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Susan puts a hand on his cheek. She has unshed tears in her eyes. “I admire your willingness to step up and take on this responsibility. But we need to remember that this isn’t a decision to be taken lightly.”
“I know it won’t be easy, but I’m willing to do whatever it takes to be there for this child and for you.”
“You have no idea how much this means to me,” Susan says. She’s started to cry now. “When I first found out, I freaked out. And then with Ed…I had lost all hope.”
“He’ll come around,” Artie says with conviction. I don’t think he will, but I don’t want to dishearten Susan either.
I take Susan’s hands in mine. “You need to understand why he is the way he is.”
Susan frowns. “What do you mean?”
Artie and I exchange a glance. He looks panicked, but at this point, I fear we have no choice. “I can’t tell you. But I can show you,” I say.
* * *
As the firstrays of morning light paint the sky, I take Susan by the hand and lead her outside, with Artie trailing behind us. The air is crisp and quiet. We walk in silence, each step echoing through the serene surroundings, our footsteps leaving imprints in the soft snow.
I guide Susan toward an abandoned cabin nestled among the trees, its walls weathered and crumbling.
“What is this place?” Susan says as she looks around, trying to understand. I notice the deep circles under her eyes that she tried her best to hide with concealer. I know she’s worried about Ed. She refused to budge from the couch until he came back last night.
Ed didn’t say a word and went straight to bed. I’m not sure how he’s going to react if he finds out I’ve brought Susan out here. Actually, I already have an inkling. He’s going to go ballistic, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Susan needs to know the truth. We have buried ourselves in the mountains for too long.
Pushing open the creaky door, we step inside. The interior is dilapidated, with dust-covered furniture and broken windows that allow slivers of sunlight to pierce through. We explore the rooms, our eyes tracing the outlines of long-abandoned furniture, the remnants of a life once lived.
The scent of aged wood lingers in the air, mingling with the faint aroma of pine from the trees that surround us. It’s a place frozen in time, a forgotten relic of the past.
I guide Susan further into the cabin, my gaze fixed on a particular spot in the room. It’s a small window framed by peeling paint and cracked glass. I motion for her to stand closer, gesturing to the breathtaking view beyond.
As Susan approaches the window, I can hear her breath catch in her throat. Before us lies a picturesque landscape, untouched by the chaos of the world. “It’s so beautiful,” she says.
The snow-covered mountains stretch majestically in the distance, their peaks glistening under the early morning sun.
“It’s one of my favorite places to be in the world,” I say softly.
“This place?” Susan says, sounding surprised.
I struggle to find the words to tell her the truth.
Artie takes a deep breath, his gaze fixed on Susan, and says, “Susan, this cabin…it holds a significant part of our past. We used to live here with our father.”
Susan’s eyes widen with surprise and curiosity. “Your father?” she asks, her voice filled with intrigue.
“Yes,” Artie says. I can hear the nostalgia and pain in his voice. “Our father was a complicated man. He brought us here after our mother…left us. We were too young to understand that. For years, he told us that she abandoned us. She couldn’t care for us. She realized after a few years that she didn’t want children, so she left us.”
“Oh, Artie,” Susan says. “That’s horrible.”
“Susan, our father…he was not the man we wanted him to be. He was abusive, both physically and emotionally. We lived in fear, never knowing when the next outburst would come. This cabin, once a sanctuary, became a prison of our own making. We endured years of torment, hoping for a change that never came,” Artie says. “We had rules in the house. There were no women allowed, ever. We weren’t allowed to date or see girls. It was just supposed to be the three of us. We made that pact years ago. That’s the only way we could protect ourselves.”
“So you can see how your arrival upended everything,” I say. “We didn’t wish for you, but we found you anyway.”
“And it’s the best thing that has ever happened to us,” Artie says.
I walk over to her. “But you have to understand something, Susan. It’s not easy to leave the darkness behind, to break free of the pain that has bound us since childhood. And Ed is the most vulnerable among us three.”
“He was the closest to our father. He wanted to be like him,” Artie says. “When we were younger, Ollie and I used to be beaten up because Ed tattled on us. Of course, now I don’t hold any grudges against him because we were only kids back then. He had this misplaced idea that Dad would love him if he was the perfect son, but it turned out he was wrong. The more he tried to please him, the more violent Dad would get.”
“Susan, out of the three of us, Ed was the one who suffered the most from our father’s abuse,” I say.
