Page 78 of Man On

"He was wrong," I say, my voice so low it rumbles in my chest, dislodging all the hurt I've been trying so hard to tamp down. “About so much. My thoughts still get messed up. I’m trying hard to be better.”

My grandfather told me a lot of things. A lot of things that were wrong. Maybe I always knew they were wrong, but when it's the only thing you grow up hearing, it takes being hit in the face with reality to learn the truth. And then, even after you learn the truth, it's still so hard not to hold on to those old ideals. Unlearning the values that have been beaten into your mind from before you can even remember is harder than anyone realizes.

I don’t want to talk about it. But I don't think I can run from it any longer, either. I have a lifetime of built-up fear and rage and sadness, and the more I try to pretend it doesn't exist, the more it creeps up on me in the few moments of peace I have—like when I'm sleeping, or when Noah looks at me. The moments when he's touching me.

My cheeks flush at the thought, and I do the only thing I can to deflect from my errant thoughts: I keep talking.

"I changed my name because I didn't want to be the person I was in that place. The person he wanted me to be."

"They hurt you," she whispers.

I don't answer, instead I close my eyes against the barrage of memories that have been wreaking havoc on my brain since news of the raid broke months ago. I spent days in a near catatonic haze when the detective visited us. I lied to the police when I told them I didn't know anything about what went on in the basement of the church. I lied to my mother when I insisted I was fine. I lied to myself that she didn’t care, because if she did, she would have taken me with her when she escaped.

"I'm sorry," she says, sitting on the edge of the couch. I sit next to her, trying to temper my emotions so I can get through this. She's been good to me since I moved in with them, and I know she was a good mother to Noah. I can't really blame her for saving herself, even if it hurts that she didn't keep me. "I should have fought harder."

Wrapping an arm around her smaller body, I pull her into my chest.

"It's not your fault," I tell her, as realization trickles in the recesses of my brain. "They hurt you, too."

I know I'm right by the way her limbs tense.

"They took you from me," she says, her voice small and mournful, as if something had died inside her. "You were the only good thing to ever happen to me, and they took you." Her fists ball in her lap. She's trembling.

"Grandfather said?—"

"He said a lot of things," she says, sniffing.

"What happened?"

I'm not really sure I'm ready to know. But who is ever truly ready for hard truths?

"I was barely sixteen. I didn't even know I was pregnant with you until I was more than halfway through my pregnancy. I was so sick all the time. My father made me stay in bed and told me nothing. We were never taught what causes pregnancy, or what happens to your body. I don't even know how long they knew before I did; I just knew that I'd displeased him on an inconceivable level. The kind of anger where he didn't need words."

I nod, feeling the burn of his icy glare, the judgment of his silence. The sharp pain of rice digging into my knees as I knelt and prayed for forgiveness for my sins every night. The searing heat of a belt lash.

"Long story short, he tricked me. He told me the church would beseech God for forgiveness on my behalf, that I could atone for my sins and the church would welcome my child, if I let him lead me as a father should." She pauses to stretch out her fingers, releasing her clenched fists. There are indentations in her hands where her short fingernails have bit into the skin. "I was so naïve. And I was a good girl. I did everything he and the other elders of the church told me to." Her eyes dart up to mine with the layered meaning of that statement, before closing again. "I signed away all my rights to you. Not that it mattered. My name was never even on your birth certificate, and I never stepped foot in a hospital. They took you from the room before you even cried. I just wanted to hold you. I never even got to hold you."

She breaks, sobbing into her hands. I keep my arm around her shoulder, tightening it to pull her closer to my side. It takes several minutes before she's able to speak again. She straightens her spine and lifts her chin, and for the first time I see myself in her image instead of the man I’ve always known fathered me.

"I know now that my signature wouldn't have been legal, that I could have gone to the police. But I didn't understand any of that until many years later, when it was too late. Without any proof, how could I get to you? I spoke to a lawyer when I managed to get on my feet and find some stability, but she wasn't confident that I could win a fight against the church. They'd paint me as a runaway, and I barely had a good enough job to keep myself housed and fed. I didn't have proof of anything."

"Why did you leave?" I know why she left the compound. What I really want to know is why she left me.

"The day after I gave birth to you, they handed me a bag with a change of clothes, a bus pass, forty dollars cash, and escorted me through the gates. I was no longer welcome. I'd forsaken God and His son, and the only way to save your soul was to keep you away from me." She swallows and pushes her bangs off her forehead. "They shunned me from the compound. When I was found passed out on the ground next to the gate, they called the police to have me removed from the property. I think they might have told them I was some kind of grifter or addict. I woke up in the hospital a few days later. I almost died from an infection related to an injury I sustained in childbirth."

I blurt the next question on my mind without thinking first. "How did you get pregnant?"

She pulls back, raising her eyebrows. "I gave you all those books when you didn't want to talk to me or Scott. I didn't want to push you, but I thought?—"

Embarrassment heats my face. "Not how. Who? What happened?"

Now it's her turn to look just as embarrassed as I am. "It's easy to manipulate someone with zero understanding of how the world works," she answers cryptically.

"Was it Pastor Gideon?" I ask bluntly. I know the answer, but I want to hear it from someone else. Confirmation from someone that doesn't think I'm inherently evil because I was born out of wedlock, or because I was nice to a broken boy. My resemblance to Gideon Larsen is a little too coincidental.

She doesn't say the words, but she looks down for a moment before giving me a clipped nod.

"I hope he rots," I tell her.

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