shook her head, turned away. “It’s nothing.”
He caught her hand and hauled her back. “It’s something.”
She stared at the front of his T-shirt. “The first day you arrived, I wanted to say I was sorry I broke that date.” She swallowed. “I was all dressed to go, on my way to the door…” She looked up. “But my dad hit my mom. Bloodied her lip.”
Wyatt cursed. “You don’t have to tell me this.”
“Actually, I want to. I think it’s time to let some of this out.” She held his gaze. “I trust you.”
“Then why don’t we go into the house and you can tell me the whole story?”
She almost told him she should get back to the kids, but her need to rid herself of the full burden of this secret told her to take a few minutes, be honest, let some of this go.
She nodded and they walked to the back door of his grandmother’s house and into her kitchen. He made a pot of coffee, then leaned against the counter.
“Okay…so what happened that night?”
“We’d had a halfway decent graduation. It was one of those times when Dad had to be on his best behavior because we were in public, so everything went well. I actually felt normal. But driving home, he stopped at a bar. When he got home, he freaked out. He’d been on good behavior so long he couldn’t keep up the pretense anymore and he exploded. He slammed the kitchen door, pivoted and hit my mom. Her lip was bleeding, so I took her to the sink to wash it off and get ice, and he just turned and punched Althea, slamming her into the wall.” Missy squeezed her eyes shut, remembering. “It was a nightmare, but then again lots of times were like that.”
“Scary?”
She caught his gaze. “More than scary. Out of control. Like playing a game where the rules constantly change. what made him happy one day could make him angry the next. But even worse was the confusion.”
“Confusion worse than changing rules?”
She swallowed. “Emotional, personal confusion.”
Wyatt said nothing. She sucked in a breath. “Imagine what it feels like to be a little girl who wants nothing but to protect her mom, so you step in front of a punch.”
He cursed.
“From that point on, I became fair game to him.”
“He began to beat you, too?”
She nodded. “It was like I’d given him permission when I stepped into the first punch.” She licked her lips. “So from that point on, my choice became watch him beat my mom, or take some of the beating for her.”
Wyatt’s eyes squeezed shut, as if he shared her misery through imagining it. “And you frequently chose to be beaten.”
“Sometimes I had to.”
She walked to the stove, ran her finger along the shiny rim. “But that night he couldn’t reach me. I’d taken my mother to the sink, stupidly believing that without any one to hit, he’d get frustrated and head for the sofa. But he went after Althea.”
“How old was she?”
“Twelve. Too young to take full-fist beating from a grown man.”
“I’m sorry.”
Missy sucked in another breath. Hearing the truth coming from her own mouth, her anger at herself, disappointment in herself, and the grief she felt over losing Althea began to crumble. She’d been young, too. Too young to take the blame for things her father had done.
She loosened her shoulders, faced Wyatt again. “I could see her arm was broken, so I didn’t think. I didn’t speak. I didn’t ask permission or wait for instructions. I just grabbed the car keys to take her to the hospital, and my dad yanked the bottle of bleach off the washer by the back door.” Missy looked into Wyatt’s dark, solemn eyes. “He took off the cap and, two seconds before I would have been out of range, tossed it at me. It ran down my skirt, washing out the color, eating holes right through the thin material.”
Wyatt shook his head. “He was insane.”
“I’d earned that dress myself.” Her voice wobbled, so she paused long enough to strengthen it. She was done being a victim, done being haunted by her dad. It appeared even her ghosts of guilt over Althea leaving were being exorcized. “I worked for every penny I’d needed to buy it. But when he was drunk, he forgot things like that. As I was scrambling out of the dress, before the bleach burned through to my skin, he called me a bunch of names. I just tossed the dress in the trash and walked to my room. I put on jeans and a T-shirt and took Althea to the hospital. His screams and cursing followed us out the door and to the car.”
Wyatt said nothing.
She stayed quiet for a few seconds, too, letting it soak in that she’d finally told someone, and that in telling someone she’d seen that she wasn’t to blame. That she had no sin. No part in any of it except victim. And she was strong enough now not to accept that title anymore.
“At the hospital, a social worker came into the cubicle. Althea wanted to tell, to report our dad. I wouldn’t let her.” Missy glanced up at him again. “I feared for Mom. I knew the social worker would take us away, but Mom would be stuck there. And because we’d embarrassed him, he’d be even worse to her than he already was.”
“Why didn’t your mom leave?”
“She was afraid. She had no money. No skills. And he really only beat her about twice a month.”
Wyatt sniffed in derision. “He’s a bastard.”
“I left the next day. Got a clerical job in D.C. and an apartment with some friends. Althea spent every weekend with us. I guess that was enough for my dad to realize we didn’t need him—didn’t depend on him—and we could report him, because he stopped hitting Mom. When Althea graduated, she left town. Went to college in California. We haven’t really heard from her since.” Saying that aloud hurt. Missy loved and missed her sister. But she wasn’t the reason Althea had gone. She could let go of that now. “When one of my roommates moved out, I tried to get my mom to move in with me, but she refused. A few weeks later she had a heart attack and died.”
Wyatt gaped at her. “How old was she?”
“Not quite fifty. But she was worn down, anorexic. She never ate. She was always too worried to eat. It finally killed her.”
With her story out, exhaustion set in. Missy’s shoulders slumped.
He turned to the coffeepot, poured two cups. “Here.”
She smiled shakily. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“Secrets are always better if you tell them.”
She laughed. “How do you know?”
He shrugged. “School, I guess. In grade school I hid the fact that I was bullied from my parents. But in high school I knew I couldn’t let it go on. The kids were bigger, meaner, and I was no match. So
