“You’re not getting off that easy, Nina,” her mother said. “Whatever you were going to say is important, so get to it.”
Nina guzzled down a glass of the fruit cooler and poured another. She was halfway through emptying the second round when her mother practically ripped the glass from her hand, spilling most of the remaining contents on Nina’s dress. With a hollow sense of calm, Nina reached for the napkin next to her bowl and soaked up whatever liquid she could from her dress. Her mother waited patiently for the next words to come out of her mouth.
“It’s really hard to find the words. No matter which ones I come up with, I think it will hurt you more than me, mostly because I’ve had years to absorb it, question it, push it to the darkest recesses of my subconscious, and try to forget it.”
“You’re scaring me, Nina,” her mother said, looking like she was about to be ill. “What did Phillip do to you? What did he do that has you all twisted up in knots, afraid to talk to your own mother?”
“Phillip is the reason you don’t have grandchildren.”
Daphne looked at Nina like she was descending into some unnamed mental state that was causing her to say strange things. “I already know about the miscarriage, remember?”
“I’m not talking about the miscarriage. It’s a miracle I was pregnant in the first place. What I mean is… what I’m saying is the medical reason I can’t get pregnant was, shall we say, induced by Phillip.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” her mother said, dolefully.
“Phillip molested me for a number of years. I couldn’t tell anyone: not you, not Charlene, not counselors at school, family, friends, and especially not my husband.”
Nina wasn’t sure her mother heard her at first. Daphne’s expression was blank, as if all thought and emotion had been drained from her body. Nina was about to shake her out of her stupor when she came back to life.
“No, Nina. No. He couldn’t have. It’s not possible.”
Nina watched her mother shake her head forcefully as she made a big fuss of digging her spoon into the still steaming hot stew.
“I wish it never happened, too. But he did. The worst part about it is he’s not sorry. Not even a little bit.”
“I don’t understand Nina… you were ten years old when you came to live with him permanently. Why would he do something so heinous… especially after seeing you as an innocent, defenseless child?”
Nina took a deep breath. She was about to deliver another blow to her mother’s already frayed emotions. “He didn’t start when I was older. I didn’t get the chance to figure out how to cope as an older kid, or find out how to be strong. I had to learn those skills as a ten-year old.”
“Oh dear God,” her mother said hoarsely. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Daphne looked like she was about to collapse. Nina stood up and moved next to her mother, holding her arms firmly in place. Nina knew better than to say anything at that moment. Whatever her mother was going through, she needed the stillness of the moment to come down from the blow she had been dealt.
“That bastard will pay for what he did, do you hear me? He’ll pay even if it takes the last breath in my body to make it happen. Phillip. Copeland. Will. Pay.”
“Revenge won’t change what happened,” Nina said acidly. “It won’t give me my childhood back. It won’t take away the feelings of worthlessness I struggled with. It won’t take away the burden of keeping the secret all this time. I’ll never get back what I lost. I don’t want you to spend your energy thinking about him or how to get back at him.”
“You amaze me, Nina. After everything your father has stolen from you, you think he doesn’t deserve to be punished?”
“It’s not about what he deserves. Don’t you see? For so long it was all about him. I don’t want it to be anymore.”
Later that night as Nina was getting ready for bed, she made her way down the hall to say goodnight to her mother. She was about to knock when she thought she heard sobbing. She pressed her ear up against the door. She wasn’t imagining things. She knocked gently then heard silence. She knocked again and waited. Her mother appeared at the door, with a tear-stained face and puffy eyes. “I’ll stay with you if you want,” Nina told her.
Her mother clutched her tightly all night, as if she were protecting Nina from some unseen evil that might befall her again.
* * *
BREAKFAST WAS A SOMBER OCCASION. Daphne insisted on helping Nina figure out how to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.
“You need to see somebody. A professional.”
“I’m not going to see a shrink, Mom.” Nina poured some orange juice for herself and her mother.
“Why not?”
“I’ve dealt with it all these years, there’s no point in dredging it up again.”
Nina could see the sadness creeping up in her mother’s eyes. She reached across the kitchen table and stroked her mother’s arms comfortingly.
“How did you manage to deal with something so horrific, so…” Daphne’s voice trailed off.
“Well, you know kids—they have very active imaginations. I would just pretend I was normal. I would do all the things kids my age did and when it happened, I would mentally check out until it was over and the next day I would pretend I was normal again. When I left for Stanford, I didn’t feel alone at all. For the first time I was free and it was exhilarating. Eventually, it was almost as if it never happened because I cut him out of my life.”
“I don’t want to think about you going through that alone. It’s too painful. Now I see I made a terrible mistake sending you here and I’m so sorry, Nina. I had no idea this is what was waiting for you. I thought I was being unselfish by letting you go because Phillip made a strong case.
“He said he wanted to get to know his daughter. He said it wasn’t fair that I left with you after the divorce. He was in a position to send you to Harvard when the time came. You know I always had big dreams for you. I thought letting you go was the greatest gift I could give you, a future with endless possibility that your father could provide and I couldn’t. I trusted him to take good care of you.”
