Secrets, Love and Lies (18+)

22 - Broken Revelations

I don't turn around to face her; I have nothing to say to her. Unfortunately, she has me at a disadvantage. With nowhere for me to go, I'll be forced to listen to whatever sad excuses she's drummed up to rationalize the abandonment of her first-born child.

I wonder bitterly what could possibly drive a Mother to leave her child behind to pursue her own desires. I seems I'm about to find out.

Her hand rests on my shoulder. Though I can't see her face, her reflection is visible in the dark glass of the window in front of me and I glare at the dark image of her shiny blond waves that cascade from her hanging head as she speaks in a gentle voice.

"When I first met your father, he spent months pursuing me. He had hordes of flowers delivered to me, and he coordinated with my father to ambush me with a surprise date when I refused his requests. He wrote me these love letters every day..." she trailed of with a soft chuckle. "It took him a few months, but he won my heart...back then, I thought he was the man of my dreams. Handsome, charming, powerful and so in love with me he would do anything to make me happy. Our first year together was almost perfect. I loved him more than anything and I finally moved in and agreed to marry him," she sighed.

My heart aches at the story I once wished to hear from the lips of my parents as a kid. But my home became an emotional wasteland after Alma died, and there were no happy stories of my Mother and Father. Gunnar never spoke of her other than to tell me that he had loved her more than life itself. I remain silent and wait for her to continue.

"After I moved in, things began to change. Gunnar eventually convinced me to resign my position with my Father's company. I slowly became cut off from my friends, I had never been close to my Dad, but I never spoke to him anymore at all, not after I had left my job behind. Gunnar became increasingly jealous, possessive...then angry. And then he controlled everything I did, everywhere I went..."

She lets loose a long shaky sigh and I want to feel sorry, but I hug my own anger close to my heart and refuse any sympathy for my mother. After all, I have an idea of what she'd lived with – I lived with Gunnar for eighteen years. 

I don't care why she left my damned father, I care why she left me.

She pauses, maybe hoping that I'll respond to her in some way, but I remain still and quiet in the hospital bed. A part of me still wants to demand that she leave, wants to close my ears to her story, but a greater part of me needs to know. I need to understand how she could be so cruel. 

"Things went from bad to worse. He hurt me in any way he could. Physically, emotionally...he would let me find the evidence of the other women he slept with. It was always a new power play designed to keep me crushed and compliant. The first time I tried to leave, he broke two ribs and punctured my lung. He fractured my left wrist and gave me a concussion. I received private medical care from the doctors Gunnar kept on his payroll...it's easier to keep things quiet that way."

A tear slips down my cheek at the hopelessness of my Mother's story. I've never been at the end of one of my father's beatings, but I've felt his cruel words, been trapped by his authority and reach. I've been hurt in so many other ways and had no form of escape from him. But the words don't spur any empathy, they only fuel my anger. He is capable of a violence more terrible than I even knew, and yet, she'd left me in this hands of this man. I can't conceive of her rationale.

"After I called off our wedding, he was furious. He didn't want the public embarrassment, and he refused to let me leave, and so the abuse became worse. For periods, I would be locked up, but I could never leave the house...locks or not, I was a prisoner for all intents and purposes. At some point Gunnar began to refuse me access to my birth control. And, even though I hated him, getting pregnant became this small miracle. The baby was like this beacon of hope in the midst of my personal hell. I tried again to leave him, I wanted to protect the baby with everything in me. But that time resulted in fight that ended with a fall down a flight of stairs. I lost the baby...and any hope I had been hanging onto. For...for awhile after that happened, he took good care of me. He never admitted to the wrong he'd done, but I could feel his guilt and shame. The loss hit him hard, too."