Chapter 37 Tigerlily
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Tigerlily
I’m holding the paperwork that explains why my mom’s in prison for life.
My hands are shaking. The paper crinkles between my fingers.
And I know that this is going to unfold itself now that my dad—that Damien—is under arrest. If he hasn’t been bailed out yet with all his connections, then I know it’s not good. Maybe he doesn’t have bail. Maybe they’re holding him without it.
I haven’t had the guts to look online. To check the court records online and see what charges are filed against him.
I think it’s better that I don’t know.
I read one line in the court documents. Just one line about witness testimony and coercion and a fourteen-year-old girl’s statement.
And my memory flashes.
To the exact moment Damien held me at gunpoint in my bedroom after the police left. To the moment he told me that if I didn’t do exactly as he said, if I didn’t memorize my story perfectly, he would blow out my brains. And he’d make me watch Zinnia die first.
I was fourteen years old.
I was sitting at the dinner table eating spaghetti when my mom left for work that night. It was a Tuesday. I remember because Tuesdays were always the worst for fighting.
Damien always hated when she went to work. He said that working as a bartender was a job for kids, not adults. That she should quit. That she should stay home where she belonged.
It was the number one reason they fought.
But my mom had worked at that bar for twenty years. She refused to quit. It’s where she met my biological father. It’s where she met Damien years later after my dad left.
After she walked out the door that night, Damien stared at us across the table.
“Hurry up,” he said.
I shoved a large bite into my mouth. Zinnia was just a toddler. She was supposed to be feeding herself, but she was too little to understand. Damien was supposed to help her, but he just watched her struggle.
He always expected too much of her.
She watched me and followed what I did. She shoved her tiny hands into the spaghetti and crammed it into her mouth.
Then we followed Damien to the car.
I buckled Zinnia into her car seat and made sure the straps were tight. I sat next to her in the back while Damien raced down the street.
He went in the direction my mom always drives to work.
By the time we pulled up to her workplace, I saw her standing in the parking lot under the yellow streetlight.
And she wasn’t alone.
“Motherfucker,” Damien snapped when he pulled up behind her car.
The shock on my mom’s face told me something was wrong.
Damien got out of the car and started yelling at both of them.
I was so focused on my mom’s expression that I didn’t realize who the man was at first.
Then he turned his head.
My real dad.
“Dad?” I whispered.
He stepped in front of my mom, trying to protect her from Damien’s rage.
My mom got into our car, into the passenger seat, and her face was pale. Her hands were shaking.
Zinnia started crying hysterically at the sight of her.
My mom turned around. “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” She looked at me. “It’s okay, Lily.”
Damien got into the driver’s seat and grabbed my mom by the hair. He yanked her head back hard.
My real dad banged on the window. Over and over and over. His fists hit the glass so hard I thought it would shatter.
Then Damien drove off, still screaming, still gripping my mom’s hair.
When we got back to the house, Damien dragged my mom inside by her arm.
I had to get Zinnia out of her car seat, but I couldn’t get the buckle to loosen. She was screaming. Thrashing. I was crying and pulling at the plastic clip, but my hands wouldn’t work right.
Then I saw my dad’s car pull up in the driveway behind us.
He stormed toward the house. He didn’t notice me and Zinnia still in the car.
By the time I got her unbuckled, my hands were cramping. I held her against my chest and walked toward the house.
I saw my mom screaming at Damien to stop.
Damien was on top of my dad, beating him. His fists were connecting with his face over and over. But he stopped when I walked into the room.
I kept my eyes on Damien as my mom and dad turned to look at us.
My mom dropped to her knees. “Go to your room. Take Zinni to your room and lock the door. Now, Lily. Now.”
Then I heard the click.
Metal against metal.
Damien was pointing a gun at my mom.
“You don’t get to keep the girls,” he said.
My mom stood slowly. “These are my kids, Damien!”
He shook his head. “They’re my daughters too.” Then he swung the gun toward my dad to keep him from getting closer. “Put your hands up.”
My dad raised his hands.
Damien pointed the gun between them. Back and forth. Like he couldn’t decide who to shoot first.
“Look at you two! Perfect fucking family!”
“In case you don’t remember, Damien,” my mom said carefully, “I’m married to you.”
“And you just want to fuck him behind my back?”
My mom stayed quiet.
