Page 11 of Letters to the Lost

“I know it’s for the best, but I’m still absolutely petrified to go,” I tell him.

“We’ll all be right here, waiting for you to come home. Hopefully you’ll be feeling better.”

“It’s only six weeks, it’s not a quick fix to my grief or my trauma. I don’t even want to think about the difficulty of opening up to another person, after what happened yesterday.”

“Did Jane say anything else while she was there?” Dad asks me, his fists clenched in his lap.

“Not really. Just that you weren’t who you said you were. That you were mafia. That she always hated me.”

“I should have seen it before; I should have listened,” Dad murmurs.

“Seen what?” I ask, cocking my head to the side.

“That she was a manipulative bitch. I am so sorry Autumn, so sorry for everything you have ever been through at the hands of that horrible woman.”

“You didn’t know,” I tell him, reaching my hand out to hold his, to try to soothe some of his misplaced guilt.

A cough startles us before I can make contact. Brenn, who is now wide awake, is narrowly staring at the side of Dad’s face.

“Tell her,” Brenn’s voice barks out like a whip causing Dad to flinch.

“You have to understand…” Dad trails off.

“Understand what?” I ask, confused. Why is Brenn so mad? It has been like this for months now, with no one telling me the reason that he seems to have it out for dad.

“Tell her dad. Tell your daughter that everything she ever went through could have been avoided if you had just listened!” Brenn’s voice rises, getting irate the longer Dad takes to respond.

“Dad?”

“Autumn, please you have to try to understand…” Dad starts again.

“Understand what, Dad? Because right now you aren’t making any sense.”

“I wasn’t always home and your mom… Jane. She was always telling me how difficult you had been that day for her, not listening to her. I didn’t know that it wasn’t true.”

Brenn stands before I can reply, stepping to my bedside, and standing with me. Taking my hand in his, he glares at Dad head-on, his frame shaking with rage.

“You didn’t want to listen, Dad. There is a difference. Mrs. McKay came to you. She told you exactly what had been happening under your roof, but you brushed it off.”

“Is that true?” My voice trembles, feeling like every memory with my dad was a lie.

He knew about Jane hitting me while we lived at home, four-year-old Autumn thought it was normal, that every child had that done to them. Now that I’m older, I know that you don’t do that to a child, you don’t punish them like that. To know that my dad knew about it, that Mrs. McKay tried to tell him, and he didn’t listen, hurts.

“She did but your mom kept lying. She was my wife; I was supposed to believe her.”

“Not at the expense of your child, Dad. Jesus! What is wrong with you?!”

“I never meant for her to get hurt like that! Why can’t you see that?! I never meant for either of you to get hurt,” Dad slumps in his seat, looking defeated.

“You failed both of us, you do realize that right?” Brenn tells him, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Yes, but I swear, I will do anything I can to make it up to you both.”

“Can we please stop?” I beg them, rubbing my temples to try to ease the oncoming migraine “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Not right now anyway.”

“But…” Brenn starts.

Grabbing his hand, I silence him, “Please, let’s drop it. I love you for standing up for me, but it’s in the past. What matters now is that we try to move on from it.”

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