“Hush now.” She squeezes my hand. “That’s not why I’m telling you this. I’m telling you because that boy—my son—he found me a few years ago and he contacted me. I felt like you did, like I needed him to forgive me, but he assured me there was nothing to forgive. You know better than anyone the sacrifices we make for those we love.” She pauses a beat, a shuddered breath escaping her. “He didn’t know about Becca. Not until it was too late.”

“Too late? What does that mean?”

“He told me he met Becca’s mother at a bar and they had a one-night stand. He works on an offshore oil rig, so it’s normal—this behavior… she tried to contact him so many times, but it wasn’t until Becca was born that he got back in contact with her. He says he thought she was crazy—the way she talked to him and the things she’d threaten to do if he didn’t marry her and take care of her. And he was positive he used protection so…” she trails off.

“So?”

“So he didn’t believe her, I guess, and I don’t blame him. After finding out what Becca’s mom was like—”

“The car accident?”

She nods. “I wasn’t sure if you knew about it,” she says, the surprise in her tone unmistakable.

“All I know is she was in one and it damaged her throat.”

She nods again, her eyes somewhere far away. “Becca was seventeen at the time and she didn’t have any other family. Child Protective Services contacted my son from Becca’s birth certificate but he couldn’t do much. He was offshore and he still wasn’t convinced she was his. Becca—she was at the tail end of her senior year and there was no one there to help her. Luckily, there was Olivia, who was able to work out a sort of temporary agreement with CPS once Becca was finally released from the hospital. Olivia took Becca into her home but it couldn’t be forever. She’d been accepted to college in St. Louis and it was important for everyone who knew her, who was involved in her life, that she attend. But with her mother’s death there were financial issues and thank God that Olivia was able to contact the school and defer her attendance for a year. In the meantime, my son Martin corresponded back and forth as much as he could from where he was stationed. The department sent him Becca’s file along with her pictures and one day, out of the blue, he calls me crying, telling me all about her… about this beautiful girl—his daughter—whose eyes held the truth.”

I choked on a breath.

“He didn’t ask for a DNA test; he didn’t need to. What he needed was help. And he asked for it—he asked that I take her until his contract was done and he could come home. He’d set up a life for them in St. Louis so she could actually start living one. He needed to right his wrongs. And I would help, because I needed to right mine. He warned that it might be difficult, that Becca was… special, so he sent me her file and the day after I got it, I picked her up from the bus station.”

I blew out a long breath, and with a heavy heart, I ask, “What was in her file?”

30

-Becca-

sinister

ˈsɪnɪstə/

adjective

giving the impression that something harmful or evil is happening or will happen.

The first time my mother called me a cunt, I was in third grade. She smiled as she said it, her eyelids heavy, right before she downed what I thought back then was classy water.

The next day, I said it in the school playground. This girl, Teagan, let me play with the ball. “You’re such a little cunt, Teagan,” I said, smiling at her like my mother had done with me.

Apparently that wasn’t proper behavior. Not for a third grader, and not even for grown-ups.

My mother got called in to the school and we were both spoken to by the headmaster.

I still remember crying as I walked into our house, knowing what my fate was. And I remember even clearer the sounds I made as I gasped for breath after each consecutive punch to my back.

“You’re just like your father,” she yelled, grabbing a handful of my hair as she dragged me to the bathroom. She sat me on the edge of the bathtub and rummaged through the drawers. “No more!” she shouted, and then spun to me, the blade of the scissors she held reflecting the light above me. She stepped closer, a sinister smile on her face. My eyes drifted shut as the cold steel lightly ran across my neck and up to my ear. She leaned forward, her mouth cold against my ear. “You have hair just like your father’s,” she whispered.

She cut off all my hair that night, laughing the entire time.

It took me a while to realize there were two versions of mom’s laughter. The first was the one she saved for me; sinister and evil. And the other was one she kept for the boys. Boys, she liked to call them, even though they were all men. At least to me and my ten-year-old eyes. Some of the men I feared more than I did her. The ones who watched me, touched me, even when she was in the same room. I stopped being in the same room after one touched my leg and tried to get me to touch his—only higher. Hiding out in my room wasn’t my choice, though. It was hers. She didn’t like it. Not the fact that they were assholes trying to take advantage of her daughter, but because she didn’t like that they paid more attention to me than they did her.

She put a lock on my bedroom door.

She had the only key.

Some days she forgot I existed.

Those days were the best days of my life.

How fucked up is that?