Recovery

Chapter 12

"Your father did not die." Mom finishes.

What? I am so confused.

"How? How is he not dead?" Brent sounds as shell-shocked as I feel.

Mom sighs. "It's a long story." She sounds hesitant.

"Mom, we have time." I shovel the last bite of pancakes into my mouth, savouring the now cold delicacy.

"Well, let's move to the living room then, shall we?" Brent and I race to the living room, eager to hear the long story mom said she had.

As we all sit down on the faux leather couches, a question pops into my head.

"So, what does this have to do with officer Dowling?" Mom takes another deep breath.

"That will be clear in about half an hour." I shift around on the couch, getting comfy, and give my full attention to mom.

"Okay, I'm ready." I have my legs folded under me, and I'm leaning on the couch arm.

"Okay," mom said, sounding like she was psyching herself out a bit. She takes one more deep breath. "So, I'll start at the beginning. With the divorce. Your father, he was very depressed. First, he got fired from his job as a mechanic on the railroad tracks. Then, about a week later, he started to hit me, telling me that it was my fault. I was pregnant at the time, but all the stress, combined with the abuse... I miscarried." I stand up and put my arms around her, leaning my head on her shoulder. Ya, I'm a bit hurt that she never told me about this, but I guess she was trying to protect me.

She continues, "I never told you, because it was always too raw, it would be like rubbing salt on an open wound. I never had closure." She answers my unasked question. "Your father forced the divorce papers upon me when I was hurting. Obviously, I signed them, and when he left, I started to dig myself out of my hole of sorrow, now that there was no one to drag me back in. I got a job, my niece took care of you while I worked, and before I knew it, you two were off to school." She stops to look at us fondly.

"I still don't get how dad's not dead." Brent's expression is hard, and you can hear in his voice that he is angry.

"Well," mom's focus shifts to be distant. "He didn't officially go missing. We were writing letters back and forth, and he suddenly stopped answering my letters a year later. He was suicidal, so I assumed that he committed suicide. He did try, he jumped in front of a train, and I saw his story on the news. Of course, I just assumed it was him, since he was still in a coma. I phoned the hospital he was in as soon as I could." Tears start falling from mom's eyes, and Brent crosses the room to sit on the other side of her. His eyes were now filled with sorrow, and confusion.

"They... They told me he was dead. I guess they got his name mixed up with someone else's... They told me he had passed away, as expected and funeral arrangements were being made. I didn't go to the funeral. Too many bitter memories were being stirred up as it was." Mom wipes as her eyes, and a determined look is put on her face.

"He woke up from the coma, three weeks later. He was suffering from amnesia, and a couple fractured ribs. He was lucky, he jumped to late and hit the side of the train instead of the front." She shakes her head in disbelief. "I never stopped loving him, you guys should know. That's why I never dated all these years."

"Mom, you're getting distracted," I remind her gently. I really need to get to the bottom of this if I'm going to sleep tonight.

Mom's gaze snaps from the window down to me, and she smiles, her eyes still glassy. "Right," her voice shakes a little. "I'll just tell this as it is then," she's psyching herself out again...

I squeeze her shoulders, and she looks down at her lap.

"He slowly gained back his memory, and he became a police officer. More specifically, a detective. He moved here, and asked to be put on your case." She gives a small smile at the thought.

Wait. "So you're telling us that officer Dowling is... Our dad?" My eyes widen, and my eyebrows furrow at the same time, and I probably look really weird right now, but I don't really care.

Mom looks back and forth between me and Brent.

"Yes."