Page 55 of Receiving His Mercy
“Why was no one else there?”
“Oh, her carer was but she”
“She was there while your mother, and I use that term loosely, did this?”
“Oh no! I, um, well, she left because of this.” With a flush of shame, she showed him the scratches along the inside of her other arm.
Travis sucked in a deep breath. “Fuck. Who did that?”
“Me?” she whispered. “The piano was there.” She stared off into the distance as she sat.
“And that was a bad thing? Did the piano bring back bad memories, baby?”
“Oh yeah. Bad memories. She didn’t think I was very smart. But if I’d been good at music or art then my lack of intelligence might have been more tolerable. She’s a brilliant pianist. I thinkshe could have done it professionally. And she decided to teach me. But I wasn’t good. Not at all.”
“Did that make her mad?” he asked in a quiet voice.
Caren rubbed her knuckles. She could feel the pain as the stick hit them.
“Yeah, it made her mad.”
“What would she do when she was mad? Would she call you names?” he asked.
“She’d call me names. But she also had this ruler. She said it was the way she’d learned. Every time I made a mistake, I got smacked on my hand with the ruler. But the thing was, the more I got hit, the worse I became. Every lesson, I think I grew worse instead of better. I was so nervous. So scared of disappointing her. By the end of each lesson, sometimes my hands would be so painful and red I could barely stand to use them. Sometimes, they would bleed.”
“That motherfucking bitch. Jesus! She fucking abused you and no one did anything!”
“Who would do something?” she asked in surprise, blinking him back into focus.
Shoot. She hadn’t actually meant to tell him all of that.
“Your father, for one.”
“That was never going to happen. Like I told you I don’t think my father remembered I was alive most of the time.”
“I can’t believe him or her. Baby, you are never to go there again. You hear me? Never.”
Caren blinked at him. “I might have to . . .”
“No!” His response was almost violent and she blinked in surprise, leaning away from him. “Please.”
“W-what?” Had he really just said please? “Please what?”
“Please listen to me. Please don’t be scared of me as I will never, ever harm you. But especially please don’t go back there.”
“I’m not sure I can promise that. There might be times I have to go to do . . . something.” Although right now she couldn’t think of a reason why. Surely she could do most things from afar. It wasn’t like her mother would want her to visit. And she certainly had no plans to go back. “I’ll only go if absolutely necessary.”
“And you will take me with you.”
“You want to come with me?” she asked. “Really? No, you don’t actually want to. It would be awful.”
“Goldie.” He walked over to sit in front of her again, staring at her intently. “I really want to.”
Caren took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. “All right.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
