Page 35 of Saving Shepperd

“I may have to have that thing towed to the shop from the way it sounded. Have there been warning lights on when you’ve started it?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.

Oh great, here we go.

“Hmmm,” I drew out, trying desperately to sound innocent. I had to be careful not to lay it on too thick, though, because my dad could be as cynical as me when he put some effort into it. He knew when we were lying almost every time.

“Is that a yes or no?” he asked, darting his eyes between the road and me. “Where is your work?”

How it just dawned on him at that moment to ask where I worked, I couldn’t say. And if he didn’t know where I worked, why was he heading in the right direction?

“Do you know and are trying to force me to incriminate myself? Or do you really not know?” I accused, feeling my mood slowly transform the longer I had to chat with him.

When I was young, like most little girls, my daddy was the apple of my eye. After the molestation started at school, I began to withdraw from everyone. But especially him. I had a hard time trusting grown men and was convinced they were all the same. Evil, cruel, conniving, and not to be trusted. So our relationship suffered as badly as mine and Hannah’s did.

“Shepperd,” he said in that tone that ground on my nerves. Like he was on his very last bit of patience with me. Like I was a big inconvenience.

I refused to fight with him before walking into my job, though, so I took a deep breath and banished the negativity. I gave him the address, and he nodded.

After a few minutes, he asked, “Where are you working exactly? The name of the business, I mean. Because I thought you were working at a hair salon, and I know there isn’t one in the middle of that business park. I’m pretty sure that address you just gave me is a bunch of offices.”

Well, wasn’t he just the super sleuth of the morning. I choked back the acidic remark and nodded. “Yeah, it’s an office.”

In a much gentler voice, he asked, “Well, what do you do?” Maybe he wasn’t in the mood to start his day by going a few rounds with me either. We were only a few miles away. If we hit the green lights on most of the blocks, I had a good chance of making it right on time.

“Just paperwork stuff. It’s just to pay bills and have pocket money. It’s not a career choice,” I rushed out. Next would come the lecture about not using my full potential or not choosing a job in my chosen major.

Thoughtfully, he nodded at my reply. “What kind of paperwork? That’s a pretty vague job description.”

I let my tense shoulders drop down to their rightful position and blew out a breath. “I process medical billing stuff. Payments, monthly account statements, stuff like that. A lot of data entry. It’s all very boring.”

“So what happened at the hair salon? Weren’t you working at one at the beginning of the summer?”

“It didn’t work out. The owner was an asshole, and our personalities clashed. It only lasted about two weeks,” I summarized while staring out my window. I couldn’t take his disapproving scowl this early in the morning.

But to my surprise, he just said, “That’s too bad. It seemed like you were enjoying it.”

“Not really,” I said with little emotion. “It was money. That was about it.”

“Are you enjoying the office setting more?” he fired right away.

I swung my head toward him and just stared while he negotiated his fancy car through traffic. Finally, when he could take his eyes off the road, he met my stare.

“What?” he asked calmly.

“What’s with the third degree?” I snapped.

“Shepperd,” he sighed. “It’s not the third degree. It’s called making conversation.”

A few moments passed, and I considered flipping on the stereo but then he continued.

“Do you think your mother and I like arguing with you all the time?” He asked the question and then answered it too. “We don’t. I just thought we could catch up a little while we ride in to work this morning. I realize I’ve lost track of what you’ve been up to, and that’s on me.”

Instantly, I felt suspicious. Where was all this loving, doting parent crap coming from? I hadn’t felt nurtured or even interested in for years. The only child that existed in our house for the majority of my life was my sister, Hannah. Another reason I resented her so much.

Drifting away from the conversation in the car, I gave that fact a little more thought. Was it really Hannah’s fault that our parents favored her? Rationally, I knew all the reasons why. I knew she was a victim. It’s not like she wanted to have two random strangers try to abduct her one day while shopping with our mother at Target. They chose her. She was an innocent, six-year-old girl just minding her own business.

It was the fallout from that fateful day that caused all the problems in our house. And true, I had no idea how I would have reacted if I had been a parent in their situation. For all these years, it had been easier to just blame my parents for my misery than look inside and see where it was really coming from.

Shit.

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