Vodka Espresso

22. crossroads

August, 2017

Ingrid sat at the kitchen table with a steaming mug of tea between her hands. Beside her, Edgar had one elbow on the table and the other arm around her back, soothing her.

"Jack was... forceful," Ingrid began, "rather than abusive. I don't..." Her shoulders rose and sagged in a half-hearted shrug. "It never really occurred to me that his... forceful ways could qualify as abuse because back then, I'd just brush them off and eventually forget. It wasn't... it wasn't anything that I couldn't bounce back from. Abuse..."

She drew a sharp breath and took a sip from her tea.

"My grandma died of relatively natural causes, but I've always known it was my fault."

"Ingrid, how can – "

"No, hear me out. You'll understand." She dipped her lips into the hot tea, then spoke almost into the mug. "My grandfather defined my notion of abuse for years. When I was little, he... he swore at me and he beat me and – my mother, too, except he also molested me."

Her mug began to tremble, so she lowered it on the table and her hands on her lap.

"I confessed. To the village priest. My grandma used to take me to church when I was a kid. So I confessed my sins. Which, uh... which the priest shared with my grandma and she confronted her husband about it, I heard them fight..." Ingrid choked up. "Her heart was weak, anyway, the whole... The strain, it – it killed her. I killed her."

At this she broke down, scrunched her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around herself, shaking. Edgar drew his chair closer to her. He engulfed her in a hug, pulling her legs over his knee. She sobbed at his chest and buried her face in his shirt.

"I killed her," she murmured, swallowing hiccups, "she was the only good thing in my life and I killed her."

"Don't say that." He kissed the top of her head. "Don't you ever say that."

"I did, though." Sniffling, she wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand. "Anyway, what I was trying to say is that... Coming from such a background, I didn't recognise the abuse in time. It just didn't register. So the memories just weren't... there, anymore. It all came back after Amsterdam, I – "

Her breathing evened out and she straightened in his embrace. That brought them eye to eye.

"It must have been the inquiry. I had to give a statement and I couldn't... My lawyer instructed me not to say anything that could make it look like... like I would have had a reason to hurt my husband, so I guess I just... repressed the unpleasant memories. Which didn't feel all that unpleasant, in the first place, so they went down easy."

He pecked her forehead and brushed tears from her cheek with his thumb.

"I'm sorry," she said and made a move to climb down from his lap.

He let her and stood up with her, holding onto her hand. "Don't apologise. Not to me. Not ever." He cupped her face. "You can talk to me. Hell, please talk to me. Even if listening is all I can do..."

There was kindness in his eyes, fatherly in a sense, but an image of him naked, writhing above her in the throes of passion, tore through the confessional atmosphere which had plied such personal revelations from her lips. She removed herself from his grasp and cleared her throat.

"I need to be alone."

"That's exactly what you don't need, Ingrid. Talk to me, please."

"I'm not one of your kids, Ian," she spat with unnecessary malice, "don't patronise me."