CHAPTER 11: THE MEETING
We met at a diner two towns over. Neutral ground. Somewhere my mother wouldn't follow.
Dad was already there when I arrived. He looked older. Thinner. His hands were shaking as he lifted his coffee cup.
"Rachel," he said. "Thank you for coming."
I sat down across from him. "I'm here. That's all."
"I know. I know I don't deserve—"
"Just say what you came to say, Dad."
He set down his coffee. "I should have stopped them. I should have defended you. I didn't. I was a coward."
"Okay."
"I thought if I kept quiet, it would stop. That they'd get tired of it. But they never did. And I never said a word."
"Dad, I've been hearing this for years. What's different now?"
He looked at me. Really looked at me, for the first time in a long time.
"Your mother is a monster," he said. "She's always been a monster. She made me into something I never wanted to be. She made me into someone who stood by while you were destroyed."
He was crying now, tears streaming down his face.
"Dad—"
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I can't fix it. I can't go back. But I needed you to know."
I sat there, watching my father break down in a diner.
And I realized, for the first time, that he hadn't been silent because he agreed with them.
He'd been silent because he was broken too.
"Dad," I said. "I'm not going to pretend like it didn't happen. It did. And it hurt. It still hurts."
"I know."
"But I'm not going to let it destroy me. I've done too much healing for that."
He looked up. "So you're not—"
"I'm not going to cut you off forever. But I'm also not going to pretend like you're the father I needed. You weren't."
"I know."
"Maybe we can work on it. Slowly. A little at a time. But only if you're honest with me."
"I will be," he said. "I swear."
I reached across the table and took his hand.
"Then let's start with coffee."
He smiled. It was the first time I'd seen him smile in years.
We talked for three hours.
About the past, the present, the future.
About what we wanted and what we'd lost.
And when I left, I felt like I'd gotten a piece of my father back.
But my mother?
May you like
She was gone.
And I didn't want her back.
