Chapter 9
Oakley
Icouldn’t breathe. Dad’s request sucked all the oxygen from the room. Even from prison, four years later, he still had the power to bulldoze my life.
He wanted to see my mum. Why? Why now, just before the trial was going to start? Did he want to attempt talking his way out of it, getting Mum on side, and convincing her that he had no idea what Frank was doing to me.
She would never believe him.
I sucked in a heavy breath that felt like inhaling water… I was going down.
“Hey!” Cole said. I couldn’t see him, couldn’t see anything but dots dancing around in front of my face, but I felt him. Strong arms held me upright. Without him, my face would have been in the tile.
“Breathe, baby,” he said, cupping my cheek with the hand that wasn’t stopping me from falling. “Look at me. You’re okay. I’ve got you.”
It took a second, but the world eventually came back into sharp focus, and I blinked away memories I’d tried to bury. If only they would stay six feet under.
“I’m good,” I said. He dropped his hand, leaving his arm around me, and I wasn’t sure if he was still worried or if he just wanted to keep touching me. Play fighting with him in his garage was the most contact we’d had since I got back. I was a little addicted, too, and not ready to give it up.
“Oakley, what happened?” Mum asked.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” Mum and Cole all said in unison.
“I’m not going. You know that, don’t you?
I don’t ever want to see that man again.
” Mum pulled me away from Cole and into one of those hugs that made me feel like a little girl again.
It also took my breath away. Literally, because she squeezed the freaking life out of me.
“You can if you want. I understand if you do. He was your husband, and I know you don’t like to talk about him, but you must have questions. ”
This trip wasn’t only about me facing them, it was for Mum and Jasper, too. If a visit was what she needed, then I didn’t see how it was any different to me standing up in court.
“If I sat across a table from him, that close, I will kill him.” His voice was cold and hard.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“What’s going on in here? Oh, hey, Cole. Fancy seeing you in the same place as my sis—”
“Max wants to see Sarah,” Cole said, and I knew there were other things he wanted to say, but he was keeping his anger in check.
“What the fuck!” Jasper spat, his eyes sliding to Mum. “Tell me you’re not.”
“Of course, I’m not.”
“Good! Why can’t that sick bastard just fucking leave us alone? What the hell does he want, anyway?” he snapped, the anger radiating from his body.
“It doesn’t matter. She’s not going,” Cole said.
“It does matter,” he countered. “What the hell is going through his sick mind? Does he think Mum would actually want to see him? What was he going to say to her? Oh, sorry for selling our daughter—”
I cringed and squeezed my eyes closed, as if that would prevent me from hearing what Jasper was about to say.
“That’s enough, Jasper!” Mum snapped.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
Jasper groaned. “Shit. I’m sorry, Oakley.”
“It’s fine,” I replied, swallowing a bout of nausea. “Look, I’m tired. I’m going to lay down for a while.”
“Are you sure you’re okay, honey? I don’t want to leave you alone if you’re upset, and it’s fine to be upset around us. Lord knows, Jasper and I have had our vulnerable moments… it’s okay for you to have them, too.”
Since we heard about the court date, I’d put a wall up.
It took so long to go to trial as more and more came out of the woodwork and detectives had to untangle the messy web of a large paedophile ring.
I’d cried so much, part in frustration and part for what had happened to me.
But it did give me a lot of time to heal.
As soon as Linda called me to let me know a date had been set, I could feel the waves of depression ready to sweep me up. So, I had pushed it away and pretended.
Only problem was, reality had a nasty habit of catching up with you.
“Right now, I just need some rest,” I told her. “I’ll do the feelings part later, I promise.”
My therapist wasn’t sold on my current plan, but I didn’t know how to get through it any other way.
“Call me if you need to talk,” Cole whispered in my ear as he gave me a hug.
I ignored the intense stares as I left Mum, Jasper, and Cole downstairs. Shutting Lizzie’s bedroom door so I wouldn’t hear whatever they were undoubtedly saying about me, I changed into pyjamas and sank under my cover on the futon.
The metal springs protested nosily as my body moulded to the mattress.
Whatever Dad was doing, it had to be part of his plan. He wouldn’t just want to talk to Mum, randomly, after four years of nothing.
A thought that I rarely allowed myself to dwell on popped in my head, taunting and trying to smash down that brick wall.
What if they were found innocent?
