I brace myself against the kitchen table for support. He has to be bluffing. “No, she wouldn’t do that.”
“She did. I’m still as much her husband as I am your father. At least according to the records.”
“That can’t be. She wouldn’t lie to me. She’s all I have.” My arms start to shake under my weight. I stand up tall, not letting him see my fear.
“Don’t go getting all dramatic. Did you really expect her to sit in this empty house all alone once you were gone? The day you drove away was the day she got her life back.” He walks over to the drawer and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
“I never expected her to stay single, but I also never wanted her to end up with you again either.” Why would she go back to him?
“Don’t you see, Sophie. It was you all along. You were the problem. You are the problem. Now, I have her back and if you don’t like it, you can stay elsewhere. In fact, that might be a better idea regardless. Who knows what bullshit you’ll try to fill her head with this time.”
I shake my head back and forth. He’s talking nonsense. He has to be. This is my mom we’re talking about. The only parent who has ever shown me an ounce of love.
“Do you live here again too?” I question. I don’t know why I ask. Each response just upsets me more than the last.
“Not officially, no. But I’m here enough.”
I shouldn’t say it, but I risk it anyway. That’s how much I hate this man. “Do you still cheat on her too?”
He sets his beer on the edge of the counter and rests his right leg over his left. Crossing his arms, he narrows his eyes at me. I blink once, but not a second time. “That’s none of your damn business. She gives me the attention I need now that you’re not sucking the life out of her. She’s the woman she was before you were born.”
There’s no way I can stay here if he is. I walk by him, dragging my suitcase along with me. I don’t trust leaving it in his presence. Thumping up each stair, I’m thankful my room looks untouched. Mom still has the things I moved from the apartment arranged like they’ve been here all along. Tracing my finger over some of the dust left sitting on the desk top, the air feels filthy with him being here.
Digging around in my closet, I pull out anything that has meaning or value. Filling up a few more duffle bags, I lay them next to my luggage. Everything else they can keep.
One last trip into my closet is all I can handle before the memories threaten to eat me alive. Just looking at the darkness inside has me wanting to throw up. I spent so much of my childhood hiding inside, I’m not sure I’ve ever fully escaped. Before I can give in to the temptation, my mom comes home.
Spying, I lean over the railing in the hallway, trying to hear the bullshit their spewing to one another. “Dean. No. I told you to stay away this week. It’s just one week. Then, she’s back at school.”
He mumbles something, but I can’t make out the words.
“I miss her, and I want this week to reconnect. I’ve barely spoken to her since August. I even took off from work.” I hear a bottle being tossed into the recycling bin. That’s a sound I used to fall asleep to night after night.
“Dean, please. I love you. I love you both. Please don’t make me chose you over my daughter.”
She loves him?
I can finally hear him speak. “I already know you’d pick her. You always do,” he shouts.
After all he’s done to the both of us, she actually loves him? It’s too much. This is all too fucking twisted.
I load up my right arm with the duffle bags and pull my heavy suitcase with the left. It fights me down each step, twisting from side to side. When the strain on my wrist becomes too much, I let it tumble to the bottom ahead of me.
“Sophie, where are you going?” Mom rushes over, inspecting me.
“I can’t stay here. Not with him and not with you. How could you lie to me Mom? How?” I shout.
“I’m so sorry, Sophie. I wish I was stronger. I do. But I’ve been so lonely. I’m sorry.” She cries into her hands, aware of how her decisions have destroyed our relationship.
“Let her go, Victoria.”
“Dean, I need her,” Mom begs. “She’s my only daughter.”
“You two can have each other.” I turn to leave, but my pride gets the best of me. Another question I’ve always wanted to know the answer to, yet never had the courage to ask comes flying out of my mouth with little warning. “Why do you hate me so much?” I ask him.
“It’s not a matter of hate. I just never believed you were mine. Eventually I found out the truth. You may think I was the only one who cheated, Sophie. But your Mother wasn’t faithful either. You’re the proof.”
“Dean!” Mom cries. “Why would you tell her that?”
“Don’t yell at me, woman. Tell Sophie how she got that scholarship. Enlighten her. Maybe then she’ll stop only hating me.”
“Mom?” I question. “What’s he talking about?”
She sobs harder. “Sophie. You weren’t ever supposed to find out. Dean, how could you!”
“Tell me!” I shout. She flinches from the bite of my words and falls onto the floor.
“Coach, Coach Evans is your Father, Sophie. I couldn’t risk my marriage so I begged him to stay away. But it failed anyway. I failed.”
“My Father?” I question in disbelief. Coach Evans is my father.
She can’t get her words out and nods her head instead. I have to sit down. Instead of pulling out a chair at the table, I sit on the floor where I’m standing. My thoughts are running a mile a minute and I remember the scholarship he just brought up.
“H-How did I end up with the scholarship, Mom? Did you bribe him?”
“No, honey. No. You earned it. He’s wanted you since you were a freshman, but I wouldn’t let him take you from me. I was so scared it was about more than just the team, Sophie.” She hiccups and struggles to get her words out. Reality crashing down hard on her, but even harder on me. “Gymnastics was my dream once, too. Just like Adam—Coach Evans. We were working together at the gym here in town and made a mistake one night after we closed up. It was just that one time, but I got pregnant. He wanted more from me, but I was already married to Dean.
Regardless of the facts, Sophie, I never regretted you. I didn’t. But Dean was already suspicious of the two of us. Once I quit my job and didn’t see Adam every day, I thought it would get better with Dean, but it didn’t. He always knew without me having to say a word. Everything was confirmed when Adam came to see you and I wouldn’t let him. Things got so ugly between the three of us, and you didn’t deserve a life like that. I’m so sorry, honey.”
“You did this. All these years I’ve hated myself because of him, Mom. You could have stopped him and you never did. You let me live a life I hated.”
“I was wrong. I’m sorry, baby. I’m sorry,” she pleads. But her apologizes are too late. The damage has been done.
“I hate you so much.” There’s so much more I want to say to her—things she deserves to hear from me, but I can’t. Instead, I storm out of the house, tears streaming down my cheeks. Unsure of what to do or where to go, I drive. I make it just outside of town before my emotions strangle me and I have to pull over. Climbing over the passenger seat, I stumble to the ground. My knee is bloody from the fall, but I don’t have time to pay attention to it. Without any coaxing, I throw up along the side of the busy roadway. Not giving a damn who sees me as I painfully gasp for air. Each breath I take hurts, but I welcome it. I understand it. Something I’ll never be able to say about my mom’s confessions.
Propped up against my dirty car tire, my ass on the asphalt, I sob. Unable to get up, I let the blood dry on my skin where some loose gravel has imbedded itself underneath my skin. I should clean it up, but I don’t even feel the pain.
Numb. Completely numb.
I’ve never loved my dad, yet I mourn the loss of the only father figure I’ve ever known. He may have treated me like shit all my life, but after learning the reasons why he hated me, it makes me appreciate having never known the truth. Maybe he didn’t hate me as much as he hated the reminder of what I represented—a wife who strayed, who cheated. “He should have fucking left us,” I yell into the open air. There’s nobody around to hear me, yet it feels like the right thing to do. I beg someone to hear me—to understand the pain inside of me.