’m talking about. “Hm… I do not think so.”
“Of course you don’t remember.” I roll my eyes. “Why would you? It didn’t have to do with money or robbing banks, so why would youcareenough to remember…”
He shakes his head. “Iremember, Dascha. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and the one with the glasses…”
“Harold Ramis,” I mumble.
“Yes, right. Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver… And the big marshmallow creature.”
I huff at that, giving him the side-eye.
“I remember you ran around for a week after, singing the song,” he chuckles. “I remember that you liked it most because of the ghosts, hence the ghost party. You wanted a collection of ghosts to keep under your bed. That was what you asked for… For your birthday. And it was yourtenth, by the way. By your eleventh birthday, you had moved on to cars. You never stopped with them, did you?”
I gawk at him, dumbfounded, while we walk side by side, foot in my damn mouth. But it’s notmyfault. He left!
If he really cared about the kid he remembers so much about, then why would he leave me??
“Why did you leave me with her…?” The words crawl up my throat like vomit. I don’t want to be asking him this, because I don’twantto care. But it just comes out. “You knew…” This time, they get stuck.
I choke it back, and it’s so nasty that I cough.
“Dascha…” He says my name in this patronizing tone, as if I’m still a child.
It’s infuriating. I’mnota child. I’m a fucking man. A man who might’ve had a chance to be even a tiny bitlessfucked up if it weren’t for him being such a fucking coward.
“No, seriously.” I stop walking. “I want a fucking answer, asshole.”
“Do not speak to me that way,” he scolds.
A cackle of disbelief bursts out of me. “You’ve gotta be kidding me!Nowyou wanna be a father?? Youabandonedme!” I roar, getting up in his face. “You were the only thing standing between me and a goddamnmonster, and you left me to be fucking devoured! She was an extremely sick person, and you knew that! Youknewabout her, and you sure as shit knew about me… So what’s your excuse,Papa?!Let me hear it, because as it stands, not only are you no fucking father, but you’re asorryass excuse for a man!”
I’m heaving for breath, chest jumping, vision blurring. I hear voices, but I can’t tell if they’re in my head or really coming for us.
You never really escaped, Dascha…
You were here all along.
“Argh!” I bellow, yanking my hair in my fists. “I got out… Ifoundhim. Don’t do this to me…”
“Dascha, moy syn, please… You must calm down.” My father grabs me by the shoulders. “Look at me.” I’m shaking my head on repeat while he rubs my shoulders, attempting to pacify me. “I am sorry, syn. I have no good excuse to give… That is why I have never reached out to you. I knew nothing I could say would make it better. I fucked up, and you are right. Iama coward.”
My chin lifts slowly, eyes meeting his. The bronze that melts with my mother’s evergreen to make up the hazel in mine.
“I was scared,” he says with profound remorse shining at me. “I was so very afraid, Dascha. Not only that I could not handle her, but that I was not good for you either. I… I wanted to bring you with me, moy syn. I almost did, but I thought you would be better off…”
“Right,” I scoff, exhausted from the metric ton of emotional pressure in my skull. “Fucking schizophrenia, crime,andsexual abuse… I didn’t have a fucking chance in hell.”
My father’s eyes widen, his hands slipping off me. He looks horrified, and I’m confused for a moment. Until I realize what I just said.
Oh… right. He didn’t know.
The look on his face has me cowering inside, and the only possible thing I can use to cover it up is all-encompassing rage.
