That one went straight past all the noise in my head and landed somewhere deeper, somewhere I hadn’t touched in a long time. I felt it before I even understood why. A hard pull under my ribs– like something buried was being forced back to the surface. I shifted where I sat, barely moving, just enough to ease some of the pressure building in my body. My palm pressed harder into the floorboards before I even realized it, fingers spreading against the wood like I needed something solid to hold onto.
“He…”I started, but the rest caught somewhere in my throat. The words felt tangled up in my head, and I had to force them together before they would come out.
“He didn’t talk about her the way I thought he would,”I said after a moment, slower now, like I was checking each word before letting it go.
“Not like… not like she was something he wanted to erase.”I pressed my teeth together, my eyes still fixed on the floor.“He said she was… sick.”The word sat wrong in my throat, so I exhaled through my nose.
“Not the kind you can fix,”I added.“The kind that changes how you see things. How you… react to them.”
My fingers pressed harder into the floor.
“He told me she was scared of me before I was even born.”That part had stayed with me since he said it.
“He said she thought something was wrong. That I wasn’t…”I swallowed, the rest catching for a second before I forced it through.
“Not right. That I wasn’t supposed to be there.”
My throat felt dry and I couldn’t look away from the floor.
“She tried to,”I cut myself off, my jaw locking for a second. I dragged a breath into my lungs and tried to keep hold of it before everything in me started slipping again.“To kill me. Get rid of me.”
That was all my father had said about that part. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe that was just the only part my brain had decided to hold onto.
“He didn’t talk about her like she was evil,”I continued, but the further I got into it, the deader my voice started to sound.
“He talked about her like… she didn’t know what was real anymore.”
Something pulled through my shoulders before I forced them still again.
“He said she looked at him sometimes and didn’t recognize him. And other times she looked at him like he was the only thing keeping everything from falling apart.”
Something in my face pulled tight, because I remembered exactly the way he’d said it. Like he’d already gone over it too many times in his own head and there was nothing left to prove. I swallowed again, tried to, but my throat stayed dry anyway.
“He told me about the night she left.”The words came out slower and heavier.“He said she waited. Until everything was quiet, until he was asleep.”
My finger dragged against the floor, back and forth, keeping me anchored while I said it.
“She took me and just… left.”
I could picture it. Not clearly, more like something I had built from what he told me. Pieces stuck together in a way that made sense even if I hadn’t been old enough to remember any of it.
“He didn’t hear the door,”I said.“Didn’t hear anything.”A breath slipped out of me, uneven.“He woke up and we were just… gone.”
The space between the words lingered, and I let it stay that way.
“He looked for us.”That word came out harsher than I expected. I frowned, the sentence felt wrong the moment it left my mouth.
“Not for a week. He kept looking. He said he went everywhere he could think of. Places she used to go, people she used to talk to. He kept thinking she’d calm down and come back.”
My hand pressed too hard into the floor and my fingertips turned white.
“He didn’t understand it yet.”
For some reason, my brain kept catching on that part and refusing to let it go.“He thought it was just… fear. That it would pass.”
I exhaled through my nose.
“But it didn’t and a few years later I was found abandoned in an apartment.”Something inside me dropped so hard it hurt.“She just left me there.”
