“That’s where you’re wrong, Ryan.” My mom inhales, steeling herself. “Have you forgotten how I grew up after that? How I was on my own for three years? Living on the streets and using a fake ID to get work?”
I drop my jaw. Mom lived on the streets? Did her father kick her out? Did—
“Ava has lived a sheltered life,” Dad says.
This time anger pulses through me, and I pound my fist on the table, nearly sending the plates flying. “Because you sheltered me! You sheltered all of us! You didn’t trust us with the truth of our history!”
“Put yourself in our shoes for a moment,” Dad says. “Would you want to tell a child of yours—an innocent child—about the horrific past of our family?”
I swallow, regard my father.
His brown eyes are sunken and sad, but then—
I look at my mother.
Her blue eyes are on fire.
“Speak for yourself, Ryan,” she chides. “Not everyone agreed it was best to stifle our past. Melanie and I wanted to tell them. Just bits and pieces as they could handle it. But no. You and Marjorie and your brothers wanted to bury it all. You thought it would all magically disappear. Life isn’t like that. Life isn’t one big Steel party!”
“Ruby, baby…”
Mom chokes back what may be a sob. Or it may just be anger. “I’m all in now. And my daughter is as strong as I was at that age, perhaps even stronger. I went out on my own because I had no choice. Ava had every resource available to her, and she went out and made a life for herself anyway. That’s strength, Ryan.” She turns to me. “Can you take it, Ava? The rest of my story?”
I see my mother’s strength, then. Truly see it. I never doubted it. Always knew, as a cop, she had to be strong. But I never actually saw it in action—not with the defiant look she’s giving Dad now.
And I know. I know I’m more like her than I ever realized.
“Yes, Mom. Yes. I can take it. Tell me your story. I want to know where I came from.”
“Are you sure? Because I haven’t told this story in nearly three decades, and I’m not about to mince words.”
I nod, swallowing back the last of my nausea. No more. No more getting sick over the past. It’s time to face it, deal with it, and learn from it.
“I’m sure.”
I jolted backward. “What?”
“You heard me. Take off your clothes. You’re beautiful. Let me see that body of yours.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “No. I won’t.”
I scrambled away, but he caught me again and then dragged me into his bedroom. I wrenched away, but he grabbed me and turned me around to face him.
“Come here. Show Daddy how much you love him.” His grasp was firm. “Now take off those clothes.”
“I won’t!”
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
“Are you crazy? I’m your daughter!”
“Makes no difference. Let me see that body.”
I gathered every ounce of strength and ran toward the door, but again he caught me.
“You asked for it now.” He punched me in the cheek, and a dull thud echoed in the room.
For a second, nothing happened, and then the pain hit. I cried out.
“Scream. Go ahead and scream. It’s better that way,” he said, an evil gleam in his eye.
I made a deal with myself at that moment. I would not scream again, no matter what he did to me.
“You’re a slut, just like your slut mother. She wasn’t good for anything but a fuck. A one-nighter that went wrong, and now I’m saddled with you.”
My heart thrummed wildly as fear overtook me and self-preservation kicked in. “You don’t have to be. I’ll leave. I’ll never bother you again.” And I meant those words, for now I knew who and what my father truly was.
“Not yet. Not until I see what you have to offer. You’re a pretty thing, with your mother’s fair skin. My dark hair. And you don’t mind showing off that tight little body in those belly tops and tight jeans you wear. What do you expect?”
“I don’t expect my own father to rape me!”
He grabbed me and tossed me onto the bed. “Well, little daughter, rarely in this life do we get what we expect.”
Acid bubbled in my stomach and meandered up my throat. I turned my head and retched, but nothing came up.
He punched me again.
“You throw up, and I’ll make this worse.”
As if in answer, I heaved again and vomited onto his bed.
“Bitch!” He punched me again and then shook me. Then he ripped my shirt off me.
I closed my eyes. Maybe I could escape into my mind. Think of something else.
But instead, without looking, I raised both my legs and pushed outward, kicking.
He flew across the room.
I opened my eyes in time to see him land with an oof.
I got up and ran for the door, but again he caught me, turning me.
I scrunched my eyes closed again and kneed him between his legs, hoping I had the strength I needed to incapacitate him.
“Auugh!” This time he yelled and crumpled to the floor. “Bitch. You fucking little slut!”
Thank God my purse was where I’d left it in the living room. I grabbed it and headed out the door in my bra and jeans, my own vomit coating one side of my body.
I ran as hard as I could with no idea where I was going.
Only that I was never going back to my father, no matter what I had to do.
Tears well in my eyes. Strength doesn’t mean never hurting. Never crying.
My mother has always meant everything to me, but now? If possible, she means even more.
“What did you do, Mom? Did your father—ugh, my grandfather—go after you?”
She shakes her head. “No. He never wanted me in the first place. Not as a daughter, anyway. Once I found out what he was into, I’m damned glad I got away. Others weren’t so lucky.”
“Others like Dale and Donny? Uncle Talon.”
She nods. “To name only a few.”
“Oh, God… Cousin Gina.”
“Yes, Ava, but we’ll get to that.”
I nod. “Where did you go? You weren’t wearing any clothes, and you were…”
“Covered in vomit, yes.” She closes her eyes. “Some of it I’ve truly blanked out. I made it to my friend Dana’s, where I showered and she gave me some clothes. But her mother was ready to call my father, so I took off. It was summer when I left, and I lived on the streets for a few weeks. It wasn’t that difficult. My mom and I had been pretty poor, and I’d been reduced to stealing to eat more than once. So this was nothing new, though I tried to avoid stealing as much as possible. I didn’t want to be arrested and sent home. Once fall came, I knew I had to find other arrangements. I was afraid to go to social services, for fear they would send me back to him. So I got a job waiting tables, with the help of a fake ID I got from a guy I met on the streets—”
“How did you get it, if you didn’t have any money?” I ask.
Mom looks down.
I don’t ask again.
She clears her throat. “That was the only time. Then, within a few weeks, I had scraped together enough to move into this really shitty place on the wrong side of town. But I kept quiet, slid under the radar, and stayed safe for the next three years, until my eighteenth birthday. I went to the police department and filed a complaint against my father. Then I applied to the police academy.”