26. Summer #3
He heard the way my father spoke down to me, how horrible he was, and he always turned a blind eye. He might not have directly seen him hit me, but he saw the marks over the years. He said nothing. Coward. I don’t know if that makes him just as bad. But it makes him complicit.
“I, uh—I’ve seen you on TV,” he says. “You did it, huh.”
“Guess so.”
He nods slowly. “Look, I just wanted to—”
“Why are you here, Phil?” My voice is even. “You didn’t care when it mattered. I’m struggling to understand why you care now.”
“I didn’t know how bad it was. Not until Doug rang me that morning from the station—”
You bailed him out. I wish I could scream the words scratching at my throat, begging to escape. My hands ball into fists at my sides and I count to four before I respond.
“That’s not entirely true, is it.” It doesn’t come out as a question.
He hangs his head. Something akin to shame moves across his face.
“He was my brother,” he says. “A holy man. I told myself it wasn’t as bad as it looked. I thought it was only verbal.”
“Verbal abuse is okay, is it?”
He finally looks at me. His eyes are red around the edges. “I’m sorry, Summer. I know it doesn’t mean much now, but I am.”
The silence stretches between us.
I wish I could feel something hearing his apology—anger, resentment, satisfaction—but I just feel tired.
“You’re getting your half of his estate,” I say finally. “I won’t contest anything. Take what’s yours and that can be the end of it.”
His mouth opens, then closes.
“Is there anything else?”
He shakes his head. “No.” He retreats a step, pausing when his hand finds the porch railing. “For what it’s worth, I’ve had to live with not doing more.”
I hold his stare. “Yeah. You should have.”
He gives a small, defeated dip of his chin. Then he turns and walks back down the path toward his car.
I watch him go before closing the door quietly. I stand in the hallway for a moment, collecting myself before traipsing back to the kitchen.
“Was that who I think it was?” Addie questions, her tone cautious.
“Yeah,” I exhale, taking my seat. “It’s done now.”
Thank fuck.
Rhonda places her hand over mine. “You handled that beautifully. I’m proud of you, hon.”
Somewhere inside me, a heaviness I didn’t know I’d been carrying finally lifts. My heart squeezes with it. Tears—of relief, I realize—prick my eyes.
“Are you all right?” Addie asks.
My mouth hooks into a small smile. “Yeah. I actually am.” And I mean it.
Dr. Kularatne taught me that closure doesn’t always come from the person who owes it to you.
Sometimes you have to make it for yourself out of whatever you have available.
For a long time, I was satisfied with that.
I had to be. I didn’t think I’d ever receive closure.
I’d eventually accepted that I would never get what I deserved from my father—no acknowledgment, no apology—and I didn’t want it.
I didn’t ever want to see or hear from him again, so I’d learned to live with that absence.
But saying what I said to Phil without flinching, I felt something shift. It wasn’t a dramatic resolution or reckoning I might have imagined years ago. Just a quiet settling within me. Strength built from resilience. A peace that comes from realizing you’ve become someone your past couldn’t break.
Dr. Kularatne also told me that trauma has a way of turning victims into perpetrators.
That the wounded can become the wounder without ever meaning to, which is one of the things I was most afraid of.
I refuse to carry what he did to me into the way I move through the world, into the way I treat people.
I’ve worked too hard for that.
Even when I deserved justice, I chose not to become what hurt me. I could have fallen apart, but I held myself together. Not for him or anyone else. For me.
That’s mine, and my father and Phil can never have it.
For the first time in a long time, I’m left feeling content.
Together we map out what needs to happen before the house can go on the market. Lawyers. The attic. Donations. Contractors for the cosmetic work. And the garden—what materials I’ll need, what needs replacing, what can be saved. That one feels most important.
After Addie and Rhonda leave, insisting they’ll be back with fresh linens and more groceries, I beeline for the piano. My fingers dance over the keys without hesitation, replaying the chords I played before, as if seared into my muscle memory.
I don’t know how long I sit and play the same melody over and over, but by the time I stop, the light has shifted around me from warm amber to deep navy.
I’m so lost in it—the music looping, evolving, and stretching it into something new with every pass.
My hands still.
I begin to hum the last few bars. My head snaps up as the air rushes from my lungs.
“Oh my God.”
I stare at the piano, realizing that I just came up with a brand-new song.
The first one in twelve months.
I spent a year forcing words onto blank pages that refused to convey any feeling, convinced my creativity well had run dry.
But here, in this broken, haunted, painful house, something inside me has cracked open.