“Yeah, that's a big part of it."I sigh, coming to the hardest part."So, the thing about TBIs is that they can really mess you up for a long time, even after you're more or less healed or whatever.Personalities change, temporarily and sometimes permanently, depending on the severity.And Kevin definitely changed.Quicker temper.More easily frustrated by simple things.Started resenting me.Eventually turned verbally and emotionally…um…abusive.”I swallow hard."I found out when you were about, oh…nine or ten months old, that he was cheating on me.That he had been even before the TBI."
"Oh…my…god," she hisses, intense and pissed off."You gave up theOlympicsfor his ass while he was screwing other women?"
"I mean, not right after the accident.He could barely walk to the bathroom on his own for a while.He just restarted it once he was more or less fully recovered and back to work."I fight the visceral memories."I brought you with me to visit him at work.He'd forgotten his lunch, so I figured I'd pop in with it."
She grimaces."Oh god."
"I walked in just as he and his office manager were buttoning up their clothes in his office.Big argument ensues, naturally, and it comes out that they'd been fucking since before he and I got married.And it was someone else before her.But yes.I gave up my dream that wasin my hands, for him, and that was how he repaid me."
"You don't seem angry enough," she says.
I blow a raspberry."Oh, I wasplentyangry back then.Ask Sheriff Tate."
"What would he say?"
"That I put sugar in her gas tank, slashed her tires, spray-painted ‘home-wrecking whore’ across the front of her house, egged her house, TPd her house, and almost physically assaulted her."
She snickers."Oh."
"I did get arrested, actually, but Judge Reynolds’ daughter was a close friend of mine, and his granddaughter was one of my first students, so I got out of it."
"Nice."She eyes me."Sothenyou divorced his cheating ass?"
I nod."I did.Had papers in front of him a week later."
“He fought it?"
I shake my head."Opposite.He saw it as an opportunity to start over.He offered me the house, full custody, and a lump sum payment of fifty thousand dollars.In return, he'd never have to pay child support or alimony, and he was absolved of all responsibility to you and me.”
She rubs her nose with the blanket."I…I don't know how to feel about that."
"I get that."
"Like, on one hand, he set you up pretty well, right?But then, it was that easy for him to just…what?Fuck off into the sunset and pretend I don't exist?Like, not to be whatever about it, but I can see not wanting to talk to or seeyou—you're his ex.But I'm hisdaughter.And…nothing from him?Ever?Like, you don't have a shoebox full of letters you've been intercepting my whole life or anything?"
I cackle at this, but the levity is short-lived."No, honey, there are no secret letters.I'm sorry."
"I just don't get it."
"Me either."
"Where'd he go?"
"Atlanta, last I knew, as of two or three years ago.He popped up on my feed one day because Facebook is an asshole.I was curious, so I stalked him a little.”
She waits, eventually rolling her hand for me to continue, when I don't."And?"
"I wasn't sure if you'd want to know."
"I do.I'm curious."
"He's remarried and has three kids.White picket fence, literally, cute little blond wifey, two cute kids, a Lexus, golfing buddies.I'm not sure anyone in his life even knows about us, to be honest.Not that it matters.He started over.Moved on.Put us out of his mind.Men can do that, I guess.I dunno how, but enough of 'em do it that it seems to be a pretty common thing."
"But…" she shakes her head."You've never thought about blowing his life up?It’s never occurred to you to send a pic of us to his wife on Facebook?"
I shake my head, sighing in a way that's not quite but almost a laugh."It did cross my mind when I first saw his family, but no.Who would that help?Not me.It would just make me seem like the crazy, petty, vindictive ex.It wouldn't help you, either.Sure, it'd wreak havoc on his life.Depends on his wife, honestly.But why, Mal?To what end?He hurt me badly.More than anything else that's ever happened in my life, he really, really screwed me up.But what kind of person does it makemeif I go for revenge nearly twenty years later?I don't need his money.I don't need his attention.I know you've grown up without a father, but—"
"But I don't need him either, and I never did."