“Stop blaming yourself. Nobody has a crystal ball. You were married to the man once and had no reason to believe he was capable of this. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have agreed.”
“What about your younger sister?”
“What about Cassie?”
“Do you think… ?” Daphne couldn’t complete the sentence.
“No way.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“She had her mother to look out for her.”
The minute the words left her mouth, Nina immediately regretted saying them. “Sorry. That came out wrong. You did something courageous. You put me first.”
“And look what became of it. I left Phillip when you were less than two years old and returned to Barbados. I should have kept you until you were college age. If you were an adult, I’m sure this wouldn’t have happened, Nina.”
“No point in beating yourself up, Mom. It’s not your fault and feeling guilty isn’t going to do any good.”
“I would have gotten you if you had given me even a hint anything was wrong. When we spoke, you always sounded so happy. I thought you were well taken care of and happy like you deserved to be.”
“Abused children are really good actors. It’s how they’re trained—to be secretive and cover up the abuse.”
“That’s sick. That’s why I want you to see a therapist. You need someone to help you come to terms with this.”
“I have.”
“Really? You can’t bring yourself to tell your husband what happened to you. You couldn’t even tell him Phillip was your father.”
“I’ll think about it. But no psychiatrist can give me what I want most. To have children of my own. How am I supposed to tell my husband I can’t give him children because of my past? How am I going to justify that I knew why I couldn’t get pregnant but neglected to tell
him—”
Her mother went silent and looked past her shoulders. Nina turned around to follow her gaze.
Her eyes landed on Marc, who stood motionless at the kitchen entrance.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
NINA ROSE FROM THE CHAIR and took the longest steps she’d ever taken. She stood in front of her husband, stripped bare like the trees that lined their backyard in winter.
“You don’t know what you just heard.”
“Does it even matter anymore?”
“Of course it does, Marc,” she insisted.
He laughed mirthlessly. “To think, I came back to work things out because I wanted to fight for us. Thank you for saving me the trouble.”
She touched his shoulder. He brushed her hand away as if she were some toxic substance.
“It’s not what you think. When I said I couldn’t get pregnant because of my past, what I meant was…”
He cut her off rudely. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to hear any more of your lies.
Marc took the stairs two at a time, his long, powerful legs making quick work of the steps. Nina followed him into their bedroom. He opened the walk-in closet and grabbed a suitcase, which he proceeded to fill hurriedly and haphazardly.
“Where are you going?”
“Making our separation more permanent. I want a divorce.”
Nina’s head was spinning. “You don’t mean that. I know you’re angry and you should be. But you know me, Marc.”
“Here I was thinking how unfair and cruel life could be. That we deserved to be a family but somehow, your body conspired to deny us that opportunity. All the while…”
Nina began to panic. The raw emotion in his voice brought home the gravity of the situation with stunning clarity. This was really happening. She couldn’t get him to listen to her long enough to tell him what she never could before. The window of opportunity slammed shut with a resounding finality.
Marc zipped up the suitcase and left the bedroom. She followed him down the stairs like a stalking shadow. As if in slow motion he reached the bottom and turned to her.
“I know about Sonny Alvarez, another one of your lies. I heard you on the phone with Charlene, admitting that you lied to me about him.” Marc then walked out for the final time.
* * *
HE DIDN’T SEE IT COMING. One minute he was on the phone with a potential donor and the next his ex-wife Daphne was standing mere inches from his desk with murder in her eyes. It had been fifteen years since he last saw her, at the disastrous family brunch following Nina’s graduation ceremony, but he would recognize those eyes anywhere. They were the same blazing green eyes that stared back at him with defiance in the form of their daughter. For the first time ever, he was truly afraid of a woman’s wrath. This one had hunted him down for a specific purpose. He bet it had something to do with her offspring and some crazy story said offspring may have relayed. Luckily, he had the diary, which was completely destroyed.
He came around from his desk to greet her and received a swift knee to the groin for his trouble. The excruciating pain brought him to his knees, with both hands covering his genitals in case she decided to take another shot. And if that wasn’t enough, she spat on him to drive home her point.
“Even animals protect their young, Phillip. Since you couldn’t do that, what does that make you?”
He slowly got off his knees and went back to his desk, limping. He sat down and assumed what he hoped was a bored expression.
“Don’t ever do that again, Daphne. Next time, I won’t be so civil.”
“I don’t give a flying fig about your civility. You don’t deserve to live. Don’t pull that smug crap with me. I’m immune. I entrusted my daughter to you and this is how you repay my trust?”
“What are you babbling about, Daphne? I haven’t seen you in 15 years and suddenly you barge in here and start accusing me of things I have no knowledge of.”
“You’re going sit there and deny it, you pompous son-of-a-bitch? You’re going to deny that you raped your or own daughter? My daughter?”
“I’m a very busy man. Either start making sense or get out.”
