Palms sweaty, I looked from Hendrix to a teary-eyed Maddie. “How much did my boy tell you, darlin’?”
Her dainty chin wobbled. “He told me about your father.” Gripping him tighter, she held onto him as if he were her lifeline. Which is what he’d always been. “Along with what he did to your mother”—she paused—“and to you.”
My throat bobbed.
“I’m so sorry, Pop,” she continued, quickly losing the ability to keep the hurt that she felt on my behalf under control. Body quaking, she swallowed. “I’m so, so sorry. No child deserves to be harmed, but hearing that he touched you inappropriately”—her tears fell faster—“that just hurts my soul.”
Touched me inappropriately?
I wanted to scoff, then howl in outrage.
Yet, I did neither as something dark and ugly unfurled inside me. “What my father did to me…” Fighting to tamp down the shame-fueled rage that boiled beneath my skin, dangerously close to bursting free, I paused and took a breath. “It went beyond him touching me inappropriately.”
I needed her and Hendrix both to know the whole truth of what I’d been forced to endure instead of the watered-down version I’d given my boy many nights before. Admittedly, the station wasn’t the best place to have such a conversation, but I couldn’t avoid the truth a moment longer.
“Way beyond.”
A question danced in Maddie’s green eyes.
It was one I had to answer.
For her, for Hendrix, and for myself.
“My father was a cold-hearted rapist.”
Disgust bloomed in my heart. Along with hate and humiliation in equal measures. Yet, I didn’t fall silent. I flat-out fucking refused. Too terrified and ashamed to speak up as a kid, I’d endured my father’s sick attacks more times than I could count.
It was because of him, along with the sins he’d committed, ones that I was determined to erase, that I’d lived in hell most of my life. The shit needed to end, because quite frankly, I was sick and tired of burning.
Determined to pull myself free of the dancing flames in which I lived, and feeling stronger and braver than I had in a long time, I latched on to every ember of courage my smoldering soul could conjure. Then, I spoke the words I needed to.
“And I was his victim.”
“Fuck, Pop.” Face blazing red with both fury and hurt, Hendrix quickly lifted Maddie off his lap and deposited her on the plastic chair next to where he sat. Hands fisted, he shot to his feet and whirled, facing the wall separating my office from the hall. He looked ready to smash his fist into the plaster. “Just… goddammit!”
Knowing he, along with the situation, was about to spiral, I jumped up and rounded my desk. Hearing Maddie whimper, I grasped his shoulders with both hands and spun him around. Eyes holding his, I then shot him a look that let him know I wasn’t messing around.
“You will lock your temper down,” I ordered, my tone one of authority and leaving no room for argument. “Right now.”
Though I understood why he was about to fly into a rage, I wouldn’t allow my past to make him lose control. It would just be another problem that my father, even years after his death, had created. And simply put, he’d caused enough pain. I’d be damned if I stood by and let him cause more from his grave.
Especially when my boy was involved.
Jaw clenched, and still lost in his fury, Hendrix shook his head. “If he were alive instead of already rotting in the ground, I’d kill the son of a bitch myself!” he shouted, eyes harder than I’d seen them since he was eighteen years old and had just found out I’d single-handedly wrecked his entire world. “For everything he did to you, and to Grandma, the asshole deserved nothing less than a painful death!”
We were in complete agreement on that point.
Karma had, too.
“He received one, son. Trust me.”
With that, I expected him to question me about my father’s death just as he had my mother’s before.
But lost in his rage, he didn’t.
Truthfully, part of me was relieved. The road we were walking was hard enough already. For my sanity, I didn’t dare delve into more memories than I needed to.
“Pop…”
My heart twisted when the anger lining his face vanished, and something a lot more sorrowful took its place as mounting waves of grievous pain undoubtedly crashed inside him, battering his beautiful soul.
Pain that he felt on my behalf.
Just as Maddie had moments before.
Unable to stand it, and past ready to comfort him in a way I hadn’t done in far too long, I pulled him into me with no warning and wrapped my arms around him tight. It was the first real hug we’d shared in…
Hell, I don’t know how long.
“Buddy, this has gotta end. You’ve hurt enough to last fifty lifetimes thanks to me.” For the millionth time, my heart shattered as images of him as an abused kid sporting more than one nasty looking bruise rushed forward, reminding me of the monster I’d once been, and one I swore to never be again. “The pain needs to fucking stop.”
For good.
“How could you keep this from me? Especially when he’s the reason…” My boy buried his face against my shoulder just as he’d done many years before when he was an exhausted toddler hell-bent on fighting sleep. Those days had been before I let my demons win, and they were some of the most beautiful I’d ever lived. “I’m not fucking stupid, Pop. I know he’s the reason. What he did to you, it made—”
“Hendrix, don’t.” Refusing to allow him to utilize my past as an excuse for the years of abuse and neglect I’d forced him to suffer, I cupped his shoulders once more and pushed him back
