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Her face lost its color, and she swallowed a few times. “I’m so sorry you had to see and hear any of it. I should have moved you long before you could understand it.”
Yeah, instead, there was a production of it being my birthday gift to move to a grown-up room, and when I refused, she made me out to be the ungrateful daughter.
Oh, fun times.
“That’s not my point, Mom. Until today, you didn’t even acknowledge the things I heard or saw actually happened.”
“It isn’t something a mother wants to admit to her child, Sophia.”
I took a deep breath, knowing a level head was the only way to discuss this. “I remember how thin the walls between my room and the library were and the countless times Dad ordered you onto your knees so you could suck a man’s cock. I can remember times when you cried and begged him not to make you do something, and then later, you were screaming and moaning. I was too little to understand what was happening in the beginning.”
Mom looked away from me, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment.
“Then came the day it all cleared up. You know the day I’m talking about, don’t you, Mom? The reason you moved me into my big girl room.”
A tear slipped down Mom’s cheek, and she nodded.
“I’d come home from school because I was sick, and no one knew except the household staff. I saw Dad and another man fucking you while you lay on the pool table in the library.”
“You shouldn’t have been there. You should have stayed in your room.” She covered her face with her hands.
“And continued to listen to you crying and begging him not to make you do it? When everything grew silent, I thought he either killed you or dragged you away, so I went to see. I was a child who didn’t know better. These are my first experiences with sex.”
“I agreed to it. Bryant didn’t force me into it.”
“I was there, Mom. Who are you trying to convince? You or me? You fell in line with everything. You accepted the abuse. Why? It makes no sense.”
“What do you want me to say? My relationship with Bryant isn’t a storybook tale, but we understand each other. It’s how we remained strong for nearly forty years.”
“Can you at least admit to me that your marriage is toxic?”
She lifted a glass of water, drank the liquid, and nodded. “Fine. I admit it. It still doesn’t change the fact our marriage works for us. We have something greater than love. We’re bound by loyalty.”
I stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. My parents cheated on each other constantly. Hell, they had children with other people. What the fuck kind of loyalty was that?
“I don’t understand this loyalty you’re talking about.”
Mom gestured around her. “Bryant and I created this. The Morelli legacy and everything that comes under its umbrella, the money, power, status, this mansion, and so much more. For everything we did and all that I endured and sacrificed, I reap the rewards now.”
“What kind of marriage was that? You essentially sold your soul for material things. Are you honestly happy?”
She gave me a weary smile. “That’s all relative. When I married, I didn’t have much choice in the matter. It was a business deal between my father and Bryant. Within two years of saying my vows, I learned to accept my new world’s rules or let them run me over.”
“You were barely a mother to us.”
“I can’t change my behavior. To survive, I became the wife Bryant wanted me to become.”
I stared at Mom, seeing how vulnerable she seemed right now. Tears soaked her cheeks, and without her makeup, she wasn’t Sarah Morelli, the matriarch of the Morelli dynasty, but a woman molded into something she probably didn’t even like herself.
No matter how much I wanted to rage at her for hurting me throughout the years, I couldn’t do it. For the first time in my life, she was honest with me. She bared her soul to me.
She was a victim, just like those women in the shelter where I volunteered. So many of them told stories of the things they’d done that they wished they hadn’t. They’d lied, they’d hurt others, they’d stolen, but it was the only way to survive, to protect themselves and the ones they loved from mental and physical abuse.
At this moment, I truly understood the saying, you can love someone and hate them as a person. The statement summed up my feelings toward Dad.
“The reason I never wanted to marry was because of the way Dad treats you. He controls you with money, status, this life.” I rubbed my temples. “I refuse to marry unless it’s something deeper.”
“Who said you can’t have that?”
