I realize after I say it how judgmental it sounds, but he doesn’t acknowledge it.
“What happened to your mother’s ex-husband?” Sam asks.
He’s already made it through a slice and is reaching for another. It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen the man eat pizza before and it’s always an impressive endeavor. He can lap me by a couple of slices and still be eating when I’m stuffed full. My working theory is he doesn’t even taste the first slice.
“He was arrested,” Dean tells him. “Thanks to you, Emma.”
I have another bite in my mouth, and I swallow it so quickly I nearly choke.
“Me?” I ask. “What did I have to do with anything? I wasn’t even born when my mother helped yours.”
“I know, but my mother once told me she was strong enough to get away from her husband because someone was there to help her and strong enough to stay away because that person stayed around. I can only imagine she was talking about your mother. But the one thing she didn’t immediately do was submit a police report and press charges. She didn’t even want to file for divorce. Not that she wanted to stay married to him, obviously. But the idea of getting the police and the government and everything else tangled up in it was completely overwhelming to her. But then she said her friend got pregnant.”
“My mother got pregnant with me,” I say.
Dean nods.
“Watching your mother go through pregnancy and seeing how happy your father was waiting for you showed Mom what being in a relationship is really supposed to be like. It made her have hope that maybe one day she’d find someone, and we could all have a family together. That’s when she had your mother help her file for divorce. She convinced Mom to ask for an emergency divorce without the necessity for her ex-husband to be in the same room at any point. She told the judge how he treated her, and he not only granted the emergency divorce but advised her to file criminal charges. She did and he ended up in prison with an eighteen-year sentence. And soon after, she met someone and ended up pregnant.”
“Was she in a relationship with him? Your father?” I ask. “I’m sorry. Is that too personal?”
“No,” he says. “It’s fine. I honestly don’t know if she thought she was in a relationship with him or not. It’s possible they just went on a date or two. But the few times I heard her talk about him, she always said he was so charming and made her feel beautiful. But then he was gone. Just like that. It really sent her spiraling. During a particularly difficult time when I was younger, she told me him leaving her was almost worse than the end of her relationship with her husband, because it was so sudden and unexpected. It left her feeling worthless and broken. It reminded her of how much her husband tore her down, and every time he told her no man would ever love her the way he did. It led her to drinking, and even when she wasn’t drinking, she had PTSD from the abuse. She’d go into these phases.”
His voice trails off, and I lean toward him slightly to encourage him to keep going.
“What kind of phases?” I ask.
“She wouldn’t want to leave the house. Sometimes she wouldn’t want to leave her bed. Sometimes she cried and shook for hours. Other times it was like she wasn’t there at all. Her eyes were open, but she didn’t react to anything or anyone. She just stared at the wall. I had to learn very young not only to take care of myself but of her, too.”
“I don’t understand why no one was there to help you. If my mother did help get Natalia away from her ex, why would she just abandon you?” I ask. “You said Murdock didn’t come to help you until after your mother died.”
“I don’t think she abandoned us. I think it was the other way around,” he tells me.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I have some memories of being much younger. She would make me go to my room when people came over. It happened pretty regularly, a few times a month. It never seemed like they were just coming over to hang out or it was a party. They were there for a reason, but I was never allowed to meet them or see them. Things were always a little better after those visits. Mom was calmer and we had a little more money. When I was about six, she told me to go to my room, but it wasn’t like the other times. She’d just gotten off the phone, and it was like she was surprised. I listened at the door, and when the person got there, she greeted them, there was a little bit of a muffled conversation, then she shouted ‘no’. I heard a struggle and was scared. After a few seconds, I opened the door to go help her, but she had already slammed the door and was putting the chain lock on. That night, we started packing and moved. We didn’t have any more of those visitors.”
“And you didn’t see who the person was?”
“No. Things got a little bit better after your mother died, but I still didn’t see or hear about any of them. It wasn’t until those four days she disappeared that there was anyone actually there to help,” he says. “Then, about a year before her death, we moved into the apartment.”
“In the same complex where I was staying with my father,” I say.
“I had no idea,” he tells me.
I lean back against the couch to think through what he just told me.
“When your mother was gone for those four days, you said she left a note.”
“Right, she said she would be back.”
“So, you didn’t call the police,” I confirm.
Dean shakes
