Elizabeth sighed and sat back into her chair and just stared at me.
“What? Did I say something you didn’t want to hear?”
“No. Not at all. Your dad is not in jail. Your dad did not do anything. Your dad is not here.”
“Okay. Where is he, then?”
Two Years Ago
My dad had officially been missing for almost a week. No one cared and it was pissing me off. Pyper distracted me at first, but now it was time to get down to business. Where the hell was he? I decided to call the police. They didn’t come until five in the afternoon, though I’d been up stressing since eight.
“Hi. I’m Portia Willows—Ethan. They’re here,” I called. He was upstairs with Pyper.
“We have a newborn,” I explained.
“Congratulations. I’m Detective Riley and this is Detective Jones,” he said. They weren’t in uniform, which was interesting.
“Thank you so much for coming. My grandmother is on her way. She didn’t want me to call you guys, but it’s been a week.”
“Your father is Richard Willows?” he said.
I nodded as Detective Riley squinted at his phone and looked back up at me.
“According to my records, Richard Willows is deceased. Died in 2010.” He showed me the phone. I didn’t look at it. I didn’t need to. It was obviously a mistake.
I chuckled. “Definitely wrong, Detective Riley.”
Riley looked at Detective Jones and started talking.
“So, your father didn’t die in a car accident with his wife and sixteen-year-old daughter?”
“No. No. Now you’re getting confused. My mother and sister died in a car accident in 2010. My father was hurt, he was hospitalized for a week, and then he came home. He never really fully recovered, that’s why it’s so important that we find him.” I heard Ethan coming down the stairs behind me.
“I’ll take it from here, Detectives. Thank you for your time.” Ethan came down the stairs with the baby monitor in his hand. They started to leave.
“No, Ethan. What the hell are you doing? They don’t even have a picture of him yet to blast all over the news.” I grabbed the door. “Wait. Don’t leave,” I ran after the detectives.
“Good luck, son,” Detective Riley said to Ethan.
“What the fuck?” I started punching him. I was so angry.
“Sweetheart, you need to sit down. You see, they’re right. I should have told you the first time I met you…”
“They’re right about what?” I yelled.
He walked across the room and picked up my computer.
“Babe…you’re scaring me. You know where my dad is?”
“I do,” he said, and started clicking away at the computer.
“Where?” I asked.
“The same place you sister and mom are,” he said.
“Then let’s go fucking get him,” I screamed.
He stood up and grabbed my arms and pushed me down on the chair in front of the computer screen.
“No, honey, try to understand, he’s dead. Just like them. He died with them almost five years ago. Look…”
I looked. It was all of their obituaries. I saw my dad’s face right next to Mom’s and Piper’s.
It didn’t make any sense.
I didn’t like it.
I threw the computer down.
“How fucking dare you,” I screamed at Ethan.
“Portia. Listen, you have a baby now. You have to start living your real life. It’s just us now. Your dad was never here. I never met him.”
I paced the room and Ethan was circling me. “Stop talking.” I snapped.
“The reason my dad wanted to help you wasn’t for social anxiety issues but so you can stop hallucinating that your father—”
“Hallucinating? Fuck you.”
I did not hallucinate a human being for the last five years.
“My dad and I have been fighting because I haven’t told you. No one knew how to start…”
My mouth and eyes widened in shock. I didn’t know what to think or say.
How could the father of my child do this to me?
“I’m going to give you some time to think this through. I’m going to take Pyper with me to my dad’s. If you need me, I’ll be right across the street.” He hugged me.
I stood there frozen. As he was leaving, Grandma walked through the door.
“She knows,” Ethan announced.
I didn’t know anything.
I just knew my dad was still missing and everyone thought he had died.
What was wrong with them?
“I’m so sorry. We all tried telling you in the hospital. I couldn’t bear to see you like that, that’s why I let you live like this,” she said. She gave me a big hug.
What the hell was she talking about?
“Let me make you something to eat or drink. If you want to visit his grave, I’ll go with you.”
“Grandma, can you just leave?” I said.
Grandma looked at Ethan.
“Actually, do you mind watching Pyper while we talk? Maybe take her upstairs,” Ethan put his hand on Grandma’s shoulder.
“There’s nothing to talk about!” I started laughing. This was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard.
Grandma didn’t even look at me. She sulked and went upstairs to see Pyper.
“I’m really sorry, Portia.” Ethan eyes were filled with water, his lips were quivering.
I stared deep into the icy blue eyes and took a deep breath.
I guess a part of me knew—had known—but at the same time, there was no way he was right.
I shook my head, grabbed my keys, and left.
“Portia, where are you going?”
I ran to the car.
He followed as far as the front door.
