And I know that this is going to unfold itself now that my dad—that Damien—is under arrest. If he hasn’t been bailed out yet with all his connections, then I know it’s not good. Maybe he doesn’t have bail. Maybe they’re holding him without it.
I haven’t had the guts to look online. To check the court records online and see what charges are filed against him.
I think it’s better that I don’t know.
I read one line in the court documents. Just one line about witness testimony and coercion and a fourteen-year-old girl’s statement.
And my memory flashes.
To the exact moment Damien held me at gunpoint in my bedroom after the police left. To the moment he told me that if I didn’t do exactly as he said, if I didn’t memorize my story perfectly, he would blow out my brains. And he’d make me watch Zinnia die first.
I was fourteen years old.
I was sitting at the dinner table eating spaghetti when my mom left for work that night. It was a Tuesday. I remember because Tuesdays were always the worst for fighting.
Damien always hated when she went to work. He said that working as a bartender was a job for kids, not adults. That she should quit. That she should stay home where she belonged.
It was the number one reason they fought.
But my mom had worked at that bar for twenty years. She refused to quit. It’s where she met my biological father. It’s where she met Damien years later after my dad left.
After she walked out the door that night, Damien stared at us across the table.
“Hurry up,” he said.
I shoved a large bite into my mouth. Zinnia was just a toddler. She was supposed to be feeding herself, but she was too little to understand. Damien was supposed to help her, but he just watched her struggle.
He always expected too much of her.
She watched me and followed what I did. She shoved her tiny hands into the spaghetti and crammed it into her mouth.
Then we followed Damien to the car.
I buckled Zinnia into her car seat and made sure the straps were tight. I sat next to her in the back while Damien raced down the street.
He went in the direction my mom always drives to work.
By the time we pulled up to her workplace, I saw her standing in the parking lot under the yellow streetlight.
And she wasn’t alone.
“Motherfucker,” Damien snapped when he pulled up behind her car.
The shock on my mom’s face told me something was wrong.
Damien got out of the car and started yelling at both of them.
I was so focused on my mom’s expression that I didn’t realize who the man was at first.
Then he turned his head.
My real dad.
“Dad?” I whispered.
He stepped in front of my mom, trying to protect her from Damien’s rage.
My mom got into our car, into the passenger seat, and her face was pale. Her hands were shaking.