“Stay away from my child, Phillip. Don’t speak to her, don’t write or email her, don’t call her or visit her home or place of employment. Don’t even breathe in her direction.”
Daphne inched closer to him until he could see the whites of her eyeballs. “Do as I say. It would be the best thing for your health. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m a grieving mother. I can’t be responsible for my actions.”
* * *
THE WEATHER OUTSIDE MATCHED NINA’S mood: a glum, rainy day with freezing temperatures. The Channel 5 meteorologist said the high would be a blustering twenty-five degrees. Nina wanted to be anywhere but the office, which she mistakenly believed would get her mind off her troubles. Emails remained unread and the red voicemail message button on her phone flashed like some ominous code she couldn’t decipher. She cancelled most of her appointments, locked her door and decided to stay holed up all day, pretending to work on some important project she didn’t have a name for.
“Nina, open up,” he yelled.
He was the last person on earth she wanted to see. He obviously missed the “leave me the hell alone” memo. She reckoned she was moving slower than molasses as she dragged herself to the door. She unlocked the bolt and swung the door wide open in a wave of anger.
“What took you so long?”
“If you don’t like it, then DON’T COME HERE, PHILLIP!”
Phillip could tell she’d been crying. Her body seemed tense, like a tree branch burdened by heavy snow right before it snapped under the pressure. “My goodness. What happened to you?”
“Did you come to gloat? Witness my ruin with your own eyes? Because I’m sure my mother told you to stay away from me.”
Phillip flinched at the reminder of his rather unpleasant conversation with Daphne. “I don’t take orders from your mother.”
“Maybe you should. She can be fierce when crossed.”
Nina went back to her swivel chair, propped her feet up on the desk, just the way she had them before she was rudely interrupted. She could tell he was uncomfortable. Good, she thought.
“Did you come to return my property? If not, then get the hell out. I have nothing to say to you.”
“I don’t have anything that belongs to you. Cassie told me your husband left. That’s tough. As a veteran of two divorces, I thought I would offer my support…”
If she wanted him to play the role of the concerned dad, that’s what he would do. Obviously she wanted his attention and now she took it a step too far and told her mother that ridiculous story. With Daphne up in arms, he had to control that situation and Nina was the key. He had to get her mother to back off her ranting before she told some other idiot who would believe her. He’d come too far to turn back now. The primaries were less than a year away and he would announce his candidacy in a matter of weeks. This foolishness had to stop.
Nina couldn’t take it anymore and she finally cracked. She knew full well he didn’t give a damn about her marital state. Hysteria rose up in her throat and she started giggling like someone possessed. “You want to know something funny? I was going to burn the damn thing. I only found out you took it because I went to get it to start a bonfire.
“I couldn’t stomach the idea of Marc finding out what happened to me. You marry someone and you think you know how they’ll react to something, but there’s always that tiny little part of you that’s afraid of rejection, no matter how irrational it might seem. I don’t think it would change how he feels about me, but that’s a risk I wasn’t willing to take.
“So don’t you think for a second you got one over on me or you were so much more clever than me. All it says is that you’re the same low-down coward you’ve always been, preying on the weak and not being man enough to face the consequences of your actions.”
The violent streak that defined their history erupt
ed like a raging storm that had been gathering strength near the horizon, waiting for the right moment to explode. She stopped his hand in mid-air before it could connect with her face, his favorite target.
“My reflexes are much faster now, don’t you think?” Nina held his hand in a death-like grip, her fingernails drilling into his flesh.
He tried to wriggle his hand from her grip but she dropped it in a flash like the it was some filthy creature that made her skin crawl. He was visibly embarrassed but refused to give in. “You’re lucky we’re in a work environment. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be standing.”
“I disagree. But should you feel the urge to test me again, my kickboxing instructor is a three-time World Champion. He’s taken a keen interest in making sure I have all the right moves.”
“Don’t get overconfident, Nina. I’m far more ruthless than you. That’s why you’ll never best me.”
“I am my father’s daughter. Who’s to say I didn’t inherit the ruthless gene? But I will confess to you right here, right now. I will make you pay. For everything.”
Had he miscalculated everything? And if so, was there a chance to change course? The old saying, ‘people never really change’ was wrong. This girl was not the same girl who left home at eighteen. This woman was gutsy, determined, and had a combative streak a mile long. She had no respect for him and when people don’t respect you, they don’t fear you. He had to take a step back and regroup. He’d never conceded to anyone. Right now he was angry and disappointed, and felt backed into a corner. When he was backed into a corner, he tended to do bad things to get his way.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS OF SULLIVAN & Hewitt was housed in a large modern brick and glass building on Atlantic Avenue. Fortunately, the security guard on duty was familiar with Nina and didn’t alert Marc to her presence. It had been several weeks since he moved out and all attempts at a face-to-face meeting failed. He kept giving her the same answer: they needed the time apart to reflect and do some soul searching before they could make any firm decisions about whether or not to end the marriage.
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