Page 82 of Not Another Yesterday
I take a deep breath. “I’m scared, Dad,” I admit out loud. “Remember when you called me in Montana and you told me Mom was going to push for a trial? That her lawyer was going to put on evidence about the abuse Mom had suffered?”
He nods, his brown eyes pinned to me. “Yeah.”
“And you told me that you knew she and her brother had been abused?”
He responds with another nod.
“That was the first time it occurred to me that I might turn out just like them, Dad,” I say through gritted teeth. “I mean, aren’t there studies about this sort of stuff? That if you grow up with violence, you’re more likely to become violent yourself?” It’s a rhetorical question, and he doesn’t answer. “I tried not to think about it, but… then it turned out the abuse went way up the family tree, and…” My voice betrays me and breaks.
I swallow once, twice, to push down the lump rising in my throat. “Dad, I’m fucking scared,” I choke. He still doesn’t speak, letting me ramble on. “I’m scared that I might, one day, do to my family what Mom did to me, and what Mom’s dad did to her and his dad to him, and so on. I just… I need to know what happened to him. I need to know if he…”
He rubs his neck. “Ran, I don’t even know if he’s still alive. As far as I know, nobody’s heard from him since before you were even born, bud.”
“But, can’t you find out? There’s gotta be a way to see if he’s still alive.”
“Yeah, but Ran, what if he’s still alive? What if you find him? Then what?”
“Then I’ll reach out to him or, I don’t know.” I haven’t actually gotten that far in my brain. I always got stuck on the initial hurdle of even finding my uncle.
He groans, dragging his hand through his hair like he’s trying to tug the answer out. “God, Ran, I just don’t know if it’s a good idea.”He runs his right hand across his face. “I don’t know if this is a risk I want to take. I can’t let you get hurt again.”
I exhale loudly, frustrated. I don’t stand a chance in hell of finding someone who doesn’t want to be found without my dad, and his unwillingness to help me is yet another reminder of how little control I have over my trauma or my recovery.
“Fine,” I huff, stand, and walk back to the hallway.
My dad jumps to his feet. “Ran!” He reaches for my arm, stopping me from walking away, from shutting down on him. “I fucking worry about you, do you understand?” he says, his voice strained, brow furrowed. “Look, finding Cormac—it could turn out really great, but it could also turn out absolutely fucking terrible. I’m trying to protect you, Ran. I’ve failed you before. A lot. I won’t let that happen again,” he says, his gaze warm despite his rigid posture.
Our eyes meet. He used to tower over me when I was little, but at 6’5” my dad is only three inches taller than me now. He can’t protect me from the realities of my life anymore. He never did before, and now it’s too late.
“I appreciate that, Dad. I really, really do. But I need this. I need to know. I need to know if I’m destined to repeat history.”
“Ran, you are not going to repeat the cycle!”
I groan loudly. “Fuck, Dad, you don’t know that, okay? You don’t know how fucking scared I am. I need… I keep going down a rabbit hole, Dad,” I choke, my emotions threatening to get the best of me.
“Buddy, just, please talk to me. Let me in. Please. Tell me!”
“Fuck.” I cover my face with both my hands, then breathe deeply to steady myself. “After Grandma showed up last November, I started having nightmares.”
He raises his eyebrows, confused. He knew I was having nightmares; he spent many nights sleeping on the floor next to my bed, waking me when I couldn’t wake myself up, when the terror went on and on. But he doesn’t know about the new dreams—neither the ones thatstarted after my grandmother’s visit nor the ones that came with the revelations from Rashana.
“In my dreams… I’m beating Cat, Dad.” My heart constricts just as it does every time I say those words out loud. “I’ve had those dreams a bunch of times. And I know,I knowthey’re just dreams. But… they freak me out so much I can’t breathe sometimes. I wake up with this feeling… like… I’ve done something I can’t undo. I can’t fucking shake them,” I croak. “I… They feel like premonitions and…”
My dad rubs his hand over his jaw. “Ran, I—”
“I told Cat I don’t want kids,” I continue. “After Kellan and Dean were born… we fought about it. Dad, I’m so scared of hurting her. I’m so scared of hurting my family…” The sob breaks out of my chest before I can strangle it, making this exactly the second time I’ve cried in front of my dad in almost twelve years.
He doesn’t miss a beat. He pulls me into his arms, holding me like he did after I testified. “Is that why you broke things off with her?” he asks in that low, soothing tone.
I nod against him, unable to speak while I try to rein in my emotions, to quell the tears, to stop the heaving of my chest. I know everyone thinks I ended things with Cat because I caught her kissing someone else, but it’s honestly not even in my top five reasons. It sucked, yeah, but it’s not something I couldn’t work past or forgive her for.
We’re silent for a minute while he holds me and I try to compose myself.
“Buddy, I want to keep you safe. I worry about what could happen if we find Cormac, what it could do to you,” my dad says, then takes a deep breath. “But I’ll help you find him.”
I step back, quickly swiping at my tears while I search his face through hazy eyes. “Really?” I ask, my voice raw.
“Yeah. If this is what you need, I’ll do it. But Ran, promise me that if and when we find him, you’ll let me go with you. I’ll be damned if I let you walk into this alone.”