It was getting dark, so it was going to be harder to spot him. I remembered where he would go when Mom and he would fight—the pool hall, the bar on the 58th. I was weaving down the roads, flashing my high beams at every human being. I needed to find him and I had to find him fast. His disappearance had gotten everyone talking crazy.
Why would the father of my child say all those things?
Why would Grandma act so weird?
I had so many questions that only Dad could answer.
Chapter 18
Present Day
“I remember my dad hurting Ethan—but you said I did. My memories aren’t making sense.”
“It’s okay. Just tell me what you see.”
“I remember someone—maybe Ethan—telling me my dad was dead. That he’s been dead. I remember Pyper crying. Blood. I remember my dad. Blood. He was there, in the flesh and everything. I don’t know. Help me.” I screamed. I was done playing this game with her.
I wanted her to tell me what I was supposed to know.
My mind had played tricks on me before.
I wanted her tell me what the hell was going on.
“Your father is dead. He died in the car accident with the rest of your family five years ago. I wanted you to remember, because if you unlocked that memory, you would unlock five years’ worth of memories. Things that you thought happened…most likely did not.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You don’t remember the doctor in the hospital telling you he was gone? You were right there, lying next to him. You watched him die. You don’t remember? You don’t remember looking at the screen and watching his heart stop?”
Now my heart started to stop.
I did remember seeing that.
I did remember laying with him.
I remember he was holding on tight.
I remember him trying to talk to me and then everything stopped.
His arm went limp.
The beeping.
It was the worst pain in my entire life. I couldn’t stop screaming. I couldn’t stop begging him to wake up.
“But he w
oke up after that?”
“No, he didn’t, Portia. Your mind tricked you into thinking he did.”
“For five years?”
“You should have been hospitalized then and there. The nurses knew you thought he was still alive. Your grandmother and Susan, they all let you live this lie.”
“Even Ethan?” I asked as she nodded.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I remember my grandma saying something about how she tried to tell me…”
“They probably all told you, but that’s not how Post Traumatic Stress Disorder works. That’s why I don’t want you to spend a single day in jail.”
“Why would I spend a day in jail if my dad was the one…”
Holy fuck.
“No. no…” I cried. “It was me.”
Five Years Ago
“Portia. It’s time. Your grandmother wants to pull the plug. I’m sorry.”
Daddy looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to let go of his hand.
“Can I stay?” I mumbled at the nurse, and climbed on top of the hospital bed.
“Sure…” She went to the other side.
I put my hand on his cheeks. “His cheeks are really cold.”
“He’s in a lot of pain right now,” she told me.
“I know.” I laid my head on his chest. I knew he wouldn’t feel better but I did feel his arm move on top of me.
“That’s sweet.” She kept talking to me while she was killing my father.
It felt wrong. I closed my eyes.
I didn’t want to watch this. I felt his life leave his body. I couldn’t take it.
“No. Stop. Stop! Don’t hurt him. No!”
That’s when other nurses came in and grabbed me.
I saw the screen. His hand dropped away. I couldn’t breathe. I was hyperventilating.
“Give them a minute,” the nurse who killed my father told the others. They let go of me. I rushed back to him. There’s no way it happened that fast. I grabbed him and shook him to wake him up. His shoulders were so heavy but I still lifted them over and over again.
I tried waking him up for hours. He finally did. I started crying.
“Buddy…”
Daddy!
“You made it,” I cried.
“You’re so beautiful.”
“Daddy, I was so scared.”
“Don’t be. I’m here. I’m never leaving you. I promise.”
Except, he had.
Grandma was here to pick me up.
Dad wasn’t upstairs getting ready. I was in my dad’s room by myself, not watching him get ready.
I was by my grandma’s side the entire time at the funeral. Grandma shushed me because I was talking to myself. That’s what she meant when she’d said, “We didn’t want to give people something else to talk about.”
I was holding her hand looking at the caskets.
There were three, not two.
Dad’s friends were here to pay their respects to him.
When we got back to my house, everyone was there. I had never been with my dad. He was gone too, just like Mom and Piper. While Maddie was in Piper’s room, I went downstairs myself and grabbed a six-pack of Heineken.
Holy shit, my dad’s friend had popped one open for me and said cheers. He already had his own. I took a sip, slightly smiled, and grabbed the rest of the Heineken and headed back upstairs. Everyone was staring at me, but no one said anything. Not one word.
Why would someone take everyone away from me like that? My entire family?
Of course I didn’t believe it. It’s unbelievable.
After everyone left, Grandma let me stay there alone.
Why?
I went into my father’s room. I was alone in there all night.
I never helped my dad recover. He never started walking again. He never danced.
I’d found his cigarettes in between the cushions on my own. I showed myself how to smoke.
Two Years Ago
I couldn’t find him anywhere.
So I checked the woods. Whenever Mom and Dad would fight, he would drive an hour to go shooting or hunting. This was his getaway, but also the only place he could have gone that doesn’t have cell service.
