Page 7 of Among the Sins of my Father

“I know what you’re doing.”

I pull my arm from his grasp. “I’m not doing anything.”

“Yes,” he tips up my chin, demanding I look at him, “you are.”

“Then what? What am I doing?”

“You’re pulling away from me.”

“I’m not the one who’s—”

“We both knew this day would come, Berkley. We knew that things would be different when she returned. Difficult even.”

“Difficult?” I repeat, my voice rising. “She’s your wife, Jericho. Your wife. She needs you.”

“And I need you.”

“It’s not the same.”

“No, it’s not. But it still doesn’t change anything. You’re mine, Berkley. I choose you. I want you. I need you.” The way he says ‘you’ gets more desperate with each repetition.

“Have you told her that?”

“Do you think now is the time? I will if that’s what you want. I will go and talk to her right this very moment.”

I drop my head, staring at my bare feet pressed against the wooden floor. “No.”

I sigh, frustrated at the mixed feelings twisting about inside. Already I can feel tears welling. Again. I grit my teeth together, begging them not to fall.

“How have you been sleeping?” Jericho’s voice is gentler this time.

I merely shrug as a response. I don’t know how to act. There’s a side of me that wants to cry and scream. I want to say how unfair it was that he made me love him when this was a possibility. This feeling of loss. This feeling of being cast aside. This feeling of betrayal. And what’s even worse is I don’t have any claim to feeling this way. He’s not my husband. I wasn’t the one who suffered years of abuse at the hands of my father. I wasn’t the one who lost my child. Lost everything.

I risk a look up at him, knowing what it could do to me. “Does she know who I am?”

He’s staring at me intently, the thunder clouds still evident in his eyes. “Who are you?” he asks.

“The daughter of the monster who kept her.”

He shakes his head. “Nor does she know that we’re keeping the monster in the basement.” He takes a deep breath and runs his hands through his hair. “There’s so much to tell her, but to throw everything at her all at once would be cruel. She needs time. She needs space to breathe, to feel free. I don’t think I should tell her anything until she’s stronger.”

A snort of air escapes. “After everything she’s been through, I think the last thing you can call her is weak.”

“And your flashes? How have they been?”

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Berkley. I do need to worry about you because I can feel you pulling away from me with every second. I feel it each time you drop your gaze, each time you deny my touch.”

I want to protest. What about him? What about him dropping his embrace as soon as Hope saw us? But I already know the answer to that. I know why he did it. To protect her. As he should. As we all should.

He wipes a tear away from under my eye with the pad of his thumb. The tenderness of the motion causes a sob to escape.

“Don’t,” I say, as though his touch caused me pain. And it did. It reminded me of everything I can’t have. The tightness in my chest increases. It’s been there constantly since the night we rescued Hope. Since I saw Barrett slit the throat of the man who, as far as I can tell, was guilty of nothing but an affair with a young Hope. Since a woman looked into my eyes and begged me to save her life.

A familiar knot twists in my stomach

“Don’t.” It’s his voice that says it, not mine. My hand is swatted away from where it lays on his chest. He grips my wrist tightly, twisting it until my entire body crumples with the pain and I fall to my knees.“Stay,” is his next command.

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