Chapter 15 #2
I don’t think it’s just a dream, I think it’s a memory.
And pulling from memories for this exercise has unlocked something in my brain.
I was running from him, something wasn’t right.
She needed my help. My heart was racing, and I was overcome with fear, so I ran.
I needed to distract him, so he didn’t hurt her.
I made it halfway down the stairs when he grabbed me, jerking my arm.
But I fought back, I scratched him, and he let go.
That’s when I fell and landed on my arm, my wrist absorbing the impact from the fall. My mom told me I broke it at camp.
She lied to me, to protect me from him, from remembering this.
The room is silent, except for my hiccupping breaths as I try to compose myself and unpack the thoughts and images in my head.
Oh my gosh. It was my dad this whole time. I can’t believe it.
“Thank you, Miss Black. Excellent work today, everyone. Class is dismissed.”
I collapse onto my butt, crossing my legs and folding my body over them, making myself as small as I can as I try to come down from the rush of emotions.
I can hear people shuffling about, and I wait.
For my heart rate to come down. For the classroom to clear out.
For my mind to make sense of what just happened.
My father was abusive toward my mom. Once I was older, she’d shared stories of how he’d hurt her when I was a baby and how she’d escaped that life. But I don’t really have any memories of him. So why was everything so clear in my head just now as if I was recalling a memory and not a dream?
A hand clasps my shoulder, and I flinch, instantly pulled out of my bubble as I scramble away from my professor.
“I need to go.”
“Miss Black, that was…”
My cheeks flush and my heart races as mortification swallows me. I don’t need to know how he finishes that sentence. I stumble off the stage to grab my bag so I can escape when his next word stops me.
“Incredible.”
I’m frozen in place resisting the urge to look at him. I can’t face him, afraid of the pity I’d find in his eyes, so I run out of the classroom, not stopping until I make it back to my dorm.
I send my mom a quick text and throw a few things in an overnight bag and drive to her house. As soon as I walk in, my mom pulls me into her arms.
“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
She smells like cookies, and I let go of everything I’d been holding in on the way here. Years worth of fears in the form of nightmares that were shielding my brain from the truth I was too young to understand.
When I pull back there’s a comically large wet spot on her shoulder and chest from my tears and snot. “I’m sorry,” I say, pointing to it.
“It’s okay. Once I had kids, bodily liquids stopped grossing me out.” She laughs, and I relax as she leads me into the living room and I sink onto the couch. Why is it that there’s no couch more comfortable than the one in your childhood home?
“What happened?” my mom asks.
“I know what’s been causing the nightmares.”
She nods solemnly, not looking at all surprised.
“It was dad. My birth dad, not Hank.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I was really hoping you wouldn’t remember anything about him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what happened?” I can’t hide the hurt in my tone, and I cross my arms, willing myself to breathe.
“You were so little when it started. The abuse.” She shifts uncomfortably.
“I was hoping you were too young to have any memory of what you saw. And it was never directed at you, only me. You were around a year old when we left, and I didn’t see any point in bringing it up and upsetting or scaring you if you didn’t remember it anyway. ”
“But I was older in this memory, probably five or six. Not a baby.”
“Your dad was an alcoholic. The more he drank, the worse it got. He pushed me a few times, and I had some bruises. Nothing I could report him for without it being a he-said-she-said situation. I was still technically married to him when I met Hank.”
I stare at her in shock. “But you and Hank got married. I was like three at the wedding. There are pictures of me and Ethan.”
“It was for show. I was still technically married to your dad. He refused to grant me a divorce. We got legally married at the courthouse a few months after your dad, Matt, died in the car accident.”
Shaking my head, I try to make her words make sense in my brain. “I don’t understand.”
“I wanted to move on with my life, and Hank wanted to make me happy. The right man will do that for you. He was so different from your dad. Fun and adventurous and willing to go along with what I wanted. And it sounds dumb, but I wanted to play house. I wanted to get married and have his babies and have the family and the love I craved but never got from Matt.”
“But what does this have to do with the nightmare and the stairs?”
She looks away. “Around your fifth birthday, your dad reached out and wanted to see you. He told me he’d gotten sober, even showed me his AA chip.
Something didn’t feel right about it, but he spent months convincing me that he’d changed.
He wanted to spend time with you and have a relationship with you.
So I agreed to let you go over for visits as long as either Hank or I were present, and you were comfortable with it.
Everything went better than expected. He seemed to have healed, and you were begging to see him. ”
“What changed?”
“He told me that he’d give me the divorce if we could work out a custody agreement.
The visits were like a trial run to see how it’d go.
After a month, we agreed to let him have unsupervised visits.
Shortly after, you came home with a bruise on your shoulder.
I asked you about it, but you seemed fine and didn’t know how it got here.
It was weird, but kids get bruises, so I dismissed it.
Then you came home with bruises on your arms and legs.
And he said you fell down playing tag with some of the neighbor kids. ”
A flash of the figure in my dreams pops into my head, but this time the shadows are gone, and I see my father’s face.
“It’s him. I can see him now. He’s not in shadow anymore.”
Tears spill down my mom’s cheeks, and she buries her face in her hands.
“He… he hurt you, and I didn’t know. I thought he’d changed.
The last time I picked you up from his house, you had bruises on the side of your neck, and I lost it.
You were standing behind him at the top of the stairs.
I was halfway up the steps when I confronted him about the bruises.
He started shouting, and as he got closer, I could smell the alcohol on his breath and he reared back like he was going to hit me.
Suddenly, you ran toward me, and he grabbed your arm, throwing you down the few steps between us.
It all happened so fast. You hit your head on the wall, and I screamed for help.
Hank came running in from the car, and we got you to the hospital.
When you awoke with a concussion and a broken arm, you didn’t remember anything that had happened with your dad.
So we told you that you broke your arm at summer camp.
I should have told you the truth when you got older, but I didn’t think the nightmares were about him.
I should have known, I should have figured it out. I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
I pull her against me as she weeps against my chest. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
A shuddering sob overtakes her as I rub her back. “Really, Mom, it’s okay. I have a great therapist, I’m okay, I’m going to be okay. We’ll figure this out. Plus, there’s kind of someone that’s been helping me.”
She pulls back, searching for the truth in my eyes. Her shoulders visibly relax. “Is it a guy? I want to hear all about him.”
I tell her about Daddy Dom, sharing only vague details, referring to him as Don since I don’t know his name and don’t want to explain what a dom is to my mom.