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“I know. I also know that you’re the only person still breathing who I could ever fully trust.”
He leaned back in the swivel leather chair he was sitting in. “So what happened last night?”
“Believe it or not, I was out on a date.” I blushed, and his face didn’t change at all. “I’ve been seeing Jonovan for a couple of months.”
Daddy raised an eyebrow.
“No, we haven’t gone there yet, and he doesn’t know about my issues with intimacy.”
Daddy actually wasn’t aware of my sexual behavior either, not totally. He was aware that I freaked out whenever things transgressed too far with a man, and that I would shut it all down with a quickness. That I would break things off before they ever truly got going and make up an excuse why I didn’t want to continue spending time with them. He didn’t have a clue about my sadistic activities, though. I would’ve died if he ever found out, not because I felt that he would judge me. Like he’d just reminded me, his love for me was unconditional. I was too ashamed to admit that I was doing such things and, besides, the fact that I was beating people would only lend credence to his theory of me being a violent person. Having pets and them voluntarily allowing me to harm them had probably been the main reason why I hadn’t “snapped” sooner. I hadn’t had any “sessions” with them since that night in Hilton Head, so maybe that was part of the reason.
I voiced what I was thinking out loud. “I’m all fucked-up. Maybe I truly am bat-shit crazy like my mother.”
Daddy shook his head. “Your mother is a paranoid schizophrenic with a bipolar disorder.”
“Yes, and both of those disorders are genetic.”
“What you have is caused by childhood trauma. Two different things. Do you hear voices in your head?”
“No.”
“Do you constantly feel like people are plotting against you?”
“Well, no. But I do have mood swings, so maybe I’m bipolar.”
“You’re not, Ladonna. I had you tested for everything as a teenager and since those are genetic, you would’ve shown traits back then. They scanned your brain and none of that is the case.” He sighed. “But intermittent explosive disorder is definitely nothing to play with. I’ve done all that I can to protect you, but you coming here was not a wise decision. That’s become quite apparent.”
His phone rang. He listened for a brief moment and then hung up.
“She’s at Emory Hospital, but she’s alive and expected to recovery. She has several broken ribs and she almost lost her left eye, but they’ll be able to reattach it.”
I gasped and put my right hand over my mouth to stifle a scream.
“New York, tomorrow!” Daddy said. “Nikki can stay behind and close up the house, put it on the market.”
There was no sense in debating with him, when he was right. I needed to leave Atlanta before I did something even worse to Bianca. After all, I hated her the most. The inevitable was the inevitable.
“Okay, I’ll go back, but we can’t leave tomorrow. Maybe the next day. There’s another reason why I asked you to come here. I already ran this by Marcella earlier today and she’s agreed to help me.”
Daddy eyed me suspiciously. “Help you do what?”
“Talk to Momma!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sunday, November 11, 2012
7:12 a.m.
Smyrna, Georgia
The Broadmore Institute was on the outskirts of Atlanta. Momma had started out in an overcrowded, no-one-gave-a-damn psychiatric hospital. I had assumed she was still in that place until Daddy informed me that he’d had her moved a long time ago.
I was upset. I felt like she deserved the worst treatment that she could get. He reminded me that she had been born with mental issues, which led to her developing various substance addictions, which was culminated with being raped by her own uncle in the back of a car, which resulted in me. He felt like basic human kindness—and the fact that paying for it was a nonissue for him—dictated that he pay for her care.
Because he was doing that, and had made an additional huge donation to the place, getting in to see her was like shooting fish in a barrel instead of going through a lot of red tape and swearing people to secrecy. No one knew why Richard Sterling was paying for her care, and her confinement had happened so long ago, in another institution, that Daddy had simply paid to have her records doctored so that there was no mention of cutting up her daughter’s face. They knew that she was crazy and needed to be treated but that was all.
“She’s never told them about me?” I asked as we pulled up into the rear lot early on Sunday morning, when both staff and visitors would be at a minimum. “Why do they think we’re coming here?”
