While shadowing the orderlies race down the corridor, Dr. Falgar shakes his head. “It is out of your hands now.” He pushes through the flappy doors where the operating rooms are located before he shifts on his feet to face Dr. Avery. “Call her family. Better to be safe than sorry.”
2
Demi
The noise of children laughing cracks my lips into a smile. They sound truly happy like their skulls aren’t throbbing as intensely as mine. I know where I am, but I feel like I’m floating instead of walking. My steps through the living room of my childhood home don’t make a sound. They’re lithe and free, almost as unrestricted as I felt at Seaforth Academy.
My father didn’t have the funds to send me to a fancy school. The only reason I attended boarding school was because I was safer there than I was here. This property is owned by my uncle. It’s one of many on his long list of properties.
You’d think my parents would have been rolling in money since they didn’t have to pay rent or a mortgage, but that was far from the truth. They may not have had any debt, however, the ones they amassed with my uncle cost more than anything. He owned their souls. Not even my father’s debt was relinquished when he died.
“Daddy,” I choke out with a sob when my entrance into the kitchen at the back of the derelict space occurs with an image of my father sitting behind a cracked wooden table.
I shouldn’t be surprised to find him here. Our family home wasn’t big enough for a formal dining room, so we always ate in the kitchen. My dad loved to cook, but since that was theone thing my mother did without fault, most of our time together as a family was spent in the kitchen of my childhood home.
My father commanded the kitchen at Petretti’s. It was where my love of cooking flourished, but here, in this tiny, over-spiced space, he acted as if he couldn’t tell the difference between cuts of steak. He absorbed everything my mother told him while peering at her as if she was the sun, and she soaked up his attention like it didn’t occur every day.
Hesitation makes itself known with my stomach when I step around the wooden dinette squashed against the side wall of the kitchen. The happy squeals of a toddler jingling in my ears aren’t coming from me, the only child in this house. They’re coming from a little girl my father is bouncing on his knee.
I’m on my knees in front of my dad, tickling the fair-haired girl’s tummy. I must be around three or four. My knee is missing the graze it got when I assured my father I could ride my bike without training wheels. I discovered I couldn’t when I crashed into the single garage door at the front of my childhood home and busted my knee. It was the same knee I grazed when I was pushed over by a bully, and the same knee I picked at to secure Maddox’s attention for five minutes at a time.
I cried when I picked at the scab enough to make it bleed, but Maddox and I almost always made it to the nurse’s office at Seaforth before one of his brother’s arrived to chaperone the rest of our exchange.
The time alone with Maddox compensated for a scarred knee because I truly believed an ugly kneecap would be the worst thing I’d endure if my crush weren’t reciprocated. I had no clue how naïve I was until my fascination with a Walsh family member reached my uncle’s ears. He saw benefits in our friendship from the get-go, and he wasn’t ashamed to announce them.
Regretfully for me, but also thankfully, my uncle wasn’t the only one who noticed my year-long crush. Maddox’s brothers were only a couple of years older than us, but they were mature enough to know the best way to protect their brother was to keep him as far away from me as possible. We were kept at arm’s length since the day my uncle arrived to collect me from school instead of my mother, then the Walsh prolonged gawks occurred not long after that.
My thoughts return to the present—well, to the memories in my head in the present—when my mother’s voice trickles into my ears. “Demi, why don’t you go get Kaylee’s blanket. It’s a little chilly today.”
Kaylee, I murmur to myself, certain I’ve heard the name before, but unsure why it stabs my heart with more pain than knowing I’ll eventually wake from my dream, leaving my parents behind.
When my younger self leaps to her feet with a brisk nod of her head, instincts have me wanting to follow her, but for some reason, my feet remain rooted where they are. It’s for the best. If I had gone with my instincts, I would have missed my mother ripping Kaylee out of my father’s arm like her aggression didn’t swap Kaylee’s happy coos for wailing sobs. “Give her to me. You’re spoiling her!”
After settling Kaylee’s wails by tickling her feet, my father replies, “You can’t spoil a baby, Monica. There’s no such thing.”
Shetskshim as if she hates him. I’m surprised she has the gall. My dad was a gentle giant, but he still had the Petretti last name. That alone usually had people pulling into line.
I step back in shock when my mother sneers out, “You can when she isn’t your child to ruin. You heard what he said. He could come back at any moment.”
“I’m trying, Mon—”
My mother whips around so fast, Kaylee squeals like she’s riding a rollercoaster. “You’re not trying enough! You’venevertried enough!” Her chest heaves as tears swamp her eyes. “If it weren’t for him—”
“Him.” My father stands from his chair with an aggressive edge I never witnessed as a child. “Heis the reason you were there.Healmost took her away from you.Istopped him from doing that.Me,Monica. Yet you still hate me like I gave you away as easily ashedid.”
He removes a red-faced Kaylee from Mom’s arms before placing her into a highchair butting against the kitchen table. With how much tension is hanging in the air, the last thing I anticipate my father to do is pull my mother into his arms. He dries her tears like her cruelness is excusable before he promises Mom that she made the right decision picking him.
My mother’s tears are barely settled when my younger self re-enters the kitchen. My father is quick to remove the devastation from his face, but even my three-year-old self notices the change in his demeanor. Instead of moving for Kaylee to settle her whimpers with her favorite blankie or to hug my upset mother, she curls her arms around my daddy’s thigh and burrows her head into his winter jacket.
When he bobs down to her level, his eyes are as gentle as the man I will forever remember. He stares like he truly loves her while silent promise after silent promise projects from his kind eyes. He pledged to protect my mother from being hurt again. Mine centers around me not being hurt to begin with.
I relish our little bubble of peace for five seconds before the heart-tugging scene fades to black like the movie in my head ran out of film.
I’m not left in the dark for long. Just as fast as the first scene faded, another one starts. This one is nowhere near as heartfelt as the previous one. My younger self is screaming blue murder while clawing her nails into my father’s thigh.
“Daddy!” she cries on repeat when two men in long black coats attempt to wrench her away from him. They tug on her ankles, unrepentant that they’re close to snapping her tiny bones. I’m older than I was in the last montage but only by a year or two.
The old brown couch in the middle of the room announces this is the living room of my childhood home, but the lack of worry on my mother’s face would have you convinced otherwise. Her expression is neutral. Not even the slightest bit of gloss is seen in her eyes.
