I shook my head. “Not really.”
A memory started to resurface; one I’d almost forgotten about. It gave me a cold shiver. “Wait, there was something I do remember. You and another woman arguing. Something about Daddy, and that we had to leave.”
Mom nodded, her face darkening.
“You kept pointing at me, and said we had to leave because of it, and you pointed at me.”
My eyes warmed with tears.
Because I remember that. Clear as day. How I’d forgotten, I didn’t know. I remembered that it was my fault. That’s why we left. “We left because of me,” I said.
Mom nodded again. “In a way, yes, we did.”
And it felt like a stab in my heart.
Before I could ask why Mom continued. She sat her teacup on the end table. “There is much I never told you girls about the reasons we left the commune, and there were several.”
“Sure you did,” Summer said. “Daddy didn’t believe in monogamy. He kept sleeping with the other women there.”
“That’s partially true,” Mom said. “But there was much more to it that I never told you about.”
“Like what?” Autumn asked.
“You see, you’re correct, your father didn’t follow monogamy on the commune, because of the leader of the commune.”
“Was it a cult?” Summer asked.
“It became one, yes,” Mom said.
Autumn dropped her tea. The cup hit the floor, though by some luck it didn’t shatter.
Audra ran over with some napkins to help clean up the mess.
“Thanks, Audra,” Autumn said. “Did I hear you right? It was a cult? You escaped a cult?”
“Do you remember the new leader, Winter? The man with the long hair? You called him Hairy Bill?”
I nodded, the name bringing up a sensation—not so much an image as much as a shiver.
“Why do I not like that name?” I asked.
“Because Hairy Bill was not a good man.” Mom shifted. “Before, the commune was a wonderful place. Open, peaceful, and full of light and love. We had leaders. Brothers and sisters who were wiser for help. It was spiritually based, centering around the chakras and metaphysical understanding. It was wonderful.”
“Like how you are,” Autumn said.
Mom nodded. “Exactly. Then Hairy Bill came. He slowly took over the teaching and the beliefs, moving everyone to a different way of thinking. By then, I was pregnant with Autumn, and there wasn’t much I could do.”
“So that’s why you left?”
Mom shook her head. “I left because Hairy Bill was a pedophile who groomed the commune into his own cult.”
Summer gasped.
“I refused to allow anyone to hurt my children,” Mom said.
I felt sick. “And I didn’t like him.”
She shook her head. “No, you did not. You would not go near him. In fact, one day, he tried to get you to take a walk with him, but you refused and ran home crying.”