Linda had said there was too much evidence, she was confident, but Dad had a good lawyer and a charming personality. He was the master at deception. Now he was sitting in his cell planning how he was going to manipulate the jury.
Would Dad have some believable excuse or elaborate story the jury would buy into?
I hoped not… but it wouldn’t surprise me.
No one saw it for eleven years, and some of those people lived in the same house. If he could fool them, what was preventing him from fooling strangers?
I laid awake until past midnight. There was no Lizzie, so I assumed she was out with friends. Maybe Ali told her about what’d happened today, and Lizzie was giving me space.
This was her room. I didn’t want her feeling like she had to stay away.
Tossing over again, I sighed in frustration and gave up and grabbed my phone. Sleep wasn’t coming yet, which might be good because there was probably a nightmare waiting for me.
Oakley: I can’t sleep. X
Cole: I could! What’s up? X
Oakley: I don’t know. Entertain me until I’m tired. X
I wished I could’ve seen his face when he read that.
Cole: Are you serious?? X
Oakley: Deadly. I still have questions. Has your favourite colour, food, music, movies, hobbies, books changed? X
Cole: You’re still my favourite everything… now let me sleep, woman! X
I bit my lip, smiling into the dark room. Okay, he could sleep.
Oakley: Ditto. Night. X
Cole: Wouldn’t kill you to say it more. Night. X
Speaking to Cole had done the opposite of making me sleepy, so I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen, getting the shock of my life when Mum gasped.
“Jesus!” I placed my palm over my heart. “Mum, what are you doing in the dark?”
The only light came from a lamp by the sofa in the next room. The doors were open, so it wasn’t pitch black, but this wasn’t normal.
“Everything okay, sweetheart?”
“Yeah, just couldn’t sleep. What about you?”
“Same.”
Drinking tea at almost one in the morning wasn’t a good sign. Dad sending that request was messing with her head.
“Can we talk, or are you going to bed?” I asked.
“Of course, we can talk. I’ll make us a drink. This one’s cold now, anyway.”
The mug was still full when she got up and moved past me.
“Are you okay, Mum?”
She nodded and busied herself with making hot chocolates.
“You always tell me I can talk to you,” I added.
“That’s because you can,” she said, her weak smile like a knife to my heart. She was struggling.
“And you can talk to me.”
“I’m all right, Oakley.”
“You don’t want to lay anything so heavy on me, I get that, but they win if we drift apart. We’ve had to have discussions that most families never have to have. It’s hard… really fucking hard, but it’s important.”
She placed two mugs down on the table and sat beside me, tears in her tired eyes, and lips pressed into a thin line.
“You haven’t spoken to us in months.” Ducking her head, she took a breath at the immature reply. You didn’t so I won’t… That wasn’t Mum’s style.
Which made me more worried about her.
“How about we both have an honest conversation now?” I asked, partly hoping she would refuse. I wanted her to talk about what she was dealing with, but I didn’t want to talk about my own stuff.
I was holding that in for court. There were only so many times I could talk about it before I drowned.
“All right,” she replied with a shaky breath.
I sipped my hot chocolate and waited for her to start. She stared at her drink, watching the steam rise from the surface. It was going to be up to me to kick things off.
“Mum, I know you said you didn’t want to see him, but if you’re only doing that because of me, then please rethink. You were married for a long time, together most of your life, so I understand if there are things you need to talk to him about. It would make sense if you had things to say to him.”
Sometimes I wanted to. I wasn’t allowed, being the accuser, but I did want to ask him why and how.
How could you allow someone to hurt your child?
He never touched me, not once, but he was there every time.
How?
“Oakley, I appreciate you thinking of me, but I hate that man. I don’t want to give him another second of my life.
You won’t understand until you’re a mother yourself, but when someone hurts your child…
” She raked in a breath. “I want to kill them. I stopped loving him the second I found out what he’d done.
If I had the opportunity, I would pull the trigger on him myself. ”
I covered my mouth with my hand. The memory of the first time Dad warned me to stay quiet because no one would believe me… because it would kill Mum.
I’d taken everything so literally, frozen by fear of what’d just happened to me and losing my mum.
Fear was what consumed me for most of my childhood, and in seconds, Mum had blown that away. If I’d spoken up sooner…
“I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you.” A tear slid down her face, mercifully bringing me back to the present.
I reached across and held her hand. “If I’m not allowed to apologise, then neither are you.”
She smiled at me with watery eyes. “I don’t understand how you’re not angry with me.”