Damien laughed. It was sharp. Bitter. “You think I’m so fucking stupid, don’t you? I know you’ve been sleeping with him.”
“Damien,” my mom took a step forward. “Don’t do this.”
“You’ve given me no fucking choice!”
He aimed the gun directly at her chest.
“No!” she screamed.
My dad stepped in front of her.
The gunshot was so loud it stripped everything else away.
My ears rang. High-pitched and constant.
I watched my dad take the bullet. Watched his body jerk backward. Watched him fall.
“No!” My mom screamed. “No, no, no!”
My dad collapsed against her. Blood spreading across his chest.
She tried to hold him up, but he was too heavy. They both went down.
Zinnia was crying into my shoulder, covering her ears with her tiny hands.
Damien walked into the kitchen like nothing happened. He grabbed a paper towel and wiped down the gun carefully.
Then he walked back over. “Here. Take it.”
My mom looked up at him. Her face was streaked with tears. She grabbed the gun and pointed it at Damien with shaking hands.
“What did you do! What did you do!” she cried.
He put his hands up. “Are you really going to shoot me in front of your daughters?”
She turned around and remembered we were standing there.
She dropped the gun and ran toward us.
“So this is what we’re going to do, Laura,” Damien said. His voice was cold. “Your ex here has been stalking you. Wouldn’t leave you alone. He broke in—”
“Fuck you!” she screamed. She spun around. “Lily! Get your sister into the bedroom right now!”
I couldn’t move.
My legs wouldn’t work. My body was frozen.
My dad was lying on the ground, dead. His blood… it was…
She turned to yell at me again, and Damien grabbed her by the hair and forced her to look at my dad.
“You’re going to listen to me closely, Laura. You shot your lover. You killed him. You’re the one going to prison.”
“No!” She tried to pull away.
He forced her to face us. He made her look at me and Zinnia.
“Your daughters are going to be on my side. Aren’t you, Lily?”
My teeth were chattering even though I wasn’t cold.
“Aren’t you, Lily?” He screamed it this time.
I nodded, terrified he was going to hurt my mom next.
“So when the police come, who killed your dad?”
I looked at my mom. She was shaking her head, mouthing the word no. But I wasn’t going to go up against Damien, not when he clearly doesn’t have any remorse.
“Mom did,” I whispered.
“Good girl.” He turned back to my mom. He forced her to look at my dad’s body on the ground. “You did this!”
“No!”
“You did this! You did this, Laura! You fucking did this!”
I heard the sirens in the distance, getting closer.
Damien threw her to the ground, picked up me and Zinnia, and carried us outside.
“She shot him! She shot him!” he screamed to the police as they pulled up.
They drew their guns and rushed into the house.
I caught a glimpse of my mom crying over my dad’s body before they slammed her against the ground and handcuffed her.
Another police car showed up, and those officers approached us.
“Is everyone alright?”
Damien nodded, his voice breaking like he was devastated. “My wife. She shot him.”
He squeezed my shoulder tighter. So much that it hurt.
So, I nodded.
My mom walked out of the house in handcuffs. Her face was covered in blood. Her clothes were soaked with it.
I ran toward her. “Mom!”
Zinnia clung to me. She didn’t even reach for my mom.
“Mom. Mom,” I cried.
“Lily, listen to me.” Her voice was urgent and desperate. “He’s not going to get away with this. Listen to me, honey. I love you. This is a mistake. It’s a mistake.”
They put her in the back of the patrol car.
She kept repeating it over and over. “It’s a mistake. It’s a mistake. I didn’t do it! I didn’t! You have to believe me! My girls!”
“Mom,” I sobbed.
Damien came up behind me and gripped my shoulder. He squeezed me again. “It’s going to be okay, Lily. Zinnia, it’s going to be okay.”
But it wasn’t okay.
Because it was a lie.
And my mom went to prison for life.
And my real dad was dead.
And Damien got everything he wanted.
I stare down at the court documents now. The truth was laid out in legal language, witness statements, and evidence that was never questioned because a fourteen-year-old girl said her mom did it.
And I realize I’ve been protecting a murderer for six years.
I’ve been calling him dad.
I’ve been living in his house.
I’ve been letting him control me because I was too scared to remember what really happened that night.
But I remember now.
And I can’t keep lying anymore.