AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Beatings for the smallest things, like placing the knife in the wrong direction at dinner. He was very controlling. Very precise. And violent.” Darby’s shoulders lifted and then drooped. “He was also a cop. A corrupt cop, as it turns out.”
“No, really?”
“Yes. He’s the one in the news recently. I’m sure you’ve seen the story. Benji Hanes.” He said this casually, as if it weren’t a big deal.
This confession was a punch in the stomach and drained me of breath. “Oh, Darby. I’m sorry.” How had I not known this? Did anyone in our circle know?
As if I’d asked the question out loud, he said, “I hadn’t told anyone who I am until recently.”
“Who have you told? I was surprised to find that I wished I was the only one he’d confessed to. Selfish, I know, but I’d felt such intimacy with him. As if I were special to him. The only one he trusted. I tossed those selfish thoughts aside and returned my attention to him.
“I told the guys. Just recently. It felt like my secret was keeping me from true friendships. Do you understand what I mean?”
“A thousand percent.” How could we expect to truly connect with others if we didn’t share where we came from and how it had shaped us? Yet, there seemed to be an instinct in most of us to show people only what they wanted to see or that we thought they could handle. When, in fact, the only way to achieve closeness with others was to show them who we really were, flaws and past hurts and demons. Authenticity, perhaps, was the secret to intimacy. Why then, did we run from it? Fear, I thought. Of not being enough or weak or simply too damaged to be lovable.
“I haven’t spoken to my dad since I left for college,” Darby said. “When I turned eighteen, I officially took my mother’s maiden name.” He looked away from me, his eyes glassy. He was remembering the past, I thought. All the hurts and scars from those days were suddenly apparent to me as if they were physically visible.
Without thinking, I reached across the table and took one of his hands. “It must have been so hard to keep all this in, to not let anyone know.”
“It wasn’t hard until his picture was splashed all over the news for the last year. I’ve tried to ignore it all and live my own life, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.”
“I understand. My dad’s not in the public eye, and I still find it hard to let go of him and just be. There’s this anger and bitterness that just sticks to me, no matter how hard I try to focus on the positive.”
“We’ve built lives, you know,” Darby said softly. “Made our own way without them.”
“Yeah, but they’re still in here.” I tapped the side of my head. “I can’t tell you how often I hear his voice criticizing my choices. He never hit us, but he could pack a mean punch with a few choice sentences. He’s a lawyer.” As if that explained everything. There were plenty of good lawyers out there. Not all of them used words as weapons. “He has a way of making me feel small the moment he opens his mouth.”
“Yeah.” Darby nodded, his mouth downturned into a frown. This was not a natural state for him. He should be smiling, showing off those half-dimples. I’d like to make him smile, I realized. Tonight and all the ones after this.No, no. Don’t get caught up thinking you could save him or that he would even want you to, I silently told myself.
“I’m glad you told me,” I said, taking my hand back to my lap. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
“No, there’s nothing to do. It’s all on me. I have to figure out a way to live with who I am and where I came from.”
“His behavior is not who you are. You’re nothing like him.”
“Most days I feel that way.” He placed his knife and fork onto his empty plate, making them into an X shape. “But sometimes I wonder if he’s in here and just not come out yet.”
“That seems unlikely. You would know by now. Maybe you would have chosen to be a cop instead of a teacher, for example.”
His mouth twitched into a smile, but his eyes remained cloudy and troubled. “He ridiculed me when I told him I was going to be an English major and teach school. You can’t imagine the things he said.”
“I can, actually. My dad said the same kinds of things to Trey and me when we told him what we wanted to do. Dad seemed to assume that Trey, at least, would become an attorney and a partner at the firm, working twenty-hour days like he had when we were young. I don’t think he ever thought highly enough of me that I’d be anything other than a wife and mother. He said that once about my cooking. What a good wife I would make to a high-powered man, creating a home and lifestyle that would be the envy of all his friends. That was how he saw me. An accessory to a man. One whose only goal was to make her husband look good. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. If that’s what a woman wants, then she should go for it, but I have to have my own way of making money, my own business that’s separate from a man.”
“So that what happened to your mom doesn’t happen to you?” Darby asked softly.
“Yeah, I can’t ever let that happen. I can’t ever give the power over my life to someone else.” I pushed back my hair. “But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about you.”
“There’s nothing else to say. You know the truth now.” He rose to his feet and cleared both our plates, putting them in the sink.
“Did you think knowing who your dad is would make me dislike you?” I asked.
He slowly turned from the sink to face me. “Not dislike exactly. I was afraid you might see me in a new way. The son of a person like that—maybe you wouldn’t want that in your life.”
“From what I can see, you’re nothing like him. Anyway, you’re you, not him. Who raised you makes no difference to me. It’s what you did after you got away from him that matters.”
He was quiet for a moment before striding across the kitchen toward me. I froze, unsure what was about to happen. His eyes seemed to seek answers in my face. It was too intense. I had to look away.
He leaned his backside against the corner of the table, standing close to my chair. “You’re killing me here, Jamie Wattson.”
