Page 51 of Broken Silence
She nodded and busied herself with making hot chocolates.
“You always tell me I can talk to you,” I added.
“That’s because you can,” she said, her weak smile like a knife to my heart. She was struggling.
“And you can talk to me.”
“I’m all right, Oakley.”
“You don’t want to lay anything so heavy on me, I get that, but they win if we drift apart. We’ve had to have discussions that most families never have to have. It’s hard… really fucking hard, but it’s important.”
She placed two mugs down on the table and sat beside me, tears in her tired eyes, and lips pressed into a thin line.
“You haven’t spoken to us in months.” Ducking her head, she took a breath at the immature reply.You didn’t so I won’t…That wasn’t Mum’s style.
Which made me more worried about her.
“How about we both have an honest conversation now?” I asked, partly hoping she would refuse. I wanted her to talk about what she was dealing with, but I didn’t want to talk about my own stuff.
I was holding that in for court. There were only so many times I could talk about it before I drowned.
“All right,” she replied with a shaky breath.
I sipped my hot chocolate and waited for her to start. She stared at her drink, watching the steam rise from the surface. It was going to be up to me to kick things off.
“Mum, I know you said you didn’t want to see him, but if you’re only doing that because of me, then please rethink. You were married for a long time, together most of your life, so Iunderstand if there are things you need to talk to him about. It would make sense if you had things to say to him.”
Sometimes I wanted to. I wasn’t allowed, being the accuser, but I did want to ask him why and how.
How could you allow someone to hurt your child?
He never touched me, not once, but he was there every time.
How?
“Oakley, I appreciate you thinking of me, but Ihatethat man. I don’t want to give him another second of my life. You won’t understand until you’re a mother yourself, but when someone hurts your child…” She raked in a breath. “I want tokillthem. I stopped loving him the second I found out what he’d done. If I had the opportunity, I would pull the trigger on him myself.”
I covered my mouth with my hand. The memory of the first time Dad warned me to stay quiet because no one would believe me… because it would kill Mum.
I’d taken everything so literally, frozen by fear of what’d just happened to me and losing my mum.
Fear was what consumed me for most of my childhood, and in seconds, Mum had blown that away. If I’d spoken up sooner…
“I’m so sorry I didn’t protect you.” A tear slid down her face, mercifully bringing me back to the present.
I reached across and held her hand. “If I’m not allowed to apologise, then neither are you.”
She smiled at me with watery eyes. “I don’t understand how you’re not angry with me.”
“Because it wasn’t your fault.”
She wiped a tear from my face that I wasn’t aware of. “I’m so proud of you, Oakley. You’re my inspiration. You deserve to be happy.”
“Thanks, Mum,” I whispered.
“Cole makes you happy, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, he does.”
