Chapter 8
After getting back to Abel’s house, putting clothes on, and pacing around Abel’s room nervously for about thirty minutes trying to talk myself out of my next move, I went down to the kitchen where Abel and Rave were sitting at the dining roomtable.
Abel shoved up from the table when he saw me making my way into the room. “Well, I’ll leave you two to it for a bit. I’ll be right upstairs if you need me.” He squeezed my shoulder before heading up thestairs.
Words escaped me as I took the seat across the table from my father. I crossed my arms; my heart was guarded and I was completely prepared to keep those high ass walls inplace.
He cleared his throat. “Do you have questions forme?”
I shrugged. I had a million, but I had no idea where to start. I felt all of my walls growing higher with reinforced steel beingadded.
He shifted in his seat, went and grabbed two beers from the fridge, opened them, and set one down in front of me with a koozie on italready.
I smirked a little. “That’s the only way to really drink abeer.”
He took a sip. “Ah, yup. Nice and cold with a koozie on it. You don’t want cold hands or warmbeer.”
I laughed to myself, thumbing the tab on the top of the can. “I say thattoo.”
A little bit of the tension melted away as we sat in silence for a fewminutes.
Finally, Rave’s gruff voice broke the quiet. “How’d you know to find mehere?”
I looked into his eyes for the first time since I’d realized it was really him. “I got a letter from you when I was ten. The return address saidVilas.”
“You got one of my letters?” He perked up a little, shifting an old shoebox in front ofhim.
“One of? I only got one ever. Didn’t feel like writing to your kid was too important didyou?”
The crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes pulled down as concern spread across his face. “I wrote you hundreds of letters over the years. Here, let me showyou.”
He walked the large box over to my end of the table and took the seat next to mine. “They always got returned to me, but I kept trying. I’m glad one gotthrough.”
I opened the shoebox to see letter after letter unopened, some looking only weeks old, all with my mother’s chicken scratch on it:Wrong address. Return tosender.
My hearthurt.
“How could she?” My voice shook as tears stung myeyes.
Rave sat quietly as I tore through the box, getting down to what looked like files of legal papers dating up until my sixteenthbirthday.
“You fought forme?”
His head fell as tears started to drip slowly down his cheeks. “There wasn’t much I could do after your mom claimed I beat her that night I ran off. I got about thirty minutes down the road before cops were cuffing me and throwing me in jail for three days. There’s so much to tell you, sweetheart. But please just know that the moral of all this is I never wanted to leave you with her. I wanted to protect you and Ifailed.”
“I was so wrong all these years.” My head was spinning, trying to take it allin.
His hand landed on mine and I laced my fingers through his, gripping with all mymight.
“All those years wasted.” He coughed a little. “And look at you.” He tried to smile. “You’ve turned into such a beautiful woman. Abel is quite taken with you, and that says alot.”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks. “So whatnow?”
He leaned back in his chair. “We make up for losttime.”
* * *
We satand talked for hours, about the good and the bad. He told me how he’d actually been part of another chapter of the Unacceptables back in Arkansas and that was how he’d found his way to North Carolina. I went on to tell him about how my mother had spiraled out of control. I even told him that I used to be a stripper. I could tell the words stung, but he listened and didn’t showjudgement.
