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Mom sits on the porch, fingers wrapped around a cup of coffee, her eyes closed. She drinks in the rays of the sun as it slowly makes its way toward the horizon.
“Are you coming?” I ask.
When she opens her eyes, they fall on the duffel bag before she looks up at me.
“You’re really leaving,” she says softly.
“I told you I won’t stay. Come with me.”
She shakes her head and her eyes shimmer. “I can’t.”
“Fine,” I say, and I step down from the porch and start walking, following the dirt part to the pedestrian gate that leads onto the property.
I don’t look back. I don’t want to see my mom crying because I’m leaving. I don’t want to see her bruised face.
I face forward and march the distance into town. When I pass the bar, I hear my dad, laughing the loudest, already drunk. He’ll be at the pub until the bartender cuts him off before he stumbles home.
And then… God knows what then. But I won’t be there to see it.
A pang shoots into my chest. I left her there to deal with whatever hell will rain down on her when Dad comes back. But she wouldn’t leave. And I won’t stay.
I can’t do anything else. I can’t think about what she’ll go through, it will only make me feel guilty.
I have to save myself. I have to do the right thing. Even if she won’t.
What will happen to her now?
I don’t know.
And I don’t want to.
The memory shakes me. I try not to think about my past. I don’t want to wonder what he did that night. Or all the nights after. I can’t worry if he punished her for me leaving.
If I do, I’ll never sleep. The guilt that I left her behind already eats away at my insides, making me feel like a dick for walking away when she needed me. But it’s not my job to protect her. And she refused to come with me.
I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Is she still alive? Austin Howe will find that out for me.
I hope she is so that I can make this right. And I hope she’s rid of him, that she did end up leaving him.
Another part of me hopes Howe won’t find her. What if he finds out the worst? I don’t know if I can deal with that.
My dad is the reason I won’t marry. He’s the reason I won’t have children. I can’t bring them into a life where people are like that. And my anger scares me. When I get angry, everything turns red. What if I’m exactly like him? What if I hurt the people I love? No one deserves to be treated that way.
My phone rings, and I’m glad for the interruption. I don’t want to be stuck in my mind. I can’t deal with my thoughts sometimes.
“Tell me we’re still on for our retreat at the end of the month,” Gregory Dillon says. “The wife can’t stop talking about it.”
I laugh. Dillon is on my board of directors. Once a year, I book a retreat for all my directors to keep them happy. They bring their wives and we spare no expense. We spend time together and create bonds that translate into our work together when we return to reality.
“Of course, we’re still on,” I say.
“Good, good. It’s going to be a good one.”
“You bet.”
“You should bring someone, you know,” Dillon says.
“Like who?”
