"Before Dawn"

Chapter 14: Dawn's Cat

It took forever for Dawn to stop balling her eyes out, but she is unable to sit still and continues to pace in circles in her room. Her father's revelation is just too much for her to handle. With him periodically knocking on her door asking her to let him in so he can explain had only made things worse. Finally, he let-her-be, especially when she told him that she hated him and to leave her the hell alone. The house was silent, her room even more-so save the storm. Her not-so-happy-place was so quiet that she could hear her father's words—It wasn't wendigos that killed your mother...It was me—as if he were standing there next to her.

It' late as hell, going on 1:30 a.m., but she really needs to talk to Cat. To hell with it. She hits him up, and of course, he doesn't answer even though she knows his normally responsive ass saw her call go through. She sends him a text, which she chides herself for not having done so in the first place. She strikes the keypad until her message—DAD TOLD ME—is done and she hits "send". She waits, and sure enough, he replies with a text of his own: WHAT HE SAY??? WHAT HAPPENED??? Dawn does not reply, and she knows it's driving him crazy that his inquiry is going unanswered. When he does call, she's going to have to outslick him to get him to give her details, because she's too upset to ask her father. Cat should be calling any minute, now...

Dawn's iPhone sounds with his assigned ringtone, Bruno Mars's "Uptown Funk". She answers with, "He actually didn't tell me."

"Ooook," Cat said. "Soooo, how did you—"

"I asked him."

Dawn hears his infamous, agitated sigh, and some words in his native tongue, Tagalog, that she's sure were curse words.

"I thought I told you to wait?" Cat said.

"I couldn't."

"Obviously."

"You should have known that I wasn't going to wait, Cat."

"Yeah. But I still had hope. Heh, waaaiit a minute. You took advantage of him while he was drinking, didn't you?"

"Drunk."

"Drinking...drunk. Same-shit."

'Shit' sounds like 'sheet' to Dawn and she stifles a laugh—and feels a little better.

Thanks, Cat.

Dawn has to get him to talk on the sly, make him think her father told her. "I can't believe that happened to mom," she said, trying to hide the deceit in her voice.

"It was terrible."

"It must have been hard for you, too."

"Sure was. It was difficult for all of us."

A long pause ensues until Cat said, "Nice try but I'm not going for the okie-doke."

"C'mon, Cat! You have to tell me something."

"I will tell you this much...he wasn't always this heavy a drinker, Dawn," Cat said matter-of-factly. "I'm no specialist or doctor or whatever, but your dad never forgave himself for doing what he did. Like anybody else with a problem he resorts to that whiskey to hide. Damn...I'd make a good doctor, huh?"

"You could be a good story-teller and tell me what—"

"It's gotta come from your dad, your blood."

Time to throw the guilt-trip. "What? You're not family? After all we've been through...and what you've been through with mom and dad and sure, Martha, too?" Dawn said. "I was balling my eyes out and I'm still hurting over here. You can tell me, you just choose not to. It's not right, Cat."

Another pause.

"Okay, Dawn. You're right," Cat finally said. "I'll tell you something, and you're not going to like it. So...just listen, alright?"

Dawn's heart pounds in anticipation. She sits at the foot of her bed. Finally, she's going to learn something. She knows there is more pain to come, but all she can do is brace herself. "I'm listening," she said.

"Here goes," Cat said.

Dawn waits...and waits and waits. Cat is silent. She's anxious as hell, and wants him to spit it out, all of it. Still, no words from Cat. Seems as though he's not even there. Then she has an epiphany—the bastard hung up! She pulls her iPhone away from her ear to look at the LED for confirmation. Yep. He's gone. Seconds later, a text from Cat pops up: I COULDN'T RESIST LMAO!!!

NOT COOL, Dawn replies.

From Cat: SERIOUSLY...YOU ALREADY OPENED THE DOOR, MAY AS WELL JUST ASK HIM...BEFORE HE SOBERS UP OR PASSES OUT. JUST SAYIN'

Dawn ponders. Her nerves are going haywire.

Cat hits her up with: ????

GOING TO GO TALK TO HIM NOW, Dawn answers.

From Cat: COOL. DON'T CALL ME AFTER!!! LATER, DOG!!!

Dawn smiles and replies with, LATER, CAT!!!

Dawn sits on the edge of her bed for a few moments longer, deciding how she's going to approach her father. She's contemplating an opening, fears she may have shut him down after having told him to go away—and that she hated him. The more she thinks about him being at her bedroom door tapping lightly to get in with so much drunken-sadness in his voice, the worse she feels.

Cat is right. Dawn's father had been holding on to what was no longer a secret—and the aligned guilt—for so long, although the details remain hidden from her. Despite his shocking and confusing revelation, she has no doubts how much her father loves her. He's always there when he needs her most, as any good father should be. She can only imagine how much he loved her mother, Eve Morningside. Dawn suddenly feels like crap for having panicked and run out on him when he needed her most.

You were wrong...you should've have calmed your ass down and heard him out.

Dawn leaves her iPhone on the edge of her bed and leaves her room. She steps out into the hallway, and listens. She hears her father in the den, mumbling to himself. She's unable to decipher any of his words other than the occasional, "Eve...I'm so sorry". Hearing this makes her eyes glaze over with mist. She heads down to the den and sees her father leaning over his desk and holding a framed 8 X 10 of Eve Morningside in his hands. He notices her, sets the photo on the desk and wipes his eyes with the back of his hands.

"Dad," Dawn calls to him softly. To see her father—a large and rugged man—with trembling lips and an air of vulnerability softens her heart even more. "You okay?"

Bishop Morningside shakes his head. "No. I'm not okay," he said. He reaches for the tumbler of whiskey sitting on the desk next to him to take a swig.

Dawn walks over and politely takes the tumbler from his hand and sets it back on the desk. "Dad, I'm sorry for what I said earlier," she said. "I was just...I mean...you told me—"

"I-know-I-know-I-know, sweetie. I didn't mean for it to come out like that. I know I'm two-sheets-to-the-wind right now but jus'...just lemme 'xplain it all...and hopefully you'll fur-give me."

A sense of relief washes over Dawn. She rolls over the computer chair, and sits next to her father. "I'm listening," she said. She'll listen to every word, give him her full attention. Regardless of what he said, she already has her mind made up that she loves him, but he's a liar and she can't trust him. Plus, there must have been some way that he could have saved her mother other than the alternative—and that she'll never forgive him for what he did.

With a confident nod, Bishop begins to re-live how Eve Morningside had died by his hands as Dawn tunes in to every detail.