“Dad? Dad? Where are you?” I was screaming for him, scanning the woods with my flashlight.
A computer screen going flatline kept popping up in my head.
I kept seeing my dad’s face lying in the hospital bed.
They could not be right.
“Dad. Dad. Please come back. Please show me and them that you are not dead.”
I kept screaming into the darkness.
“Is this about Pyper? My baby? Dad, come on. We’ll figure it out. Just come back.” I cried. My voice was giving out. I fell down and crawled over to a tree. I kept whispering to myself, “No.”
The visions of that session with Mr. Torke. It was just me fighting with myself.
Me yelling at my family to “get the fuck out” when they wanted to sell the house.
I cried harder when I envisioned shaking Ethan’s hand when I was introducing them.
All those times the three of us were drinking beers and smoking cigarettes.
It was just me and Ethan.
I was laughing at no one.
I never toasted dad with a beer. I was drinking two. I closed my eyes. I was tired.
“Wake up. Wake up, buddy.” My shoulder kept getting pushed into a tree. I opened my eyes.
“Daddy?” I screeched, giving him the biggest hug in the world. “I found you. Where have you been?”
“I needed some time.”
“I don’t care. I’m just happy I found you.”
He helped me get up. “Ready to get back home?”
“I can’t wait for you to see Pypes—unless…was she was the reason you left?”
“No, I can’t wait to see her.” We were walking through the woods. He walked faster than me. I stopped for a second. I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. He stopped and turned around,
“What are you doin’?”
I smiled and ran up to him and put my arm around his waist. I told him about being in labor and how for a second I completely forgot I had Pyper. “Also, Dad…Grandma and Ethan had the audacity to tell me that you died from the accident the night of the play and I was hallucinating you! Hallucinating, Ethan actually used that word.”
He laughed.
“Well, buddy. I’m not the same fun dad I was before. A part of me did die.”
“Well duh, a part of me died too, but even the cops were saying you died.”
“Portia…” He turned to me and bent down so we were at the same eye level like he did when I was little.
“I’m never going to go anywhere. I’m never leaving you again. I love you and you are all I have left.”
I hugged him.
He was back.
When we got to the house, it was empty.
Perfect.
I assumed Ethan had gone to his dad’s. Grandma had probably left. Frankly, I didn’t care that they were gone. I was so happy for my dad to be back. My boobs were so sore because I needed to be breastfeeding more than I was pumping. I needed Pypes.
“Guess what?”
Dad plopped onto his chair in the living room.
I went to the kitchen grabbed a pack of smokes and two beers.
“I’m not pregnant anymore.” I threw him his beer and cigarette.
“That’s right. I missed this.” Dad and I cheered.
“Technically, I’m not supposed to because I’m still breastfeeding, but I missed you.” I smiled. I lit his cigarette for him. The cigarette tasted gross—but it just felt so good to be back to the old us again.
Dad was fixing breakfast. It smelled so good.
“I’m crazy hungry.” I was so used to having to feed Pyper in the morning that not having her there felt wrong. I was wondering ho
w Ethan was taking care of her by himself.
“Where are they?”
“He’s probably at work and his dad is taking care of her.”
“Go get her.”
“His dad is still…fishy about me. She has to come back sometime today anyway.”
“I’m sorry I left. I thought you weren’t going to need me anymore. You have your own family,”
“Never, Dad. I’m always going to need you. You are my family. Mom and Piper will always be my family, too. I’ll eventually forgive Ethan and everything will blow over. Hopefully.” I didn’t really believe that.
Dad and I were in the living room watching television when we heard the front door open.
“That’s them.” I punched my dad, he was falling asleep.
“Ethan?”
He came walking through the door with a sulking look on his face. He looked defeated.
“Hey.”
“Let me take her…you look like shit.” Pyper looked like the sweetheart she was. I took her over to Daddy. I was still sort of upset with him that he hadn’t been at the hospital.
“Dad…this is your granddaughter, Pyper. Pyper, say hi to Grandpa.”
Dad stood up and looked at her. His mouth dropped and he held out his arms.
“She needs to eat. Now.” Ethan snapped.
“She looks just like you, Portia…holy crap.”
“Watch her head, Dad,”
“Now, Portia.” Ethan was angry.
“Okay. Jeez. This is the first time my dad has seen her.” I glared at him. Had he forgotten? I was supposed to be mad at him. I took Pyper back and started to breastfeed.
“We need to talk…” Ethan went to go sit on the couch.
Oh my God. Those four words.
He had cheated on me, wanted to take the baby away from me, or wanted to break up with me.
“Dad, can you watch Pyper for a minute?” My heart started to beat hard.
“No, stop.” Ethan seemed like it was about to have nervous breakdown.
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