Chapter 4
I stared at the document until the letters blurred.
My mother's signature sat beneath Marcus's, neat and unmistakable.
She had agreed to pay my father twenty thousand dollars to disappear from my life.
I couldn't understand how a person could sign something like that.
My mother had tucked me into bed when I was sick. She had held me after nightmares. She had cried at my high school graduation.
And she had signed a document promising that my father would never contact me again.
“Why would she do this?” I whispered.
My father sat across from me.
“I don't know everything that was happening in her mind. We were both angry during the divorce. She believed I would try to take you away from her.”
“But you didn't want to take me away.”
“No. I wanted to remain your father.”
I pressed my fingers against my temples.
“What happened to the money?”
“I never accepted it.”
He turned the document over.
On the back, someone had written a note in blue ink.
Payment declined. Contact attorney before proceeding.
My father pointed to the words.
“I sent it back with a letter explaining that I would never sell my relationship with you.”
I began to cry again.
He reached across the table but didn't touch me until I nodded.
Then he held my hand.
“I should have found another way to reach you,” he said. “I should have fought harder.”
I looked at him.
“You were trying.”
“I was trying in the ways I understood. But trying isn't always enough.”
His honesty hurt, but it also made me feel safe.
He wasn't asking me to erase the past.
He was allowing me to feel it.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in his house.
He showed me my old bedroom, which had been preserved almost exactly as I remembered it. The walls were still pale yellow. My childhood drawings were pinned above the desk.
On the bookshelf sat a stuffed rabbit with one floppy ear.
I picked it up and laughed through my tears.
“You kept this?”
“You wouldn't let me throw it away even when its stuffing started coming out.”
I hugged the rabbit against my chest.
My father smiled.
For a few minutes, I was eleven again.
Then my phone began vibrating.
My mother had called seventeen times.
Marcus had called twelve.
I ignored both of them until a message appeared from my mother.
Please come home. We need to talk before you make a mistake you cannot undo.
I stared at the screen.
My father noticed my expression.
“You don't have to answer her today.”
“I want answers.”
“Then ask them when you're ready. Not because someone is pressuring you.”
I nodded.
But before I could put the phone away, another message arrived.
It was from Marcus.
I know you hate me. But there is something about your father's departure that neither of us has explained properly. Please let me tell you the truth.
I showed the message to my father.
His expression darkened.
“What does he mean?”
“I don't know.”
My father rose and walked toward the window.
For the first time since I had arrived, he looked frightened.
“Nia, the day I left Georgia, I received a phone call from an attorney. I was told that your mother had filed a complaint accusing me of threatening behavior.”
I stood.
“What?”
“The complaint was later withdrawn. But at the time, I was terrified that any attempt to see you could become a legal battle that would hurt you.”
“Did you threaten her?”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
“I never laid a hand on your mother. We argued, sometimes badly, but I never threatened her.”
I believed him.
I didn't know how I knew, but I did.
He looked at the floor.
“Marcus was the one who gave me the attorney's number. He said he was trying to help everyone avoid a public fight.”
My stomach tightened.
“What if he was lying?”
My father looked at me.
“Then we need to find out why.”
I returned to Georgia two days later.
My mother was waiting outside our house when I arrived.
She rushed toward me, then stopped when she saw the envelope in my hand.
“You went to see him.”
“Yes.”
She looked as though she might collapse.
“Did he tell you everything?”
“Not yet.”
Her eyes widened.
I stepped past her and entered the house.
Marcus was sitting at the dining table.
The same table where I had pushed his hand away.
The same table where everything had begun.
A stack of papers lay in front of him.
He stood when I entered.
“I owe you the truth.”
I remained by the doorway.
“You owe me nine years.”
He lowered his head.
“I know.”
My mother sat down and began crying.
I looked at them both.
“No more half-truths. No more telling me I'm too young to understand. No more deciding what I can handle.”
Marcus nodded.
Then he slid a document toward me.
It was a copy of a letter from my father's attorney.
The letter stated that my father had been advised not to pursue contact while the complaint against him remained unresolved.
Attached was a handwritten note.
The note was signed by Marcus.
I read it twice.
It said he had personally advised my father to stay away until things settled down.
I looked up.
“You convinced him to leave.”
Marcus's voice was barely audible.
“Yes.”
My mother covered her face.
“And you let me believe he abandoned me.”
“Yes.”
I dropped the paper.
“Why?”
Marcus sank into his chair.
For a long time, he stared at the table.
Then he told me something I had never expected.
“When your mother and I first started dating, she was afraid you would never accept me. I thought if your father stayed away, you and I might become a real family.”
I felt physically sick.
“So you removed him.”
“I convinced myself I was protecting the household.”
“You were protecting your place in it!”
He flinched.
I stepped closer.
“You wanted to be my father so badly that you helped destroy my relationship with the man who already was.”
Marcus began to cry.
“I know.”
“No. You know now. You didn't care then.”
He shook his head.
“I cared. I was selfish. I was jealous of the bond you had with him, and I was afraid I would always be second.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So you made sure I had nobody else to turn to.”
My mother suddenly stood.
“That's not the whole story.”
I turned toward her.
“What else?”
She looked at Marcus, then at me.
Her face had gone pale.
“The complaint against your father wasn't filed because of a threat he made.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Then why was it filed?”
May you like
My mother took a shaky breath.
“Because I was the one who reported him.”
