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Several moments later, I heard the back patio door open and close. “It’s cold out, Kit Kat. You shouldn’t be out in the weather.”
I looked up at the snow falling around me. I’d never had a white Christmas. At least not that I remembered, anyway.
“I have on a coat. I’ll be fine,” I told him, even though the wind whipped at us viciously.
Conrad wrapped his arms around me and said, “I’m so happy you’ve come home.”
I pulled out of his embrace, taking several steps away from him. “Don’t do that,” I warned him.
“You refuse to talk with me. You won’t let me comfort you or care for you. What do you want from me, Katie?”
My nostrils flared widely, making my nose and eyes burn with indignation. “What I’ve always wanted but never fucking gotten. An explanation!”
His eyes narrowed, and his forehead creased. “An explanation for what exactly.”
“Did you ever worry about me? Did you think about me? Did you ever fuckingloveme?” I yelled at him.
How can he not know what I need an explanation for?
He started to respond, but I wasn’t done.
“You let her take me with her! You knew what she was like, and you let her take me.” My voice climbed in volume and octaves until I was shrieking at him like a banshee.
He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and stared at me silently.
This silence angered me. And that anger burned through my mind, wiping out all the walls I’d built up over the years and incinerating all the boxes I’d shoved my trauma into. It all came tumbling out.
“There were days when I was still in grade school that I’d come home to an empty house after having gotten myself up and ready for school. There was never any food, and the electricity andwater were hardly ever on two months in a row. Before I was in middle school, I was stealing money from her purse to buy food and pay the bills. I wasn’t even ten years old the first time she stayed gone for the whole night. She was sitting at the table one morning when I got up for school. She demanded a kiss on the cheek before I walked out the door, and I didn’t see her again until I got home from school the next afternoon. By the time I was twelve, she was leaving me home alone all weekend. She would leave before I got home from school on Friday, and she wouldn’t drag herself back into the house until Monday sometime.”
“Katie…” Conrad said softly. His eyes glistened with tears.
“No. You are going to listen to every word I have to say, and then you are going to fuck the hell off. Do you know how many men she screwed? Sometimes there were more than one a night. Sometimes there were more than one at a time. And Lord have mercy, the walls in every rat trap we lived in were so thin I might as well have been in the room with them,” I cried.
Hot tears streamed down my cold, wind-chapped face as memory after memory I’d repressed came back to me now that the floodgates had been thrown open.
“The only time Roxy showed even a smidgeon of care or concern for me was when one of her fuckbuddies was caught leering at me. But even then, she just straddled his lap while she shoved her hand down his pants. I was petrified. I stood there, scared to fucking death to move. I stared at the clock on the wall, watching the seconds tick away while she jerked the guy off. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them, and he wasn’t paying her any attention. His eyes were glued to me the entire time. And when it was over, he offered Roxy a thousand dollars for me. She didn’t bat an eye. She just countered with five thousand, but the guylaughed at her and said I wouldn’t be worth it, given how bad Roxy was in bed.”
Conrad made a choking sound but otherwise remained still and quiet.
“I was fifteen,” I said as I brushed the tears on my face away.
“Why…” he began.
“Why what?” I demanded angrily.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Conrad asked.
“Why didn’t you ever ask? It’s your responsibility as a parent to ensure my safety. You didn’t fucking call me that year except for my birthday. So why would I confide in you? You didn’t put forth any fucking effort to show me I could trust you. That you would have my back,” I replied to him.
I pointed to the house. “You have been more of a father to Hayden and Evan and Ava than you ever have to your other children or to me. Oh, and by the way, those other children of yours twisted up your stupidity and neglect into a big old bottle of hate and vengeance against me. Caleb may have been the one who raped me, but Nina, your daughter,my sister, pushed him to it. She egged him on until his obsession with me turned into something crazy and sinister. Did you know she watched him rape me? They both did. My own brother and sister stood by and watched me be raped. And if that wasn’t enough, she tortured Jackson with their help. She carved her name into him!”
“Katie!”
A smile, albeit a small one, tugged at my mouth at the sound of Jackson yelling my name before the sound of multiple car doors slamming filled the cold winter sky.
“That man calling my name…he is the first man who has ever been there for me. He has stood by me: him and his family. They have done everything they can to ensure our safety, well-being, and happiness while we have fought to stay alive. He is the best man I know, and he comes from a long line of good men and women. People who know what family is about. People who walked away from their spouses and children to help a family member in need because they knew without a shadow of a doubt that the gesture would be returned without hesitation. You couldn’t even be bothered to check in on me while I was growing up, much less come visit me to see the conditions in which your child was being raised. But there is one thing I will be forever grateful to you for. One reason and one reason only. Your invitation to visit put me on the path to Jackson.”
“Darlin’, you okay?” Jackson called as he came toward me, never stopping or slowing down until he pulled me into his arms.
